• Posted July 7, 2026

IV Vitamin C Might Boost Recuperation Among Trauma Patients

People who’ve been severely injured in an accident might have a lower risk of death if doctors pump them full of vitamin C, a new evidence review says.

High doses of intravenous (IV) vitamin C appear to reduce the risk of death and sepsis in trauma patients, researchers reported recently in the journal BMJ Military Health.

Vitamin C might even shorten hospital stays following an injury, researchers said.

“This review demonstrates positive but limited evidence supporting the potential role of IV vitamin C in the treatment of trauma patients,” wrote the research team led by Dr. Nandesh Patel of the NHS Academic Department of Military Trauma & Orthopedics in Birmingham, U.K.

For the review, researchers analyzed six prior studies of high-dose vitamin C involving nearly 5,200 patients.

Major trauma — broken bones, severe wounds and the like — triggers a complex response in victims, researchers said in background notes.

Vitamin C could plausibly counter the negative effects of this response, by boosting blood pressure, regulating blood flow to tissues and neutralizing harmful free radicals, researchers said.

Unfortunately, the body runs through its vitamin C reserves rapidly in response to injury, researchers said.

Results showed that by boosting vitamin C levels in hospitalized trauma patients, risk of death was cut by 28% to 86%.

People also spent less time recuperating in the hospital if they received vitamin C, with one study finding a more than doubled likelihood these patients would be discharged within a month.

Patients who got IV vitamin C also had lower rates of sepsis.

“Overall, our findings demonstrate evidence of possible benefit in using high-dose vitamin C in the management of trauma patients,” but the variation in the reported effects “suggests that treatment effects may be context-dependent rather than generalizable across all critical illnesses,” the researchers wrote.

However, the studies generally used vitamin C along with other treatments, so it’s hard to tease out the direct effects of the vitamin, researchers said.

In addition, none of the studies investigated the timing or optimal dosage of vitamin C, researchers said.

“These methodological constraints limit the ability to draw firm conclusions about the optimal treatment protocols to use the potential benefits of vitamin C and contribute to the low certainty of evidence identified in this review,” they noted.

However, the team added that “even slight reductions in mortality, sepsis, organ failure or critical care requirement could be used to consider its use in current operational settings, providing a clear rationale for future trauma-specific research before clinical adoption.”

More information

The National Institutes of Health has more about vitamin C.

SOURCES: BMJ Group, news release, June 30, 2026; BMJ Military Health, June 30, 2026