Intravenous Vitamin C Administration Reduces Fatigue in Office Workers: A Double-blind Randomized Controlled Trial
Sang-Yeon Suh, Woo Kyung Bae, Hong-Yup Ahn, Sung-Eun Choi, Gyou-Chul Jung and Chang Hwan Yeom
Nutrition Journal 2012, 11:7 doi:10.1186/1475-2891-11-7
Published: 20 January 2012
Abstract*
Background
Studies of the efficacy of vitamin C treatment for fatigue have yielded inconsistent results.
One of the reasons for this inconsistency could be the difference in delivery routes.
Therefore, we planned a clinical trial with intravenous vitamin C administration.
Methods:
We evaluated the effect of intravenous vitamin C on fatigue in office workers.
A group of 141 healthy volunteers, aged 20 to 49 years participated in this randomized, double-blind, controlled clinical trial.
The trial group received 10 grams of vitamin C with normal saline intravenously, while the placebo group received normal saline only.
Since vitamin C is a well-known antioxidant, oxidative stress was measured.
Fatigue score, oxidative stress, and plasma vitamin C levels were measured before intervention, and again two hours and one day after intervention.
Adverse events were monitored.
Results:
The fatigue scores measured at two hours after intervention and one day after intervention were significantly different between the two groups (p = 0.004); fatigue scores decreased in the vitamin C group after two hours and remained lower for one day.
Trial also led to higher plasma vitamin C levels and lower oxidative stress compared to the placebo group (p < 0.001, p < 0.001, respectively).
When data analysis was refined by dividing each group into high-baseline and low-baseline subgroups, it was observed that fatigue was reduced in the lower baseline vitamin C level group after two hours and after one day (p = 0.004).
The same did not hold for the higher baseline group (p = 0.206).
Conclusion:
Thus, intravenous vitamin C reduced fatigue at two hours, and the effect persisted for one day.
There were no significant differences in adverse events between two groups.
High dose intravenous vitamin C proved to be safe and effective against fatigue in this study.
The clinical trial registration of this trial is ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00633581.
