Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Vitamin C
Out of all the various vitamins and nutrients that work towards maintaining your overall health, vitamin C stands out as one of the big ones.
It works throughout your body and provide a wide range of benefits.
Vitamin C is certainly discussed a lot – and for good reason.
As a kid, your parents might’ve encouraged you to eat more oranges to boost your vitamin C levels in order to keep yourself healthy during cold and flu season.
However, you might be surprised to learn just how many benefits vitamin C can provide.
When it comes to providing naturopathic treatments, I don’t use vitamin C a lot as a supplement.
There are some specific uses, but it’s definitely something that is primarily consumed through a healthy diet.
In fact, humans are unable to make vitamin C, so it is strictly obtained through eating fruits and vegetables.
Keep reading to find out why vitamin C is so good for us.
What Is Vitamin C?
Vitamin C is a water soluble nutrient with a wide variety of different benefits to your body.
Water soluble means your body passes what you don’t use through your urine – B complex vitamins work the same way.
Contrast that with fat soluble vitamins, like vitamin D or vitamin E.
Your body stores those in your fat for later use.
Vitamin C comes in a number of different forms.
You might see sodium ascorbate, calcium ascorbate, ascorbic acid, and a number of others.
There are all vitamin C and we still don’t have strong evidence that one is more effective than the other.
What Does Vitamin C Do?
As previously mentioned, vitamin C does a lot of good for your body.
Vitamin C is part of making collagen, involved in neurotransmitter metabolism and dietary iron absorption.
However, it’s primarily importance is due to its innate antioxidant properties.
It’s, in short, able to clean up damage and protect our proteins, fats, carbohydrates and DNA.
What are antioxidants? To understand what antioxidants are, we need to understand what free radicals are.
Think back to your high school chemistry class – do you remember what an atom looks like? The nucleus of the atom has protons and neutrons, and it’s orbited by electrons.
There is a set number of each for each type of atom.
Oxygen has 8 of each, calcium has 20, zinc has 30, and so on.
If an atom has all its electrons, it’s considered stable.
But sometimes, a molecule – that is, a combination of different atoms to form a compound – is missing one or more electrons.
This is a free radical.
Free radicals are a problem because they end up searching for their missing electron.
They can, however, share electrons with another molecule by bonding with it to stabilize themselves.
Often, they find that with the molecules that make up your body’s cells.
This can cause damage.
This frequently happens with oxygen, which is why the condition caused by too many free radicals is called oxidative stress.
So, where do antioxidants come in? Antioxidants help protect your body against free radicals by bonding with them and neutralizing them.
It’s thought that this is why vitamin C has some of the benefits listed below.
1. It Can Help You Manage Stress
Researchers are still learning about the wide ranging negative effects stress can have on your body.
Research shows that your body’s vitamin C levels are particularly sensitive to stress.
It’s the first vitamin to be depleted due to alcoholism, smoking, and excess weight.
Additionally, a deficiency in vitamin C is associated with numerous stress related diseases, such as anxiety disorders.
That’s why maintaining your vitamin C levels is especially important during periods of prolonged stress.
2. It Lowers Your Risk Of Heart Disease
Vitamin C can also help to manage risk factors for heart disease.
Some of the biggest risk factors for heart disease include high blood pressure, high LDL cholesterol levels, and low HDL cholesterol levels.
RELATED: Why You Should Pay Attention To Cholesterol Early However, maintaining your vitamin C levels might help to reduce some of these factors.
In general, it appears as if vitamin C helps protect our blood vessels and lower blood pressure.
In terms of heart disease risk, the data is a little more mixed.
Some studies show less cardiovascular disease with increased intake through diet or supplementation.
In 2007, researchers tried to take blood samples and measure vitamin C levels.
In this study, they found that as the levels of vitamin C went up in the blood, the risk of heart failure went down.
The discrepancy in the data might be that it can be hard to recall and report our food intake accurately.
As a result, studies that look at food frequency may report different results than if we take blood samples.
While we certainly have more to learn surrounding vitamin C and heart health, the research looks promising.
3. It’s Good For Your Immune System
Vitamin C is an effective way to boost your immunity during cold and flu season.
It’s well established now that vitamin C shortens the length of the common cold, but does not reduce the risk of getting sick in the first place.
This is because vitamin C is involved in many different parts of your immune system.
Khadim and Al-Fartusie in 2021 explored the relationship between antioxidant vitamins with immune health.
This includes vitamin C, as well as the other two antioxidant vitamins – vitamin A and vitamin E.
Some of the benefits antioxidant vitamins can provide to your immune system include:
Increased production of white blood cells
Protection against environmental toxins
Reduced wound healing time
Increased resistance to infectious microbes
A lack of antioxidant vitamins, on the other hand, can diminish these benefits.
By increasing your antioxidant levels, vitamin C can also help to reduce your risk of developing chronic conditions, such as pneumonia and lung infections.
4. It Helps Your Body Absorb Iron
Iron is a mineral essential for the production of red blood cells.
It also transports oxygen through your bloodstream.
When paired with vitamin C, iron can provide your health with advanced benefits.
Vitamin C supplements can help your blood more readily absorb iron from your diet.
Additionally, it can help convert iron that’s poorly absorbed, such as plant based formed, into more easily absorbed forms.
Therefore, vitamin C may be particularly helpful for those who maintain meat free diets.
Subsequently, vitamin C can reduce your risk of developing anemia, a medical condition caused by lack of red blood cells.
And, because iron deficiency is closely related to mood disorders, paired with vitamin C it can have a significant impact on your mental health.
5. It Keeps Your Mind Sharp As You Age
Vitamin C benefits your brain as well.
We talked about how antioxidants like vitamin C help prevent oxidative stress.
But what we didn’t mention is what oxidative stress actually does.
Prolonged oxidative stress has been linked with several different neurological disorders.
This includes:
Parkinson’s disease
Multiple sclerosis
ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease)
Alzheimer’s disease
Clinical depression
RELATED: Naturopathic Depression Treatments And Support So, making sure you’re getting enough vitamin C will help decrease your risk of the above disorders.
Currently, it appears that the goal is having enough vitamin C.
So avoiding deficiency or insufficiency should be the goal in brain health versus supplementation.
What Foods Are High In Vitamin C?
Since vitamin C can’t be stored in your body, it’s important to add plenty of vitamin C rich foods to your diet.
A single cup of orange juice contains enough vitamin C to meet your daily recommended intake.
But when we look at other nutrition science, a variety of fruits and vegetables is likely the best way to go.
This is because it gives a diverse set of nutrients in addition to vitamin C.
Fortunately, a wide variety of food options exist for those looking to boost their vitamin C intake, including:
Citrus fruit, such as orange and grapefruit
Green pepper
Strawberry
Tomato
Broccoli
White potato
Sweet potato
Avocado
Cantaloupe
Papaya
Mango
Watermelon
Brussels sprout
Cauliflower
Cabbage
Raspberry
Winter squash
Pumpkin
Pineapple
If you’re not sure how to incorporate these foods into your diet, here are some of my personal favorites:
What Is Scurvy?
You might associate scurvy with 17th century pirates, malnourished from a long voyage on the seven seas.
However, it isn’t exactly an ailment of the past.
Scurvy is a serious condition caused by an extreme vitamin C deficiency.
Left untreated, it can be fatal.
Early symptoms include general symptoms of vitamin C deficiency, such as:
Loss of appetite
Weight loss
Fatigue
Irritability
Lethargy
As the condition progresses, symptoms may include:
Anemia
Bone pain
Swelling (edema)
Small red spots resulting from bleeding under the skin (petechiae)
Corkscrew hairs
Gum disease and loss of teeth
Slow wound healing
Shortness of breath
Mood changes and depression
The late stages of scurvy might include:
Generalized edema
Severe jaundice
Destruction of red blood cells (hemolysis)
Spontaneous bleeding
Nerve damage (neuropathy)
Fever
Convulsions
Fortunately, scurvy can be treated in modern times with vitamin C supplements administered either orally or intravenously (IV).
Scurvy is rare here in the United States, but certain factors may increase your risk of developing scurvy.
These include:
Poor diet
An eating disorder
Restrictive diets due to allergies, food intolerances, or any other reason
Older age
Excessive alcohol or substance use
However, if you’re following a healthy Mediterranean diet, it’s pretty much impossible for you to get scurvy.
Can You Take Too Much Vitamin C?
It’s very difficult to overdose on vitamin C through diet alone.
However, it’s a bit different if you’re supplementing your vitamin C.
Overall, vitamin C supplements are well tolerated.
And because they’re water soluble, your body just flushes out whatever you don’t use in your urine.
The recommended daily limit for adults is 2000mg per day, but even if you go beyond that it’s unlikely to be too harmful.
However, you might end up with an upset stomach, diarrhea, nausea, heartburn, or a headache, but these will pass.
Always make sure to book an appointment with your naturopathic doctor before you add new supplements to your routine, however.
Speaking of which...
Book Your Appointment With Wild Lemon Health Today
If you’re on this website, chances are you’re already getting enough vitamin C.
But are you getting enough of your other nutrients as well? And even if you’re eating a healthy, a diet focused on whole foods, fruits, vegetables, and grass fed meats, are you still not feeling your best?
I’m Dr. Antonella, naturopathic doctor and founder of Wild Lemon Health, and I can help.
With a special interest in mental health, I can work with you to put together a plan designed to keep your mind healthy and strong.
