Vitamin Supplements

Vitamin C is probably the most popular vitamin. Everyone knows something about it, and it features in advertisements, articles and discussions. It is easy to buy, relatively cheap and many people ‘believe’ in it. Every winter quantities of vitamin C tablets are swallowed, chewed or drunk in an attempt to combat the common cold. The strange thing is that when put to the test vitamin C does not produce very convincing evidence that it can help us in the way we expect. We do need it (30 mg per day is the recommended daily allowance) and it has important functions, particularly as it affects the structure of bones, muscles, blood vessels and skin. It has been described as the ‘cement’ of the body, and without it wounds do not heal, bones cannot mend and bacterial infection can spread rapidly throughout the tissues.

This total disorder of the system was the symptom most commonly seen among sailors at sea in the times of the long voyages of discovery. Rations on board ship consisted of salt beef and dry biscuits and a tot of rum. After a few months of this diet, which apart from other defects was totally devoid of vitamin C, scurvy would develop among the crew. Recovery was rapid if there was a chance of fresh food from a port, or green and growing herbs and fruit from an island, but without this source of ascorbic acid then scurvy seemed inevitable. The name ascorbic acid comes from the word scorbutic, meaning scurvy, hence a-scorbic meaning anti scurvy. Today scurvy is a rarity, although cases do occur where poverty or ignorance produce a very poor diet. This can happen among old people living on their own, perhaps uninterested in cooking and unable to shop easily, and who have trouble with their teeth and cannot chew the sort of foods which would supply the vitamins.

We have such an abundance of green vegetables for most of the year in Britain, together with a constant selection of fruit both from home and abroad, so nobody should go short of vitamin C. However, the controversy still rages between the nutritionists, the medical faculty and the health food enthusiasts on ‘what is the correct amount of vitamin C for optimal health?’

This type of question brings its own problems, because it is not easy to define optimum health. Chemical tests show how much iron, fat, sugar etc. we have in the blood, also what we are, or are not, excreting in our urine. These amounts are compared against a standard table and we are declared healthy or otherwise. We have physical and chemical tests for almost any ability or function of the body including blood pressure, lung capacity, weight, hearing and sight, but in the final analysis how do we define well being, joie de vivre or a zest for living? What is the standard we can use to measure the immeasurable? All vitamins are supposed to work for us to achieve optimum health and we are often persuaded to take extra vitamins to that end, but no supplement is purported to have such special powers as vitamin C. If all other vitamins vanished from the counter and we were offered vitamin C as an alternative, the chances are that we would accept it and believe that it would do the job as well as the next. How has this fine, white, crystalline powder acquired such magical properties, and is our faith in it justified?

In America a great deal of work has been done on vitamin C and the giant behind much of the research is Linus Pauling. About fifteen years ago he started to take large doses of the vitamin himself and noticed a feeling of ‘improved well being’ and a definite reduction in the number of colds he had in the winter. He then devoted a great deal of time and research towards investigating and testing the properties which vitamin C bestowed on the body when taken in large quantities. Linus Pauling did not conform to the accepted opinion that 45 mg a day (the recommended allowance in America which has now been increased to 60 mg) was sufficient for health. He took one hundred times more, and even advocated a beneficial use of 10 grams a day. Most of the pills we buy in chemists and stores contain 50, 100 or 200 mg per tablet. The large tablets which dissolve in water contain 1,000 mg (1 gram) and are only used in an attempt to cure a cold. Pauling suggested that we needed the equivalent of two or three of these large tablets every day of our lives. The logic behind this radical thinking came about because of the surprising fact that man is one of the few animals who actually need vitamin C at all. Rats can make their own vitamin C and it is only man, the primates, the guinea pig and the fruit bat who need vitamin C. The animals who can manufacture it in their bodies do so using a simple sugar, generally glucose, as the starting point, and after five reactions using different enzymes,’ the end product is ascorbic acid. We cannot do this because one of the enzymes is missing from the system. It seems probable that this was due to a mutation, or change, in the chemistry of the body, which took place millions of years ago, before we had evolved as homo sapiens. There was little need for us to make our own vitamin C because our food was composed of fruit, leaves and other sources of dietary vitamin C, so the loss caused no harm to the species.

Today we eat a very different type of diet, and we are subject to environmental conditions which are very different from those of our animal ancestors. Not only is the intake of vitamin C very much reduced, but the little we do possess is eroded by the stresses of modern living and influences such as smoking and alcohol. Pauling’s theory is based on the assumption that if we still ate this near vegetarian diet of vitamin-rich raw foods we should consume two to three grams of the vitamin a day, and if we were also able to make additional amounts within the body, as many animals do, we should have a daily quota of ten grams to draw on for all the reactions that need and use vitamin C. The logic of this argument is difficult to dispute — though there are a few facts missing, and some scholars of evolution believe that our ancestors were meat eaters anyway — but the theory is popular because vitamin C is thought to be harmless and there are, apparently, no dangers in putting the theory to test.

Some of the functions and biochemistry of vitamin C have been studied and we know that it acts as a reducing agent in some reactions. Chemically speaking a reducing agent is something which donates a hydrogen atom to another substance and in so doing it becomes oxidised itself. When it is acting as a reducing agent it helps to create the ‘cement’ of the body. This ‘cement’ is a protein and is called collagen. It contains a special amino acid called hydroxyproline which can only be formed with the assistance of vitamin C. Without this important amino acid unit the collagen cannot maintain its binding properties and the very stuff that our bodies are made of begins to collapse. The skin cannot act as a barrier against infection and germs, and the walls of the small blood vessels become weak and break down causing bruising and the spreading of infection throughout the body. These were the acute symptoms seen among sailors on long sea voyages in the Middle Ages. Bleeding gums were a common feature and poor wound healing made minor cuts and bruises a disaster. Healing was only possible when vitamin C was returned to the diet.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
Vitamin C

• Vitamin-ese: a Glossary
• Vitamin Supplements and Health: Glucosamine sulphate and chondroitin
• Why Carbohydrates Are Necessary
• Essential Mineral for Optimum Health
• Staying Young, Energetic, and Sexy
• Bone-Building Nutrients
• Protein — and the Amazing Amino Acids part 6
• PYRIDOXINE (B6)
• Delicious Minerals Supplements (ZINC BORON and SILICA)
• Amino Acid Procedure - How You Can Take Advantage