A new research has suggested that Vitamin C, the antioxidant highly recommended as a means to fight against common colds and heal wounds quickly, might just be beneficial in helping adult cells generate stem cells which appear to be embryonic-like.

The new study has added further evidence to previous research findings which have revealed that adult cells can be reprogrammed. But the researchers have been quick to explain that there is a problem - the process seems to work very well.

"The low efficiency of the reprogramming process has hampered progress with this technology and is indicative of how little we understand it. Further, this process is most challenging in human cells", said the study's senior author Duanqing Pei, from the South China Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Vitamin C, the researchers discovered, helped boost the process in both human and mouse cells.

The findings were published in the online edition of the journal Cell Stem Cell on December 24.