Quick! Save yourself!

...

I read an abstract this morning for a study entitled 'Sparing effects of selenium and ascorbic acid on vitamin C and E in guinea pig tissues.'

I'm currently reading the full article, somewhat incredulously. For anyone not familiar with their vitamins, you probably won't see at first glance the reason I spent a good five minutes reading the abstract and giggling. I even showed it to a colleague to make sure I wasn't missing some subtle hidden nuance. But apparently not.

Ascorbic acid is vitamin C.

The title and abstract so far suggest that 13 scientists spent a good deal of time and several dead guinea pigs to establish that there was less vitamin C in the tissues of guinea pigs fed less vitamin C. Wow. Giving animals an essential nutrient causes a raise in that nutrient's level in the animal? Rocket science!

I'm currently reading the full article to see if there's some pressing reason why this needed to be established. So there may well be a relieved post from me later - I'd hate to think that people really sit down and waste time, money, and small cute mammals with adorable squeaking noises on the blatantly stupid.

I recommend against holding your breath.

As a side note, I really hope they didn't use Ribena as their source of C.