Thursday, July 26, 2007

Vitamin C's Ability to Fight Colds Insignificant!

Maybe someone should tell the uninformed journalist who wrote that recent headline to not suggest that to animals that make their own vitamin C naturally and don't ever get colds and flu.

Humans lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C generations ago when a gene mutation ceased production of a liver enzyme needed to convert circulating blood sugar into ascorbate.

Science suggests that hunter gatherers consumed over 600 mgs of vitamin C per day. The adverage intake from our modern diet alone is around 100 mgs per day. This low intake explains why scurvy continues to be a frequently misdiagnosed disease, particularly in this country.

Vitamin C is rapidly depleted in the human body from a whole host of events including sun exposure, tobacco smoke (including second hand smoke), most meds, allergies, stress, infections, silent inflammation, pregnancy - and certainly the common viral cold.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

The uninformed journalist obviously only reads abstracts, not complete studies.

Anonymous said...

This one keeps confusing me. One day you need 1000mg. if vitamin C, the next day you don't. One day it can help you fight a cold, the next it's too late to take it if you already have a cold. So is there anyh real rule or guideline as far as Vitamin C goes? I had a cold, took 1000mg daily of VC and it got worse; what's the deal?

Anonymous said...

The deal is you should plan on getting at least 500 mg of Vitamin C every day from diet or supplements. Since the average diet only provides about 100 mg of Vitamin C, supplements are in order.

As far as taking 1000 mg of Vitamin C for a cold one time and expecting great results, think about your comment and compare it to taking one antibiotic pill and expecting great results.

After a cold or virus has entered your body, it requires total cell saturation of Vitamin C to make a major difference. That means taking 1000 mg of Vitamin C every hour until you reach bowel tolerance. After that, take 1000 mg of Vitamin C every four to six hours for a couple of days to prevent rebound Scurvy.

Michael said...

Taking Vitamin C AFTER getting a cold has always been useless for me. However, I started getting my Vitamin C daily (as in EVERY day) from a 12 oz glass of orange juice and a common multivitamin. The result was no cold for over 13 months! And before this I was getting at least 3 colds a year. See my post about my Vitamin C experience at My Health Blog.

It only makes sense to drink a big glass of orange juice each day, for a variety of reasons. And I think consistency is key.

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