Abstract

O. O. Omodara* and S. I. Jaja

ABSTRACT

This study was conducted to investigate cardiac and pressor functions in exercising young men following vitamin C supplementation. Experiments were carried out on normotensive male subjects. A total of 20 subjects voluntarily participated in this study. Their ages ranged from 18 to 24 years consisting of ten (10) exercising subjects who were the test group, and ten (10) non – exercising subjects who were the control group. The exercising subjects in this study were individuals who were involved in regular physical exercise for not less than 3 hours per week. Each subject was given 300mg of vitamin C orally every day for six weeks (42 days). On day 1 (before the first dose of vitamin C) and on day 43 (a day after the last dose of vitamin C), cardiac and pressor parameters were measured. The results showed that in both exercising and non – exercising subjects, vitamin C supplementation significantly reduced the pressor parameters (systolic blood pressure -SBP, diastolic blood pressure -DBP and mean arterial blood pressure -MABP) while the difference in the changes in the pressor parameters between exercising and non – exercising subjects was not significant. Vitamin C supplementation significantly altered some of the cardiac parameters (P-wave duration - P<0.01, QRS duration - P<0.001, P-wave amplitude - P<0.01, T-wave amplitude - P<0.02, QT interval - P<0.001, R-R interval - P<0.02) in exercising subjects and (QRS duration - P<0.02, T-wave amplitude - P<0.02) in non – exercising subjects while the difference in the changes was not significant. In conclusion, these findings indicate that vitamin C supplementation has the potency to equilibrate the changes in the pressor and cardiac functions in exercising and non-exercising young men.