Gastroduodenal mucosal vitamin-C levels in Helicobacter pylori infection

Background: Vitamin C is an important endogenous antioxidant, and epidemiol ogic evidence suggests that it may protect against the development of gastr ic cancer. We therefore determined mucosal vitamin-C levels in the stomach and duodenum of subjects with and without Helicobacter pylori infection. Me thods: The patients were 30 subjects undergoing routine gastroscopy for inv estigation of dyspepsia. Highperformance liquid chromatography with electro chemical detection was used to determine mucosal ascorbic acid and total vi tamin-C levels. Results: In H, pylori-negative subjects with normal gastrod uodenal histology the antrum contained significantly higher levels of ascor bic acid and total vitamin C than the corpus or duodenum (P < 0.05). No sig nificant changes were seen in gastric mucosal ascorbic acid or total vitami n-C levels in the presence of H. pylori infection and related inflammation. The presence of gastric atrophy did not affect mucosal ascorbic acid or to tal vitamin C levels. Duodenal ascorbic acid and total vitamin-C levels did not change significantly in the presence of gastric H. pylori or duodenal inflammation Conclusions: Although high levels of vitamin C are present in the gastroduodenal mucosa, these are not altered in the presence of H. pylo ri infection and inflammation. These observations suggest that the mucosal antioxidant potential of vitamin C is not impaired by H. pylori infection.