Monday Aug 18, 2014 (foodconsumer.org) -- Vitamin C or ascorbate or ascorbic acid supplements may help protect against the damage to the liver induced by chemicals like carbon tetrachloride.

In the study, vitamin C supplements ameliorated vital signs of carbon tetrachloride -injured mice and reduced hepatomegaly in a dose-dependent manner.  

Vitamin C supplementation lowered the liver functional enzymes like alanine aminotransferase and glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase in the blood and decreased serum lactic acid concentrations.

Vitamin C also increased the activities of antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase and reduced the oxidation product malondialdehyde in the liver.

Evidence indicated that vitamin C supplementation reduced inflammation in the liver.

The study concludes "VC (vitamin C) has the potentiality of anti-hepatotoxicity that is capable of ameliorating liver functions, speculating that therapeutic mechanism relates to normalizing metabolism and blocking inflammatory stress in the liver."  (David Liu, PHD)

Su M, Chen H, Wei C, Chen N, Wu W. Potential protection of vitamin C against liver-lesioned mice.  Int Immunopharmacol. 2014 Aug 9.