Vitamin C - What You Don't Know May Kill You AND Why The USDA is Wrong

Originally posted by Julie Washington

Talking a dose of 200mg or less your body will absorb up to 98%. Taking a dose of 1,000mg your body will only absorb up to 33%, before the excess is eliminated in the urine.

So how do you get 98% from 200mg, but only 33% from 1,000mg ?

Confused.com

Great post although I have not read through it in its entirety. I suggest checking out Raymond Francis on Beyondhealth.com. . His vitamin C is the pure L-ascorbic acid. He is a biochemist. He says it is the L form that is active at the cellular level over the D form. Sorry hope most have had some chemistry. There are chemicals in nature that are optical isomers or mirror images of each other. D rotatory will refract light to the right and L to the left. Anyway Raymond says the L form is the active one. Stay healthy all!!!!

About early man, and all early and present day monkeys and apes, they obtained their vitamin c from fruits and other dietary sources. All primates after lemurs have had this genetic disease - we lost the ability to make Vitamin C (if I recall correctly it takes five specific steps to make in the body, and we are always creating the first four steps, and it's the fifth that went off-line, hence the genetic disease). Chimpanzees, usually vegans, will sometimes hunt and eat monkeys and go straight for the brain and kidneys of the corpse, exactly where the most Vitamin C is stored (Mother Nature knows her stuff). So it's not hundreds of thousands of years that humans have gone without in-body production of ascrobic acid, it's always, from the first human ancestor after our lemur cousins.

(related topic in my next post, just below)

It is also the lack of Vitamin C in our bodies, and are constant under-the-radar craving for it, that fuels the candy, juice, and other industries. Apes and monkeys crave fruits, and so the candy industry promotes their products using bright orange and green colors, both in the packaging and in the design of the candies themselves (except for chocolate sales, but the sugar craving - the craving which aims us towards fruit - props that one up too).

So modern humans spend a lifetime craving candy, cookies, and cakes (check out how many cakes have bright orange and green and multi-colored icing), and this massive sugar consumption causes or accelerates many of the modern human illnesses, many of them very new in terms of pandemic intensity. The lack of Vitamin C, this constant seeking for it, and the greed of specific industries to imitate its sources closely and thus capitalize on this craving for profit, is indeed another reason - as the title of this thread proclaims - "What you don't know may kill you".

Originally posted by buddhasystem
reply to post by Julie Washington

 

You are ignoring a very specific question asked by myself and one other poster here, which is how come humans did pretty well for the past hundreds of millenia, without resorting to food supplements. All you can do is put up some "OMG stroke cases are on the rise" graphic here. Non sequitur.

Vitamin C is good for you and all that, but it's sad to see that some people eschew basic critical thinking.

Vitamin C is a strong anti-oxidant and as such, degrades rapidly. There are a number of factors that contribute to our inability to obtain sufficient quantities naturally.

1. The fresh produce we eat is not fresh enough. By the time it gets into our mouths, the food has lost most of it's VC.

2. The modern food we grow has been bred to minimise VC content in an effort to make it more appealing to our palates.

2. Our palates develop from early childhood to accept sweet and salty foods. Foods high in VC are usually sour, astringent which our palate rejects. This is a social conditioning phenomenon.

3. Our daily requirement for VC varies depending on the environmental stresses we experience.
Our modern immune systems have not matured fully due to our diet and medical intervention. This places the immune system under greater stress than would otherwise be.
Our modern lifestyle is more emotionally stressful, which further suppresses our immune systems and other physiological systems.
Modern environmental pollutants place higher demands on our physiological systems.
Our modern lifestyle exposes us to a much greater degree of social interaction with strangers. This in turn exposes us to their hormones resulting in what is called the Bruce effect: en.wikipedia.org... This is a whole different topic but in effect, it places further stress on our systems.
The list goes on and on...

For most of us, the requirements for VC in our modern world far outweighs the ability for our modern diet to supply.

VC is water soluble and can not be stored in the body. The best way to get enough it to ingest small quantities throughout the day.

Beware products that contain other ingredients (like a multivitamin). Ascorbic Acid is often used as a preservative , or will react with these ingredients making it no longer biologically available.

Just because a product says that it has VC added doesn't mean that it's done for your benefit. It is usually a marketing ploy and is done to extend the shelf life of the product, enhance colour, or offset the overpowering sweetness due to the amount of sugar that's been added.

Remember VC is an acid. Many minerals (like Zinc) are metals. What does acid do to metals (think battery acid and the body of your car)? What do you think happens when an acid and a metal are combined in a pill?

While reading some of the posts on this thread I noticed some comments in regards to groups of people such as natives and how they may have gotten vitamin C in their diets and the need to obtain the vitamin to survive. I remember reading about Narwhals and how the Inuit people in the Arctic consume Narwhal skin and tusks to obtain the vitamin C they need to survive. This is an example of people needing to consume vitamin C and how certain groups of people obtain it naturally no matter where in the world they live.

Vitamin C can be obtained through certain vegetables, fruits and meats. However, the levels are often altered by preparation (heating), storage conditions and length of time since it was picked. This could be a big reason for many vitamin C deficiencies - so many of our foods that we consume are microwaved, cooked or come from grocery stores that have stored them for a length of time.

I think this concludes that vitamin C can be obtained in levels needed through diet but it is difficult for humans in today's society to eat raw foods to reach the levels needed...thus the need to supplement.

Hmm. I would really like to buy this stuff but when I google it I get very very few hits, and this and other threads pop up.

Seems ligit? Hmm...

anyway I dont know what it is called in Sweden, and Dont know how to translate it So I guess Im at a loss.

Originally posted by signalfire
Up until fairly recently (evolutionarily-wise) people didn't cook their food, even proteins. Meat was often eaten raw or smoked, and as the animal's flesh was saturated with vitamin C, we also would have ingested that. Diets high in berries and root vegetables were the norm, as were such delicacies as grubs, an animal loaded with the vitamin C of its plant-based diet.

Advance forward to the last 50 years or so, and all proteins are cooked, destroying most of their nutrients, and 'veggies' are packaged boxes of something or another, and sugar intake has gone from a pound in an entire lifetime, to a pound a month or so... and vegetables are grown in nutrient-deprived soils.

Our diets in the last 50 years or so have undergone more change then in the 10,000 years before that. Who knows how many diseases are increasing concurrent with the decreasing quality of our diets?

The knee-jerk debunking never ceases to amaze me. Hey, information is all good; take it all in, consider it, and let others do the same. One thing I learned early on in the medical field; most doctors NEVER ask a patient what their normal diet is like on a daily basis; they all figure that everyone eats like they do. Nutritional education in most med schools consists of mere minutes...

Maybe an inability to consider new information is caused by vitamin deficiencies...

The most significant dietary change for "civilized" man has probably been range-fed livestock to corn-fed livestock. Instead of eating all of those highly nutritious bitter wild grasses that are loaded with vitamins, livestock eat mystery meals out of a trough or bucket. Mostly corn as it is cheap and filling. GMO corn now to boot.

reply to post by primus2012
You guys all offer some really good answers to the question of "Why Now?" about Vitamin C deficiency in humans/primates. Thanks. I asked the question up above because, to feel as good as I do these last couple of days with the Liposomal C, led me to agree with the OP's assertion that I may indeed have been deficient prior to beginning my regimen. The answers on this page make a lot of sense.

That post above about craving sweets? I have done a complete 180 since taking the C-- don't want sweets. Cool.

reply to post by Julie Washington


Yes, hypervitaminosis can be the same dangerous as hypovitaminosis, sometimes.
Sailors were first who found out the importance of C vitamin.
Because of scurvy...

A tolerable upper limit (UL) of vitamin C was set at 2 grams for the first time in the year 2000, referencing this mild laxative effect as the reason for establishing the UL. … Stone and Pauling calculated, based on the diet of primates (similar to what our common ancestors are likely to have consumed when the gene mutated), that the optimum daily requirement of vitamin C is around 2,300 milligrams for a human requiring 2,500 kcal a day.

So, the difference between the USDA guidelines and this study is only 300mg? That doesn't seem like enough to really make a big stink over.

reply to post by Julie Washington
two questions for you,do you know if this is something that will help with rheumatoid arthritis or Lymes disease?

I'm also curious about the niacin for depression what is the best way to get more niacin? as I understand it the ones sold in stores don't help much because of the coatings put on these supplements that your body has a difficult time breaking them down...is this true?

Thanks for bringing this important information to us,I just wish I had read the other thread earlier as my son has been out of school all week with the flu.I'm going to order my first batch try it then look into getting the items I need to make it for myself and my family.

Good health shouldn't be something one has to research,(this really angers me)with the abundance of food we have available or should have available in the U.S,and I'll leave it at that!

Originally posted by UnderGetty
Vitamin C is a strong anti-oxidant and as such, degrades rapidly. There are a number of factors that contribute to our inability to obtain sufficient quantities naturally.

1. The fresh produce we eat is not fresh enough. By the time it gets into our mouths, the food has lost most of it's VC.

Again and again, the issue I was asking about was this: how did our ancestors get vitamin C in sufficient quantities without buying supplements, say 200,000 years ago. And the "produce" they were getting was far from fresh. They usually didn't have "Wild by Nature" stores just next door to their caves. Sure there were greens during the summer and the meat does have C, but at the same time they had to scavenge, meaning whatever food they had was not always fresh off the vine. Making any judgement about how much C they consumed on the basis of presumed "freshness" just doesn't hold water.

2. The modern food we grow has been bred to minimise VC content in an effort to make it more appealing to our palates.

Care to provide a link to where a producer of food is hard at work to reduce the C content?

2. Our palates develop from early childhood to accept sweet and salty foods. Foods high in VC are usually sour, astringent which our palate rejects.

That's not always true at all. Many people like lemons. Orange juice? Heck, even potatoes have Vitamin C. The food does NOT have to be sour to qualify as a C source. That's just ridiculous.

3. Our daily requirement for VC varies depending on the environmental stresses we experience.
Our modern immune systems have not matured fully due to our diet and medical intervention. This places the immune system under greater stress than would otherwise be.
Our modern lifestyle is more emotionally stressful, which further suppresses our immune systems and other physiological systems.

Really??? With worse sanitary conditions, decease control and general dismal state of human condition in the past, it's moot to claim that people lived stress-free and healthier lives in the past.

For most of us, the requirements for VC in our modern world far outweighs the ability for our modern diet to supply.

Again, this is an arbitrary statement, and faith-based at that.

Remember VC is an acid. Many minerals (like Zinc) are metals. What does acid do to metals (think battery acid and the body of your car)? What do you think happens when an acid and a metal are combined in a pill?

Hey look, you claim knowledge of chemistry and what not, and then you post THIS. Seriously. Trying to scare people with acid in the car battery? Come on. The Zinc supplements contain this metal as a salt, such as sulfate. It's not in its metal form anymore. Why do you feel compelled to post such nonsense?

reply to post by Julie Washington


I eat one to two larges oranges and a cup of almonds for lunch just about every day so ...........

Originally posted by solargeddon
Originally posted by Julie Washington

Talking a dose of 200mg or less your body will absorb up to 98%. Taking a dose of 1,000mg your body will only absorb up to 33%, before the excess is eliminated in the urine.

So how do you get 98% from 200mg, but only 33% from 1,000mg ?

Confused.com

The 200mg of Vitamin C is taken by Liposomal form while the 1,000mg was taken either by pill or another way which is not Liposomal. What makes the Liposmal so beneficial is that it absorbs into the body almost immediately while the other form does not so you do not get the entire amount. Hopefully that helps

I just ordered my first bottle of Liposomal online at Amazon. I figured I wanted to try a bottle first to see if it will be worth me investing some time and money into making my own.

Originally posted by ErroneousDylan
Has there been any studies into the dangers of taking high doses of Vitamin C? I understand that it can cause diarrhea and stomach problems but I would like to see evidence of what can go wrong when you take this much before I just blindly go at it.

Vitamin C toxicity is very rare because the body cannot store it. Amounts greater than 2,000 mg/day have been discouraged by conventional medical bodies because, for some individuals, these doses can cause stomach upset and diarrhea. However, such symptoms are not generally serious, especially if they resolve with temporary discontinuation or reduction of high-dose vitamin C supplementation.

Vitamin C is widely considered to be one of safest nutrients. However, people who have a high risk of kidney disease, kidney stones, or disorders of iron metabolism (iron overload) should avoid large doses of vitamin C and consult their doctor or nutritionist prior to taking supplementation.

With the latest RDA published in 2000, a tolerable upper intake level (UL) for vitamin C was set for the first time. A UL of 2 grams (2,000 milligrams) daily was recommended in order to prevent most adults from experiencing diarrhea and gastrointestinal disturbances. However, as stated, these symptoms are generally benign and not a sign of actual toxicity. Vitamin C is very safe.

Source

reply to post by Julie Washington


Thank you so much for this - I am bookmarking so I can make my husband read this. He has suffered from gout and other arthritis for years now, and may be willing to give this some serious attention. I'm going to give making this at home a try.
Thanks again!

Originally posted by Sandcastler

A tolerable upper limit (UL) of vitamin C was set at 2 grams for the first time in the year 2000, referencing this mild laxative effect as the reason for establishing the UL. … Stone and Pauling calculated, based on the diet of primates (similar to what our common ancestors are likely to have consumed when the gene mutated), that the optimum daily requirement of vitamin C is around 2,300 milligrams for a human requiring 2,500 kcal a day.

So, the difference between the USDA guidelines and this study is only 300mg? That doesn't seem like enough to really make a big stink over.

You misunderstand.

The USDA recommended guidelines are:


Adult male - 90 mg per day

Adult female - 75 mg per day


The UL (upper limit) is a tolerance number. What the USDA thinks the body can tolerate before diarrhea sets in.

Originally posted by solargeddon
Originally posted by Julie Washington

Talking a dose of 200mg or less your body will absorb up to 98%. Taking a dose of 1,000mg your body will only absorb up to 33%, before the excess is eliminated in the urine.

So how do you get 98% from 200mg, but only 33% from 1,000mg ?

Confused.com

Good question.

When you take a Vitamin C tablet the body will only absorb what it thinks it needs (usually around 200mg) and expel the remainder through urine.

So if you take a 1,200 mg tablet you'll get about 200-300 mg.

Take a 2,000 mg table and still only get about 200-300 mg.

It has to do with the absorbtion rate and the rate the stomach acids breaksdown the vitamin before it expels it. That is why when taking tablets it better to take smaller doses, but many through out the day.