Special Precautions & Warnings
Pregnancy and breast-feedingLIKELY SAFEPOSSIBLY UNSAFE
Infants and children: Vitamin C is LIKELY SAFE when taken by mouth appropriately. Vitamin C is POSSIBLY UNSAFE when taken by mouth in amounts higher than 400 mg daily for children 1 to 3 years, 650 mg daily for children 4 to 8 years, 1200 mg daily for children 9 to 13 years, and 1800 mg daily for adolescents 14 to 18 years.
Alcoholism: Alcohol intake can cause the body to excrete vitamin C in the urine. People who regularly use alcohol, especially those who have other illnesses, often have vitamin C deficiency. These people might need to be treated for a longer time than normal to restore vitamin C levels to normal.
Alzheimer’s disease: Taking vitamin C along with vitamin E and alpha-lipoic acid might worsen mental function in people with Alzheimer’s disease.
Angioplasty, a heart procedure: Avoid taking supplements containing vitamin C or other antioxidant vitamins immediately before and following angioplasty without the supervision of a health care professional. These vitamins seem to interfere with proper healing.
Cancer: Cancerous cells collect high concentrations of vitamin C. Until more is known, only use high doses of vitamin C under the direction of your oncologist.
A metabolic deficiency called “glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase” deficiency: Large amounts of vitamin C can cause red blood cells to break in people with this condition. Avoid excessive amounts of vitamin C.
Why Is Food Not Enough
Experts say that a balanced diet is the best way to get vitamins, but there’s just one problem with that. We don’t eat that way! A report from the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee concluded that Americans do not consume enough of vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, folate, vitamin C, calcium, and magnesium. We’re also not getting enough iron. This is especially true for premenopausal women. The report also found that we’re taking in too much sodium and saturated fat.
Registered dietitian Emily Braaten recommends trying to obtain as many vitamins from our diets as possible. “While a multivitamin may be able to fill the gap, it’s not absolutely necessary to rely on supplements to meet our needs,” she told me. “Simply shifting our eating pattern to include the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables can cover most of the aforementioned .”
How To Take It
The best way to take vitamin C supplements is 2 – 3 times per day, with meals, depending on the dosage. Some studies suggest that adults should take 250 – 500 mg twice a day for any benefit. Talk to your doctor before taking more than 1,000 mg of vitamin C on a daily basis and before giving vitamin C to a child.
Daily intake of dietary vitamin C is listed below.
Pediatric
- Men over 18 years: 90 mg
- Women over 18 years: 75 mg
- Pregnant women 14 – 18 years: 80 mg
- Pregnant women over 18 years: 85 mg
- Breastfeeding women 14 – 18 years: 115 mg
- Breastfeeding women over 18 years: 120 mg
Because smoking depletes vitamin C, people who smoke may need an additional 35 mg per day.
The dose recommended to prevent or treat many of the conditions mentioned in the Uses section is often 500 – 1,000 mg per day.
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What Micronutrients Are There And What Are Their Effects On Our Body
Micronutrients can in principle be divided into two types vitamins and minerals. Both types belong to the essential food components and must therefore be supplied to the body through food.
Although the human organism is able to produce some vitamins itself, they are not available in sufficient quantities to meet the bodys needs, so the majority must be provided through diet. However, not all vitamins are the same there is one more detail to consider: on the one hand there are vitamins that are water-soluble, and on the other hand there are also vitamins that are considered fat-soluble.
This is particularly important to know, because water-soluble vitamins, in contrast to fat-soluble vitamins, can hardly or not at all be stored in the body. Therefore, a regular supply is extremely important.
| Fat-soluble vitamins | |
| Vitamin E, Vitamin K | Vitamin C |
Minerals, on the other hand, are exclusively absorbed through food. They can be further divided into quantity and trace elements.
The bulk elements include sodium, calcium and magnesium. While bulk elements occur in the body in increased concentrations, the body stores trace elements only in small amounts. Trace elements therefore include iron, copper and zinc.
What Evidence Is There To Support Taking Vitamin C For Covid
There have been hundreds of studies investigating vitamin C, many of which have conflicting results. One of the biggest problems with vitamin C studies is that most do not measure vitamin C concentrations before or after supplementation. Supplementation is unlikely to show an effect in people whose vitamin C levels are already high.
COVID-19 is a new disease, and we are still learning about it. But several studies in other infections or conditions suggest it may be beneficial in certain groups of people, particularly those already deficient in vitamin C who develop COVID-19. Currently, at least two trials are underway specifically investigating the use of vitamin C to treat severe COVID-19, one in New York and one in China.
Beneficial effects of vitamin C supplementation have been reported for
- Elderly people with acute respiratory infections
- Recurrent acute respiratory distress syndrome
- Reducing the severity and duration of the common cold
- Reducing the length of hospital stay and symptoms in elderly patients with pneumonia
- Reducing the duration of mechanical ventilation in people in ICU
- Preventing the common cold in people who are vitamin C deficient
- Preventing the incidence of pneumonia in people who are vitamin C deficient.
- Studies have shown that excretion of vitamin C is decreased during infections, such as the common cold, suggesting that more is utilized during times of need.
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Recommended Daily Dose For Vitamin C
The Recommended Dietary Allowance for vitamin C varies greatly by gender and age.
0-6 months: 40 mg per day 7-12 months: 50 mg per day 1-3 years: 15 mg per day4-8 years: 25 mg per day
Males : 45 mg per day Males : 75 mg per dayMales : 90 mg per day
Females : 45 mg per day Females : 65 mg per day Females : 75 mg Pregnant females : 85 mgLactating females : 120 mg
How To Treat And Prevent Vitamin C Overdose
The single best way to prevent vitamin C overdose is to avoid taking supplements in high doses and to get the vitamin C your body needs from foods instead, especially fresh vegetables and fruits. Some of the foods richest in vitamin C include citrus fruits like oranges, leafy green vegetables, red peppers, melon, berries, kiwi, mango and sweet potatoes.
As mentioned above, vitamin C is water-soluble. What does this mean in terms of getting extra vitamin C out of your body? Do you pee out excess vitamin C?
Because vitamin C is water-soluble, its not as risky to take too much vitamin C as it is to take fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin A or D. Unmetabolized ascorbic acid is excreted in the urine.
That said, overdose of vitamin C is still possible if someone takes supplements in high doses for an extended period of time, especially if that person also consumes lots of vitamin C from his or her diet and/or fortified foods.
How long does it take to get vitamin C out of your system?
Vitamin C can stay in the body for weeks. However, excess amounts are usually urinated out in a matter of hours.
Vitamin C will stay in someones body longer if that person doesnt already have high levels or are deficient. In order to prevent vitamin C from being lost in the urine, its best to take smaller, multiple doses spread out throughout the day.
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How Much Vitamin C Should I Be Taking
Recommended intakes of vitamin C have been developed by the Food and Nutrition Board. These are much higher than the amount required to prevent deficiency:
- Infants, 0-6 months: 40mg
- Infants, 7-12 months: 50mg
- Children, 1-3 years: 15mg
- Teenagers, 14-18 years: 75mg , 65mg
- Adults: 90mg , 75mg
- Pregnant women: 80mg , 85mg
- Breastfeeding women: 115mg , 120mg .
Whenever we have an infection or inflammation, our bodies require more vitamin C so your general intake should increase to cope with the extra demand.
Many factors can impair the absorption of vitamin C or increase a persons requirement for it. The following people should include an extra 50-100mg of vitamin C per day in their diet or in the form of supplements:
- People with cancer or who have a compromised immune system
- People who drink alcohol daily or excessively
- People with diabetes
- Pregnant or breastfeeding women
- Smokers.
Rates of vitamin C deficiency vary around the world with rates as low as 7.1% in the United States to nearly 74% in India. Total vitamin C deficiency manifesting as scurvy is rare.
Essential Vitamins We Need To Live
The vitamins our bodies need can be broken down into two groups: fat soluble vitamins and water soluble vitamins. Our bodies need both types to function properly.
Fat soluble vitamins need body fat to be absorbed and used by our organs. Vitamin A, vitamin E, and carotenoids are all fat soluble vitamins. Because these vitamins rely on fats to be used, we must eat a diet full of healthy fats. “A lack of healthy fats in the diet can lead to fat-soluble vitamin deficiencies, leading further into disease and malnutrition,” nutritionist Amanda Henham of Vaga Nutrition tells us. “They can also become toxic, as they are stored in fatty tissue.”
The other class of vitamins, water soluble vitamins, cannot be stored in our tissues like fat soluble ones. They are found in food, and once our bodies have used them, they excrete the excess in the urine. Because our bodies can’t hang on to these vitamins, we need to take them in, either from food or supplements. Common water soluble vitamins include folate, vitamin C, and the B vitamins. According to Henham, everyone needs these vitamins in their diets everyday, and “the requirements increase in certain conditions such as immune disorders, poor kidney and liver health, chronic stress, and medication use.”
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What Does Recommended Daily Allowance Mean
The recommended daily allowance for vitamins and minerals is the average daily intake a person needs to avoid deficiencies and stay healthy. Men and women often have different vitamin and mineral recommendations.
There are different ways to measure the RDA. Vitamins and minerals that are needed in larger doses are measured in milligrams and those that the body needs less of are measured in micrograms. There are 1,000 micrograms in 1 milligram. Each vitamin and mineral has a specific RDA.
Why Garlic With Vitamin C Works
What do you get when you mix two of the best known, easily available and most potent healthy food items in the world a killer combination .
When taken together, garlic and Vitamin C will make your food delicious.
It is really difficult to avoid these two substances in food. Garlic and Vitamin C have been used in food since times immemorial and even the ancient Indians, Chinese, Egyptians and Babylonians knew they need these two in their food.
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Amount In Multivitamin Vs Recommendation
The majority of multivitamins on the market provide 60 milligrams of vitamin C per dose, notes Dr. Jane Higdon, a research associate with the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University. This is less than the recommendation of 75 daily milligrams for adult women and 90 daily milligrams for adult men, which doesnt increase as you get older. So, women might need an extra 15 milligrams daily and men might require another 30 milligrams than what’s found in a multivitamin. Check the label.
/7the Right Way To Take Vitamin C
Studies suggest that our body’s capacity to absorb Vitamin C decreases by 50 per cent when we take more than 1000 mg of this vitamin in a day. All the extra amount of the vitamin is moved out of the body through urine.
It is best to take Vitamin C in the raw form as heat and light can destroy the amount of vitamin in the particular food. Cooking Vitamin C rich food for a long time at a high temperature can break down the vitamin. Apart from that, cooking in water can also make the vitamin seep into the liquid and when the liquid is not consumed you may not get the vitamin. Stir-frying or blanching are the best ways to preserve the vitamin. Also, try to eat fruits that are ripe as they contain the maximum amount of Vitamin C.
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Pour And Drink To Your Health
Go ahead and pour your smoothies into glass jars. This recipe will make enough to serve a family of 4 two cups of smoothie or 2 really generous servings. I make this vitamin C Bomb Smoothie once a day- usually in the afternoon- and serve it to my family.
Its not only healthy and preventive, but it gives us an energy boost so we can finish our school and work day. Its best to drink it just after blending, but I have been known to make it the evening before a busy day and store it in the fridge. I dont recommend storing it for more than 12 hours, though. The vitamins wont be as potent as when freshly blended.
Some really smart dude said, Let food be thy medicine, and- even though its a drink- this smoothie surely fits the bill. In this time of caution, give your family a boost of Vitamin C. Share this with your friends and be sure to pin the recipe for your smoothie.
Does Taking Vitamin C Help Treat A Cold Once I Am Sick
Several studies have answered this question over the years. For the most part, taking even high doses of vitamin C after you get symptoms has not been shown to consistently reduce symptom duration or severity.
However, a 2013 meta-analysis of over 11,000 people did conclude that taking vitamin C supplements regularly slightly reduced the duration of cold symptoms and severity. The problem here was this was only an 8% reduction in the duration of cold symptoms, and most people didnt notice that difference.
A more recent analysis from 2018 of nine randomized controlled trials suggested that some people who regularly take vitamin C may benefit from adding extra doses when they start to feel the symptoms of a cold coming on. The analysis found that the extra doses made the difference, and that they reduced the duration of a cold by about half a day. But while duration of cold symptoms was reduced, the only symptoms to reach statistical significance were fever, chills, and chest pain.
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Linus Pauling Institute Recommendation
Combined evidence from metabolic, pharmacokinetic, and observational studies, and from randomized controlled trials supports consuming sufficient vitamin C to achieve plasma concentrations of at least 60 mol/L. While most generally healthy young adults can achieve these plasma concentrations with daily vitamin C intake of at least 200 mg/day, some individuals may have a lower vitamin C absorptive capacity than what is currently documented. Thus, the Linus Pauling Institute recommends a vitamin C intake of 400 mg daily for adults to ensure replete tissue concentrations an amount substantially higher than the RDA yet with minimal risk of side effects.
This recommendation can be met through food if the diet includes at least several servings of vitamin C-rich fruit and vegetables as part of the daily recommended fruit and vegetable intake . Most multivitamin supplements provide at least 60 mg of vitamin C.
Older adults
Copyright 2000-2021 Linus Pauling Institute
How Much Vitamin C Should You Take
Vitamin C is a water-soluble nutrient with many vital functions in your body.
It helps strengthen your immune system, aids collagen production and wound healing, and acts as an antioxidant to protect your cells from free radical damage .
Vitamin C is also known as L-ascorbic acid, or simply ascorbic acid.
Unlike other animals, humans cannot synthesize vitamin C on their own. Therefore, you must get enough of it from foods or supplements to maintain good health (
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Always Talk With A Professional
While the nutritionists we spoke to agree that supplements can be helpful, it’s important to always talk with your healthcare provider before jumping in with a vitamin regimen. Most vitamin supplements contain 100 percent of the recommended daily amount, so if you’re already consuming a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables throughout the day, you would be taking in way more than the National Institutes of Health recommends.
Unfortunately when it comes to vitamins, you really can have too much of a good thing.
According to the National Institutes of Health, a meta-analysis of studies looking at more than 400,000 people found that a daily vitamin supplement was associated with an increased cancer risk. A separate study of women found that a daily supplement was linked to an increased risk for skin cancer.
Taking vitamin A supplements with beta-carotene has been proven to increase the risk of lung cancer in study participants. In one study, the increased risk was a whopping 28 percent, which caused the researchers to actually end the study early.
Calcium supplements have not been proven to improve bone density. In fact, a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that participants taking a daily calcium supplement were more likely to suffer a hip fracture.
