Romanian Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences

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VITAMIN C TREATMENT IMPROVES RECALLING SCORES IN MINI-MENTAL STATE EXAMINATION IN PATIENTS WITH COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT

GEORGIANA ROZALIA DRĂGAN 1, CĂTĂLINA FILIP 2, OANA VIOLA BĂDULESCU ¹, MINERVA CODRUȚA BĂDESCU ³, CRISTIANA FILIP ⁴, WALTHER BILD ⁵*, IRINA DOBRIN 6, GEORGE ANDREI DRĂGAN 7, ROXANA ȘERBAN 8, IULIA ELENA DIACONU 2, ALIN CIOBICA 9,10,11,12, MANUELA CIOCOIU ¹

1“Grigore T. Popa” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Department of Pathophysiology, Iași, Romania
2“Sf. Spiridon” Emergency Hospital, Iași, Romania
3“Sf. Spiridon” Emergency Hospital, “Grigore T. Popa” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Department of Internal Medicine, Iași, Romania
4“Grigore T. Popa” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Department of Biochemistry, Iași, Romania
5“Grigore T. Popa” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Department of Physiology, Iași, Romania
6“Grigore T. Popa” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Department of Psychiatry, Iași, Romania
7“Sf. Spiridon” Emergency Hospital, Department of Gastroenterology, Iași, Romania
8Clinical Reabilitation Hospital, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Iași, Romania
9Center of Biomedical Research of the Romanian Academy, Iași Branch, Romania
10“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Department of Biology, Iași, Romania
11Academy of Romanian Scientists, Bucharest, Romania
12Apollonia University, Preclinical Department, Iași, Romania

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The primary purpose of the current study was to test the hypothesis that vitamin C would improve the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) total score and/or either of its domains. In order to measure the influence of vitamin C on MMSE total scores and its domains, our experimental design consisted of two comparisons of four groups of patients. Firstly, we compared 25 patients who received no treatment with 25 patients who received only vitamin C treatment over four timelines: after 2, 6 and 12 months. Secondly, we compared 25 patients who received normal dementia treatment with 25 patients who received dementia treatment supplemented with vitamin C over the same three timelines. Our statistical analysis demonstrated that there was a significant interaction between the type of treatment and time in terms of MMSE total scores (F(3, 144) = 7.794, p < 0.001 and ηp2 = 0.140) for the dementia treatment - dementia treatment plus vitamin C comparison and (F(3, 144) = 2.437, p = 0.049 and ηp2 = 0.048) for the vitamin C - no treatment comparison. Across the twelve months of treatment with vitamin C in addition to dementia treatment, patients significantly improved their mean MMSE score in comparison to the group of patients that received only the dementia treatment.