Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Vitamin C


In recent times, Vitamin C has become probably the most familiar of all the vitamins we take. Studies in America have shown that more than 40% of older individuals in the USA supplement their diet with Vitamin C and in some regions of America almost 25% of all adults, no matter what their age supplement with Vitamin C.

Outside of multi-vitamins, Vitamin C is the most popular supplement amongst registered dieticians. Over 80% of these dieticians who take Vitamin C, take it in higher dosages than 250mg!

Another name for Vitamin C is ascorbic acid. Vitamin C is a water-soluble nutrient that gets easily excreted from the human body when not in use. Because Vitamin C gets thrown out so easily, it's a good idea to space out your consumption of it throughout the day. It's still very critical that we get enough Vitamin C because we, along with gorillas, chimps, guinea pigs, bats and birds can't make it within the body ourselves!
Another interesting bit of information is that each human's required intake of Vitamin C is completely different to the next human. Some people may need 10x more Vitamin C than the next person and a person's general health can dramatically change their Vitamin C requirement.

Deficiency in Vitamin C puts people at risk of skin and gum disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer, joint diseases and cataracts. Vitamin C protects us by functioning as an anti-oxidant, preventing oxygen-based damage to our cells. There are very few, if any, studies saying that Vitamin C is toxic and these are based on samples taking a whopping 5 grams or more, way too much! I'd recommend 10,000mg a day based on what the top researcher in the field says.

You might think you'd get enough Vitamin C from food, but Vitamin C is highly sensitive to air, water and temperature. For example, around 25% of Vitamin C in vegetables can be lost simply by boiling. Cooking vegetables or fruit for over 10 minutes can destroy over ONE HALF of the Vitamin C content! Canned and reheated fruit and vegetables only hold a third of their original Vitamin C content too.

Clearly, supplement based intake of Vitamin C is the way to go but I'd advise you to keep getting it in through your diet as well to give your body a good pick of sources to synthesize from!

One of Vitamin C's most important functions is acting as an antioxidant, protecting LDL cholesterol from oxidative damage. When LDL is damaged the cholesterol appears to lead to heart disease, but Vitamin C acts as an important antioxidant protector of LDL. Vitamin C also has additional health benefits such as in helping to produce collagen (thus supporting joint health), assistance in healing and as an anti-histamine.

Supplement Facts:

Serving Size: 1 Tablet
Servings Per Container: 60


Ingredients Per Serving:
Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid) - 1000mg
Calcium Carbonate - 20mg

Other Ingredients:
Magnesium Stearate, Silicone Dioxide, Maize Starch

Suggested Use:
For general health, take one serving daily.

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