Vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, has a long and multifaceted scientific history. In 1937, the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine was awarded to Albert Szent-Gyorgyi'in recognition of his discoveries concerning the biological oxida- tion processes with special reference to vitamin C', and the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was shared by Sir Norman W. Haworth, who was the first to synthesize the vitamin. Vitamin C is a potent antioxidant, and this action represented the theoretical basis for various lines of investigation on this molecule in which the potential role of ascorbic acid in the...