Are there more stable forms of vitamin C?

Vitamin C is a critically important nutrient for human health. Most people are aware that vitamin C is responsible for maintaining a healthy immune system. It also supports normal brain function; the health of cartilage, collagen and connective tissue; and our veins and arteries. It contributes to normal growth and development in children; helps us absorb iron from our food; and helps reduce tiredness and fatigue.

One of the challenges with vitamin C, especially in processed products, is its instability. To combat this, additional vitamin C is often added to processed products to boost the natural content. When vitamin C is used in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals its structure is stabilized by adding a sugar molecule to it.

All plants produce vitamin C, which they use to protect themselves from potentially harmful by-products created during photosynthesis. In nature most plant-based chemicals can be found with modifications, especially added sugars, to their basic chemical structures. But for vitamin C, a modification with the naturally occurring added sugar is rare, only occurring in goji berries and zucchini, and hard to find in other foods, until now.

Using advanced plant chemical identification techniques, such as mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, Plant & Food Research and University of Otago scientists have recently discovered this form of vitamin C can exist in crab apples.  It naturally has the stabilizing sugar molecule attached, but present in low enough concentrations not to increase the overall sugar content meaningfully. This opens up the possibility of breeding new apple cultivars, through conventional techniques, that have more of the stable vitamin C form, which could result in healthier fresh apples and processed apple products.

Journal Reference:Richardson AT, Cho J, McGhie TK, Larsen DS, Schaffer RJ, Espley RV and Perry NB 2020. Discovery of a stable vitamin C glycoside in crab apples (Malus sylvestris). Phytochemistry https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phytochem.2020.112297