Study: Vitamin C Helps Brain Health
- Simian Practicalist
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
A Japanese study by H. Nagaya et al titled “Plasma vitamin C levels are associated with brain structural networks on MRI: A large cohort study” published on 10 June 2026 adds to the growing body of evidence that vitamin C helps brain health.
The paper is about 16 pages in total, with the main text at about 12 pages. The remaining are acknowledgements and references.
Vitamin C is known to be essential for brain health. For example, it acts as a neuromodulator, aids cognitive performance, and studies have shown that default mode network (DMN) changes “have been implicated in depression”. DMN changes have also been noted in schizophrenia.
This study evaluated the “association between plasma vitamin C levels and DMN connectivity, as well as global and regional brain volume (using VBM) by using data from a population-based prospective study”.
The study sample included 2,044 participants with a median age of 69 years. There were more females (1,248, 61.1%) than males (796, 38.9%). MRI scans and blood samples were obtained.
In short, higher plasma vitamin C levels were positively associated with Gray Matter Volume (GMV), White Matter Volume (WMV) and DMN connectivity.
Furthermore, the voxel-wise VBM analysis successfully provided anatomical specificity, revealing that higher plasma vitamin C levels were significantly associated with preserved regional gray matter volume in regions spatially overlapping with the posterior cingulate cortex, a core node of the DMN. Importantly, these localized structural associations remained robust even after adjusting for comprehensive lifestyle factors (smoking history, drinking history, and physical activity) and total intracranial volume in our large cohort (n = 2044). This voxel-wise anatomical evidence strongly bolsters our SBM findings and reinforces the biological interpretation that optimal vitamin C status may contribute to the structural maintenance of the DMN, independent of major lifestyle-related residual confounders.
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