Since I just wrote a blog on getting enough nutrients, I thought I needed to expand on why some are particularly important to pay attention to. Vitamin C, or Ascorbic Acid, is one of them. It has many health benefits but it’s especially important during this time of Covid when our immune systems need a boost.
Vitamin C has many effects on our immunity so getting enough of it is imperative. And according to years of research, it could be used in much larger amounts to benefit us in much bigger ways.
Government recommendations for Vitamin C are often quite different from what some nutrition experts advise. The government recommends just 90 mg daily for men and 75 mg for women. 2,000 mg is the upper intake level which they advise us to stay below to avoid unpleasant consequences.
I’ve learned over the years to question what the government tells us about health (and most other things!). There are also many differing opinions even within the medical community. So I do the extra research to find out what the real experts in the field recommend. And I suggest you do the same.
Related article: Are you getting enough nutrients for good health?
My sources
In this blog, I’m using information from Andrew Saul, Ph.D., and his extensive resources on Vitamin C intake and supplementation. Not only has he studied nutrition his entire life but he has read all the research that has largely been ignored (not an uncommon thing) by the U.S. medical community at large.
This is why I encourage people to research for themselves. In doing so, you learn how much important information is often brushed aside in favor of pharmaceuticals and “treatments” involving lots of money and side effects. If you want to know more about Andrew Saul, go to andrewsaul.com for his bio.
His (very unattractive!) website, doctoryourself.com, is a great source of information on everything concerning Vitamin C. I invested in one of his books, “Doctor Yourself: Natural Healing that Works” because I trust his expertise. This is the book I’ll be using for the information in this post. But I would highly recommend reading it yourself.
If you’re not a reader (then I would encourage you to be!), you can watch the movie “Food Matters”. This will absolutely enlighten you about nutrition and the medical community! What I want to do today is to teach you a little more about the importance of Vitamin C and its effects on our immunity.
Related article: Worried about Covid-19?
How Vitamin C affects our immunity
In humans, vitamin C is not made in our bodies like it is in animals. Instead, we have to get it from the foods we eat on a daily basis. Vitamin C has many roles in our bodies and here is just a partial list:
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- it helps wounds to heal
- it helps to make collagen
- it helps prevent gum disease
- it increases the number of white blood cells for better immunity
- it increases our good (HDL) cholesterol
- it helps to lower blood pressure
- it’s an antioxidant
- it decreases the rate of stomach cancer
- it increases fertility
- it lowers the risk of cataracts
Even though this isn’t a full list it seems evident that getting enough C is really important! It’s also evident that not getting enough can cause a lot of problems for us.
The discovery of Vitamin C
Vitamin C wasn’t discovered until the 1930s. For centuries, sailors that were out to sea for long periods of time would contract scurvy and many died from it. Nobody knew then that it was a Vitamin C deficiency causing the illness.
The Danes were the first to figure out that if they took lemons and oranges to sea with them to eat, the condition was prevented. In 1753 the British realized there was a connection between a lack of citrus fruits and the contraction of scurvy. Limes were then required on every journey to sea. This is why sailors were often referred to as “Limey’s”.
Finally, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, a professor of medicinal chemistry in Hungary, isolated the vitamin contained in fruits responsible for keeping the sailors alive. Vitamin C, or Ascorbic Acid, was discovered.
Now we know that Vitamin C is actually necessary for good health. Obviously, a lack of it can kill us. But we now also know that an abundance of it has huge effects on our immunity from illness and disease.
How much is enough?
Just one cup of strawberries per day would give you about 98 mg of Vitamin C. Oranges don’t actually have as much C as many other fruits. 98 mg is even more than the government advises. So that’s all you need for an adequate level. If you’re ok with adequate health then just do that!
Andrew Saul believes that we could have optimal health and prevent many diseases and illnesses by getting much higher amounts of Vitamin C. He thinks the government’s recommendations are far too low. And his opinions are based on years of research.
A serious Vitamin C deficiency can be caused by things like alcoholism, eating disorders, smoking, and disease states. But in areas of our country where there’s a lack of fresh produce available, people are often deficient. Older adults are also often deficient due to a lack of variety in their daily diets.
Related article: How alcohol affects weight loss.
The best diet, with all the research to back it up, is to stick to a mostly vegetarian way of eating and get away from processed junk food. On a plant-based diet, you would naturally be getting enough. But if you want to prevent disease and illness then getting much more of it can possibly do that for you.
Related article: Tips for a healthier diet. #6 – GBOMBS.
In his book, Dr. Saul writes, “I continue to be amazed at the number of people who actually do not know that huge doses of Vitamin C can safely be used as an antibiotic, antiviral, and antihistamine.” When he talks about “huge doses”, he’s generally referring to anything over the 2,000 mg the government gives as the upper intake level.
Vitamin C and immunity
Let me just give you some examples of diseases and illnesses that Dr. Saul says have been cured with high-dose Vitamin C therapy.
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- Arthritis
- Pneumonia
- Fibromyalgia
- Cardiovascular disease
- Encephalitis
- Allergies
- Polio
- Chronic fatigue
- Alcoholism
I know it’s hard to believe, but that’s why I’m encouraging you to read about this on your own. There’s so much more to this story and why we don’t know about these things than I can write about here.
Just like any other treatment, one protocol won’t work for everyone. But there has been a lot of research done over the past 100 years to prove the therapeutic effects of Vitamin C. This is why you take charge of your health, research to learn more, and experiment to see what works for you.
“Consequences” of large doses
You cannot die from getting too much Vitamin C. You won’t even get sick from it. The worst that can happen is you get diarrhea when you’ve taken too much. And this only happens when it’s taken orally, as a supplement. If it’s given intravenously our bodies can take many times more. And when we’re sick our bodies need much more than normal.
In the 1970s, Linus Pauling (a Nobel Prize winner) and Ewan Cameron showed that intravenous doses of just 10,000 mg of C reversed terminal cancer in 13 out of 100 patients. Since then much higher doses have been used with great effectiveness to treat cancer patients. But not so much in the U.S.
If 13% of “terminal” cancer patients could be helped at that stage, then think about how much could be prevented if we got more C before getting sick. It’s also being used to treat Covid patients in other countries with great success. But it’s mostly being ignored as a treatment option in America. Makes you think, what could be wrong with our medical system?
My final thoughts
This blog is not intended to give you all the information you need to make decisions without further research of your own. My goal is to get you interested in finding out more so you can make an informed decision about what’s best for your health.
This is why I’m giving you other resources for more information on the topic of Vitamin C and its effects on our immunity. I hate to think of people going through life with “good enough” health. That’s what most people already accept.
I want to encourage everyone I meet to have higher standards for their quality of life. And that starts with health. Americans are dealing with too many diseases much too early in life. If a little extra Vitamin C can help improve our lives without consequences then why not give it a try?
Being healthy comes from fueling your body with what it needs to function optimally. So use nutrition before you start taking drugs to “treat” a disease or illness. You might be surprised at the effects of Vitamin C on your own immunity. I’ve been taking extra for over a year and haven’t had a single cold.
Getting enough Vitamin C is really important. But in light of all the evidence, I think getting more would be better.