However, the study by the University of California, Berkeley, found no benefit from daily doses of vitamin E.

Lead author Gladys Block showed that for healthy, non-smoking adults with an elevated level of C-reactive protein, a daily dose of vitamin C lowered levels of the inflammation biomarker after two months compared with those who took a placebo.

"This is an important distinction; treatment with vitamin C is ineffective in persons whose levels of C-reactive protein are less than 1 milligram per liter, but very effective for those with higher levels," Block said in a statement.

For those with elevated C-reactive protein levels, the amount of C-reactive protein reduction achieved by taking vitamin C supplements in this study is comparable to that in many other studies of statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs, Block said.

The study noted that several larger statin trials lowered C-reactive protein levels by about 0.2 milligrams per liter; in this latest study, vitamin C lowered C-reactive protein by 0.25 milligrams per liter.

The study is published online ahead of print of the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine.