collogen


Vitamin C can help you look younger and more beautiful. C encourages growth of the protein chains in collagen, which is the main ingredient in all fibrous tissue. Fibrous tissue is your bone matrix, cartilage, tooth dentin (right under the enamel), skin, tendons, ligaments, and all other connective tissue. Collagen is what keeps your cells bound together. You can't make collagen without vitamin C. Can you imagine what happens to your body if all your cells started drifting apart? (One of the symptoms of scurvy is loosening of teeth. Eeeeek!) Many beauty products advertise that their product will smooth fine lines and wrinkles because it contains collagen. You can do the same thing from the inside out, with longer lasting results, by insuring that you have enough vitamin C in your diet every day. It will keep your skin smoother and more lovely. Collagen strengthens and firms your whole body just because it is a main part of what keeps you tightly packed up.

Vitamin C also builds up natural body defenses. When a cell becomes infected by a virus it produces interferon, which inhibits the reproduction of other viruses. Interferon has to be activated by vitamin C before it can do its job. C helps your immune system in another way, too. It is hard for viruses, bacteria, and their harmful byproducts to get through a tight meshwork of protein, which is what collagen is. If the collagen is loose, the bacteria can get to underlying connective tissue and healthy cells much easier. When your immune system is stronger, you don't get sick as easily. Vitamin C also increases the number of lymphocytes that your body produces. Lymphocytes eat unhealthy cells, debris, bacteria, and viruses. One of these viruses in the common cold. Many studies have been done to see if vitamin C helps your body get over a cold. There is a lot of conflicting evidence, but none of this evidence is very strong in favor of or against vitamin C. Either way, a cold will go away in about a week, so don't stress too much about it.

When you get cut, collagen helps you heal. When you don't have enough vitamin C, you can't make as much collagen and you won't heal as quickly. This goes for both the outside and inside of your body. Collagen is involved in healing fractures, bruises, pinpoint hemorrhages, and just about any other healing that takes place in your body. It also makes all your tissues stronger so they won't be damaged as easily. (Do you see the far reaching effects of strong collagen on your health and appearance?)

Vitamin C has many functions other than the production and maintenance of collagen. It is vital in the oxidation of two amino acids: phenylalanine and tyrosine. Their oxidation ensures that your spinal cord and brain are working properly. Vitamin C helps your body absorb more iron and less copper. (Too much copper is very detrimental to your brain.) Vitamin C directs calcium to where it should go in the body and be used most effeciently. Vitamin C can help chronic back pain by strengthening the cartillage pads between your vertebrae. Ascorbic acid helps glands, and adrenal glands especially, to produce hormones. The adrenal glands secrete hormones to help you deal with stress. You're going to want to keep those glands working as well as possible. Your body cannot change the cholesterol in your body to bile unless vitamin C is present. Bile helps to break up fats in the body. When C is adequate in the diet, the collagen in blood vessels is strong and more resistant to cholesterol build-up. Vitamin C can attach to dangerous metals like cadmium and lead, and make them easily excreteable by the kidneys. C also reduces the likelihood of kidney stones.

You should eat 10 mg of vitamin C a day to prevent scurvy. For optiumum health you're going to want to eat 60 mg a day. Which isn't very hard. Over time, with 60 mg a day, you could go without a trace of vitamin C for 4 weeks, not get scurvy, and still have a little extra for safety. If you are pregnant you should eat 70 mg a day. If you are nursing, eat 95 mg the first 6 months and 90 mg the second 6 months. As you can see from the following table, you can get more than enough vitamin C from delicious natural foods.

Your Vitamin C dose:
How Much Should You
Take & How Often?

Dr. Gina Honeyman-Lowe
(January 23, 1999)


In 1970, Professor Linus Pauling’s book Vitamin C and the Common Cold was published. That year, the book was chosen for the Phi Beta Kappa Award as the best book on science. Those who were familiar with Professor Pauling weren’t surprised. Few scientists in history have received equal acknowledgments for extraordinary contributions to science and medicine. Pauling was the only person in this century to receive two unshared Nobel Prizes. One was for chemistry which he received for unraveling the mystery of the structure of proteins. The other was the Nobel Peace Prize. He is acknowledged as one of the most important scientists in history, on a par with Darwin, Newton, and Einstein. In fact, he was considered the Albert Einstein of chemistry. (Before Einstein died, he stated that Pauling was a genius.)

Despite his unique standing in the world of science, the political wing of the medical profession protested Pauling’s views. Their claim was that vitamin C is good for nothing but preventing the deficiency disease called scurvy. As Pauling pointed out, there was ample scientific evidence to show that there are scores of health benefits from regularly taking the vitamin in sufficient amounts. In the years since, scientific studies have completely vindicated Pauling’s views. It is now firmly established that vitamin C potently protects our health in many ways. Taking it in large amounts is critical for preventing a host of diseases. The diseases vitamin C may help prevent include the common cold, the flu, some mental illnesses, learning disabilities, metabolic diseases, cardiovascular disease, viral and bacterial infections, and cancer. In addition, its use hastens the healing of injuries, recovery from surgery, and the repair of damaged spinal discs. And those who take vitamin C have an longer life span on average than those who don’t.

How Much Vitamin C
Should We Take?

We should take more vitamin C than any other vitamin, and more than is provided by the usual amounts of fruit and vegetables in our diet. Most animals produce vitamin C in their bodies. Humans and a few other animals don’t produce the vitamin internally and must obtain it through food or in nutritional supplements. How much you should take depends on your objective. Many people, including doctors, mistakenly believe that health is assured by taking only the RDA. For adults, the RDA is 60 mg per day. The RDA is the amount that in the average person will prevent the deficiency disease scurvy, plus 50% more. However, the Food and Nutrition Board (that calculates the RDAs for nutrients) make something clear in their official publication: the RDA is not the amount that provides optimal health. Optimal health is provided only with substantially greater amounts than the RDA.

Professor Pauling and other researchers calculated the amount that is probably necessary for optimal health. Their calculations are based on the amounts that other animals produce in their bodies. The assumption is that the same rate of production is necessary for humans. Pauling’s conclusion was that the optimum daily intake is in the range of 2,300-to-10,000 mg per day. During stress, the requirement climbs to 8,500-to-20,000 mg per day.

Can We Get Enough
Vitamin C in a "Good" Diet?

Probably not. The U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare conducted a large study to determine vitamin intake. A third of the people studied got less than the RDA of 60 mg of vitamin C per day. Only 30% took in more than 100 mg, and only 17% took more than 150 mg. What is considered a "good" diet, including vegetables and orange or tomato juice, may provide only 100 mg per day. Cooking at high temperatures destroys about 50% of the vitamin C content of food, especially if copper or some other metals are present. Pauling advised, "The loss of the vitamin can be kept to a minimum by cooking for a short time, with a minimum amount of water and with the water not discarded, because it has extracted some of the vitamin from the food." Still, it’s unlikely that you can get enough vitamin C from your diet. Taking it as a nutritional supplement is the most practical way to get enough for optimal health.

A Precaution when Increasing
Your Vitamin C Intake

I want to emphasize that vitamin C, even in very large dosages, is not harmful. Nevertheless, if you haven’t taken vitamin C before, or if you’ve only taken a small amount each day, you should be cautious in increasing your dosage. If you suddenly increase your dosage by a large amount, you may experience some GI symptoms. The typical symptom is loose stools, but some people also experience flatulence. These symptoms last only for a few days, but you can avoid them altogether by increasing your dosage gradually. What works for most people is to increase the dosage by roughly 250 mg every three days until they reach the target dosage.

How Often Should
We Take Vitamin C?

It is best to take vitamin C several times each day. The reason for this is clearer if we consider what happens to the vitamin after we ingest it. First, it enters the intestines. Some isn’t absorbed into the body and is eliminated in the stool. But this portion isn’t wasted because it protects us from diseases such as rectal polyps. This is important because polyps can develop into malignant cancer. Most of the dose of vitamin C is absorbed through the mucous membranes of the mouth and small intestine. After entering the blood, a high percentage enters internal organs, and some is excreted in the urine. That "lost" through the urine actually protects us from diseases such as urinary infections and bladder cancer.

The larger the amount of vitamin C we take at one time, the less is absorbed into the blood, and the more is eliminated in the stool. If we take up to 250 mg at one time, about 80% is absorbed into the blood. But if we take 2,000 mg at one time, only 50% is absorbed. As I said, there are benefits to good quantities remaining in the intestine, but we should strive for a greater distribution to our internal organs. To better distribute the vitamin between your intestines, internal organs, and urine, it’s best to take smaller amounts several times each day. Professor Pauling recommended 1,000 mg every three hours or so. Certainly, it is wise to take your daily allotment of the vitamin in no fewer than three divided doses. If it is utterly impossible for you to do so, you should make your absolute minimum intake two widely separated times each day. Of course, if you take a sustained-release or timed-release vitamin C product, taking the supplement twice per day may be fine.

Where to Purchase High-Quality
Vitamin C at a Good Price

You may already take a brand of vitamin C that is a high quality product and that is economical. If not, I recommend that you purchase vitamin C from Bronson Pharmaceuticals. My husband, Dr. John C. Lowe, and I have used Bronson vitamin C products for years. (We have no business relationship with the company.) Bronson formulates some of its products based on proposals by Professor Pauling. The quality of Bronson products is the highest available. The company sells directly to the public through mail order. This way, they are able to keep their prices about as low as any company. Bronson's phone number is (800) 610-4848. Orders are taken through this number 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.

Reference & Recommended Reading

Linus Pauling, Ph.D.: How to Live Longer and Feel Better. New York, Avon Books, 1986.

Nutritional Supplements We Recommend

http://www.performingscience.com/resources.shtml

thymus (http://webhome.idirect.com/~wolfnowl/thyroid7.htm)

anti oxidant and more (http://www.garynull.com/Documents/vitaminc.htm)

Links and stuff (http://www.aeiveos.com/diet/vitamin_c/antiox/)

Address: Duke University Medical Center, Division of Dermatology, Durham, NC 27710.

Source: Br J Dermatol 1992 Sep;127(3):247-53

Abstract: Ultraviolet radiation damage to the skin is due, in part, to the generation of reactive oxygen species. Vitamin C (L-ascorbic acid) functions as a biological co-factor and antioxidant due to its reducing properties. Topical application of vitamin C has been shown to elevate significantly cutaneous levels of this vitamin in pigs, and this correlates with protection of the skin from UVB damage as measured by erythema and sunburn cell formation. This protection is biological and due to the reducing properties of the molecule. Further, we provide evidence that the vitamin C levels of the skin can be severely depleted after UV irradiation, which would lower this organ's innate protective mechanism as well as leaving it at risk of impaired healing after photoinduced damage. In addition, vitamin C protects porcine skin from UVA-mediated phototoxic reactions (PUVA) and therefore shows promise as a broad-spectrum photoprotectant

Title: The threshold of age in exercise and antioxidants action.
Author(s): Reznick AZ; Witt EH; Silbermann M; Packer L

Address: Department of Morphological Sciences, Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa.

Source: EXS 1992;62 (1):423-7

Abstract: Physical activity and exercise are important factors in determining the quality of life in old animals and humans. With age there is a slow but significant reduction in muscle mass and ability to perform certain physical activities. This may be due to changes with the age of muscle composition and protein turnover, as well as decrease of trophic influence in neural control of muscles of old individuals. Exercise in general was shown to improve muscle performance even in old age. However a concept of threshold of age in exercise was advanced forward in the 1970s. Accordingly, the idea was that for a given exercise of a particular duration and intensity there is a certain age beyond which this exercise may not have a positive influence, but can become detrimental to the exercising animal or human. Recent studies on the effect of antioxidants such as Vitamins C and E and selenium have shown that these agents could decrease the free radical associated muscle damage caused by extensive exercise. Thus, administration of these antioxidants especially vitamins C and E may reduce the oxidative damage due to exercise, and may alter the threshold of age by delaying it to an older age

Trying to Unlock the Mysteries of Free Radicals and Antioxidants
Stop Food Irradiation Project HOME

Author: Alison Mack
Date: September 30, 1996

"there is enough evidence to give good credence to the free radical theory of aging."

Free radicals: their history and current status in aging and disease.

Knight JA.

Department of Pathology, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City 84132, USA.

Oxygen toxicity was first described in laboratory animals in 1878 and was further established in 1899. The first experiment regarding a free radical reaction was reported in 1894. However, it was not until the late 1940s to early 1950s that retrolental fibroplasia in premature newborns was recognized as being due to oxygen toxicity and not until the late 1960s to early 1970s that newborn bronchopulmonary dysplasia and adult respiratory distress syndrome were appreciated by the medical community. Moreover, the presence of free radicals in biological systems was not generally considered likely until the discovery of superoxide dismutase in 1969, although in the 1950s the basis of oxygen toxicity and X-irradiation was proposed to be by a common free radical mechanism and the radical theory of aging was hypothesized. Oxyradicals are now widely accepted as being very important, not only in the aging process but also in numerous human diseases/disorders where they have either a primary or secondary role. Currently, there are extensive global basic research efforts to define more clearly the role of free radicals and oxidative stress in these conditions. Continuing clinical research will lead to more reliable treatment and preventive measures for many of them. In this review, a short history is presented and the current status of free radicals and oxidative stress in aging and various diseases is discussed.

WTF?