Inducing cancer

Vitamin C, an essential nutrient found in fruits and vegetables, is a double-edged sword, providing benefits and also inducing the production of compounds associated with cancer, say researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, when added to solutions of a degraded version of an important fatty acid found in blood triggered the production of DNA-damaging agents known to cause mutations associated with a variety of cancers, reports Reuters.