Vitamin C may be better for your heart and arteries than anyone suspected. In new studies, Balz Frei at the University of California at Berkeley, found that Vitamin C was amazingly effective in zapping dangerous molecules that promote heart disease.

Frei explains that destructive molecules in the body, called "free radicals," attack blood fats, helping trigger the formation of artery-clogging plaque. But in laboratory tests, he found that Vitamin C can wipe out these free radicals before they cause damage. Vitamin C completely annihilated 100% of the free radicals implicated in plaque build-up. Vitamin E, on the other hand, wiped out only 70% of the dangerous free radicals.