Women aged 48 to 92 with good blood vitamin C levels were stronger than women with low levels, with a firmer grip for their height, faster walking and quicker rises from a chair. Vitamin C helps build collagen and protects muscle from oxidative damage, and earlier work in the same English population pointed to a link with muscle. In more than 13,000 men and women aged 42 to 82 from the EPIC-Norfolk study, people with enough vitamin C in their blood carried a little more of their body weight as muscle than people with too little, a small edge in men and roughly twice that edge in women. That study looked at muscle size. The same research group has now looked at how well people actually move. They analysed more than 5,000 adults aged 48 to 92 from EPIC-Norfolk, measured vitamin C in their blood, and grouped them as low, in between or good. They then tested grip strength, walking speed and how long it took to stand up from a chair five times in a row, taking lifestyle, health and diet into account. 1. Women with good vitamin C levels walked noticeably faster than women with low levels, covering about 22 extra feet for every minute of walking, which is roughly the length of a living room. 2. Women with good levels also got up and down from a chair five times about a full second quicker, and had a stronger grip for their height. 3. Men showed a smaller version of the same pattern, covering about 10 extra feet per minute of walking and finishing the five chair stands a little under a second quicker. Taken together, the evidence points toward low vitamin C as a marker worth avoiding in later life. Blood levels showed a clearer link than food diaries did, especially in men, where diet records alone showed nothing. Fruit and vegetables remain the main way most people keep their levels up. The study took one snapshot in time, so it cannot show whether low vitamin C came before slower movement or the other way around. People with good vitamin C levels may also have other healthy habits. It measured blood levels, not the effect of taking supplements, and the authors call for longer studies and trials. References Scott J et al., Calcified Tissue International, 2026 Lewis LN et al., Journal of Nutrition, 2020