Vitamin C supplementation in the elderly: a 17-month trial in an old persons' home.

Seventeen months' supplementation of the diet with vitamin C in elderly residents in an old persons' home failed to show any changes in sublingual lesions, which on histological examination proved to be aneurysmal dilatations of the venules. Nine months' supplementation of 40 to 80 mg. daily of vitamin C was necessary before the white-cell vitamin levels reached that found in younger people. There was a marked individual variation in response.