ANTIMUTAGENIC EFFICACY OF HIGHER DOSES OF VITAMIN-C

Vitamin C, when administered concurrently with a pesticide (endosulfan, phosphamidon or mancozeb), could significantly decrease the frequency of pesticide-induced clastogenic and mitosis-disruptive changes in the bone marrow cells of young Swiss albino mice. Of the three doses (10, 20 or 40 mg/kg b.wt./day) of the vitamin, the one which is double the human therapeutic dose (20 mg/kg b.wt./day) was most effective as an antimutagen to be followed by 40 mg and 10 mg. None of these doses of vitamin C showed any genotoxicity of their own for the parameters studied here.