Version May 29, 2012
In guinea pigs, tuberculosis and other infections lead to a decrease in vitamin C concentration in the adrenals and urine (Abbasy et al. 1937a,b; Harris et al. 1937; Birkhaug 1938). In rats, Trypanosoma infection decreased the concentration of reduced vitamin C in spleen and adrenals, and increased the proportion of vitamin C in the oxidized dehydroascorbic acid form (Nyden 1948). In mice, influenza A infection resulted in a decrease in vitamin C concentration in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, concomitant with an increase in dehydroascorbic acid (Buffinton et al. 1992). In macaque monkeys, malaria caused a reduced vitamin C level in plasma (McKee & Geiman 1946). In cows, intramammary infusion of E. coli (Weiss et al. 2004) and clinical mastitis (Kleczkowski et al. 2005) decreased plasma vitamin C concentration. Furthermore, bacterial toxins cause loss of vitamin C from many tissues (Harde 1934; Lyman & King 1936; Harris et al. 1937; Torrance 1940; Garcia et al. 1990; Rojas et al. 1996; Benito & Bosch 1997; Yamaguchi et al. 1997; Armour et al. 2001; Victor et al. 2002), but one study found an increase in vitamin C level in the livers of mice administered endotoxin (Jeffries 1965).