AbstractsBiology & Animal Science

Considerable evidence has been advanced in the literature that rutin, and other vitamin P-active materials, act as antioxidants. The beneficial effect of some of these materials on vitamin C has been shown, but the results have been predominantly qualitative. This study, involving the administration of vitamin C to 128 guinea pigs, was designed to determine the extent to which rutin enhanced the apparent biological value of ascorbic acid. The odontoblast method of vitamin C bioassay was used. Rutin increased the apparent biological value of ascorbic acid by approximately 50%, when the vitamin was supplied in suboptimum amounts for normal tooth development, either in crystalline form or from a natural source. As the level of ascorbic acid intake, without rutin, approached optimum, the beneficial effect of added rutin was negligible. These results could be explained by the assumption that rutin prevented "in vivo" oxidative destruction of the administered ascorbic acid.