Vitamin C is quite well known and widely used as a supplement, but how much do you know about it?

Do you need Vitamin C?

Oh yes you do! Read on to understand why and what’s the best way to get your daily recommended dose.

The most popular vitamin…

Vitamin C is very popular. People know about it and most take it as a supplement and give it to their children – sometimes it is the only vitamin supplement they take. Is this popularity justified? What are the effects of vitamin C on the body, in which food is vitamin C found and why is it recommended to take it as a supplement?

What does Vitamin C actually do for us?

Vitamin C (also known as ascorbic acid) impacts many processes in the body. Take a look at the following:

• Vitamin C is an antioxidant. This means that it prevents free radicals from causing damages in our body such as aging, cataracts, cancer, inflammation, arterial damage (leading to heart disease). In order to be efficient as an anti-oxidant, vitamin C has to be taken with other vitamins (i.e. Vitamin E and Carotenoids). Vitamin C, E and Carotenoids help in preventing lipid oxidation.
• Vitamin C helps boost your immunity system. It is an anti-viral agent. Viruses cannot survive if the environment is rich in vitamin C. For instance, Vitamin C helps to reduce the number of colds and the severity of the symptoms by preventing cold viruses from reproducing.
• Many enzymes are Vitamin C dependant. Vitamin C activates or blocks them. For instance:

• Vitamin C activates the enzymes proline and lysine which are necessary for collagen synthesis. Collagen reduces skin ageing, promotes rapid wounds healing and prevents weak tendons and ligaments, blood vessel fragility and skin disorders. Vitamin C also blocks aryl sulfatase B (an enzyme that damages the skin). This also helps to reduce skin ageing.
• Vitamin C activates the enzyme carnitine which creates energy at the cell level. This enhances energy production and prevents fatigue.
• Vitamin C activates an enzyme that is necessary inn the production of ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone) which is needed by adrenal glands to produce steroid hormones that help the body respond to stress.
• Vitamin C activates enzyme 7 alpha mono-oxygenase which helps convert cholesterol into bile acids that the body can eliminate. This helps prevent an excess of cholesterol in the blood and coronary heart disease.

• Vitamin C appears to impact fertility by increasing sperm count and their mobility although it is not yet explained why.
• Vitamin C is a natural antihistamine which helps reduce the body reaction to allergen such as pollen.
• Vitamin C contributes to iron absorption by converting iron into a form that can be used by the body.
• Vitamin C prevents scurvy (hence its name: ascorbic acid) now rarely seen in developed countries.
• Vitamin C also contributes to lower blood pressure by decreasing thromboxane (a vasoconstrictor).
• Finally vitamin C is necessary to lower the level of dopamine which, in excess, causes schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease.

Quite a long list!!!

It really makes you want to get some now.

What foods contain Vitamin C?

Vitamin C is found in green and leafy vegetables (broccoli, watercress, cabbage, cauliflower, peas), peppers, kiwi fruits, citrus fruits, melons, current, berries, parsley, tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, liver and glandular tissue in mammals.

So just eat more of those foods?

Yes… but, unfortunately, by the time we get hold of those fruits and vegetabless and eat them, their vitamin C content is very, very low. To start with, many fruits and vegetables are picked early and ripened artificially later. That’s already a bad start as the vitamin content is at its highest when the fruits and vegetables are picked when ripe.

As soon as they’re picked, the vitamin content starts reducing. By the time they arrive to your supermarket, then your home, the vitamin content is already quite low. If you decide to boil or heat them before you eat them, that’s more vitamin you lose as vitamin C is destroyed by heat and being water soluble will end up in the boiling water rather than your body.

If, on top of that, you take aspirin or you’re on the pill or smoke, your body will absorb even less of the measly amount left in those fruits and vegetables!

Plus: since vitamin C is quickly eliminated by the body (it is found in urine 2-3 hours after ingestion), you’ll need a constant supply.

So what should you do????

• Eat vitamin-C rich food as fresh as possible and as often as possible.
• Buy frozen fruits and vegetables. They are frozen when picked and conserve their vitamin content.
• Consider taking a supplement. The UK RDA for vitamin C is 40 mg for adults, 25-35 mg for children. However many experts suggest that an optimum allowance should be 400 mg for adults, 150 mg for children. Some even recommend higher doses for a therapeutic action (Patrick Holford, The Optimum Nutrition Bible). Consequences of too high a dose can be looser stools and, at very high doses, reduced absorption of copper and selenium. It’s generally thought this is only likely to happen at dosages of around 4000mg over an extended period of time.