Be careful reading health books. You may die of a misprint." ~Mark Twain
There's just a whole lot of confusion running around about Vitamin C today. The original Linus-Pauling-promoted Vitamin C is ascorbic acid. It's cheap. It's used as a preservative when shipping food. It's best absorbed by the human body when bioflavenoids are present in the body but one author says "Don't bother taking them! The kind you buy are almost useless. Eat your red peppers and take cheap Vitamin C or stay in bed!"
Vitamin C - even the old fashioned ascorbic-acid kind - keeps the skin smooth
and supple - it's been proven to speed collagen growth. Vitamin C helps prevent miscarriages, can often improve female fertility at the ovearian level**, stops sperm from clumping together which restricts movement (1 gram /day)*, and enables you to enjoy more intense, longer-lasting
orgasms. Recent studies suggest that vitamin C should be taken as a part of a
multi-vitamin and not independently.
In 1970, Linus Pauling, Double Nobel Prize winning scientist, recommended multi-gram doses of vitamin C for improved health. Years later, his wisdom has been proven in study after study.
According to Balz Frei, Ph.D. from the Boston University School of Medicine, Vitamin C is an antioxidant that neutralizes free radicals by offering it's own electrons; minimizing oxidative damage to DNA, and neutralizing nitrates that are shown to cause cancer.
Researchers at Harvard Medical School found that people who got at least 200 mg of vitamin C per day had a 30 percent reduced risk of bronchitis or wheezing compared with people who got about 100 mg per day.
Vitamin C has been shown to inhibit the deposit and growth of atherosclerosisc
People with sensitive colons may find Vitamin C can cause diarrhea in large doses - which isn't dangerous but is hardly comfortable and can wash out other nutrients. It is recommended that doses
of 500 mg, for example, be started with a gradual increase until the individual finds the optimum dose
his/her body can tolerate at one time without diarrhea.
Vitamin C Ester --NOT "Ester-C" -- a Fat-soluble type of Vitamin C
A product called "Ester-C" is not the same as Vitamin C ester, the type of Vitamin C that Dr. Perricone recommends in his books as being both fat- and water-soluble. Ester-C is only water soluble. It is simply a formulation designed for easier digestion and, according to Perricone, has never been shown to be any better than regular asocrbic acid.
Vitamin C Ester is Ascorbyl Palmitate. Ascorbyl Palmitate can reside in the fatty part of the cell membrane, unlike normal Vitamin C, and can stimulate fibroblast growth which is needed to produce collagen and elastin. Moreover, it resupplies vitamin E in cells as Vitamin E is used up.
Remember to look for C Ester (with the C first), not Ester C. Ester-C offers no advantage over normal Vitamin C.
Therapeutic Does of Vitamin C
After a month of persistent nausea and many tests that didn't pinpoint the cause, I took a gram - 1000 mg. - of Vitamin C every hour using an egg timer. Almost immediately the nausea subsided and in a few days it was gone. Did I kill something? Or just bolster my immune system enough to enable it to heal an ailing organ? Maybe both! Megadoses of Vitamin C have their place in a library of cures.
Daily doses recommended are anywhere from 500 mg. to 5000 mg. which Dr Perricone says we need when we get older.
* Effect of Ascorbic Acid on Male Fertility, UT Galveston, Earl B. Dawson, William A. Harris, William E. Rankin, Leonard A. Charpentier, William J. McGanity , July, 1987.
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