Sex as a factor in levels of serum ascorbic acid in a healthy elderly population.

To investigate gender difference in serum ascorbic acid levels in healthy elderly, its status was studied in 175 free-living and healthy elderly people aged 63-81, who were not using ascorbic acid supplement. Both mean dietary ascorbic acid intake (3.2 +/- 1.3 mg/kg of body weight/day) and its serum concentration (1.11 +/- 0.23 mg/100 ml) for females (n = 96) were significantly higher than for males (2.7 +/- 1.1 mg/kg/day and 0.91 +/- 0.30 mg/100 ml; n = 79). It was estimated that intakes needed to maintain a serum ascorbic acid concentration of 1.0 mg/100 ml would be about 2 mg/kg of body weight/day for females and about 3 mg/kg/day for males. In this population, dietary ascorbic acid intake was the most important predictor of its serum concentration, but sex was also significantly related to it, accounting about 7% of its total variation.