Solgar Vitamin C Supplement
What is Vitamin C?
Vitamin C plays a lot of important roles in maintaining health. It protects the body against the effects of stress, helps to prevent heart disease, improves skin, joint, cartilage and blood vessel health and plays a part in the cellular chemistry that provides us with usable energy. It also improves the absorption rate of other nutrients in the body, is a powerful antioxidant, is necessary for sperm production, helps to thin your blood and bolsters your immune system.
How much do I need?
The recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C for adults, according to the World Health Organization, is 45 milligrams per day, but different North American and European governments recommend dosages ranging from 60 milligrams to 95 milligrams a day. The rate of absorption differs from person to person, so it's difficult to know exactly how much the general public should consume in order to stay healthy. Fortunately vitamin C is present in most fresh and processed foods, making it difficult to become deficient. Additionally, vitamin C is water soluble, meaning that your body easily excretes excess in your urine which makes it nearly impossible to consume it in toxic amounts.
Where can I find it?
Vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, is found naturally in many plants and animals; it exists, however, in overwhelmingly higher quantities in plants. Vitamin C occurs in its highest natural concentration in the Kakadu Plum, a small greenish fruit native to Australia, but it's much easier to get your Vitamin C from sources that are more readily available. Many nutritionists consider any serving of food that contains 10% to 25% of your daily recommended dosage as a good source of Vitamin C. The definition of a serving size depends on who you ask, but as a rule of thumb it's safe to assume that a single apple or orange sized fruit, a slice of something much bigger like a melon, or a handful of something smaller like berries constitutes a single serving. In that case, oranges, lemons, strawberries, kiwifruits, raspberries, and even some less likely suspects like garlic, cabbage and spinach all have enough vitamin C to be considered good dietary sources. A single orange contains about 70 milligrams of vitamin C, which, according to the World Health Organization, is more than enough for one day.
How will I know if I'm not getting enough?
The symptoms of vitamin C deficiency include fatigue, nausea, dry hair and skin, muscle and joint pain, and swollen, bleeding gums. Vitamin C deficiency is also known as scurvy, and is one of the oldest documented human ailments. Scurvy used to be fairly common among sailors, soldiers and explorers because of their limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Many cultures from around the world have used local remedies to cure scurvy since ancient times, but scientific proof that scurvy is treatable with certain fresh fruits was not obtained until the eighteenth century. Fortunately, scurvy is incredibly rare nowadays; almost all fresh foods contain enough vitamin C to sustain human health, and most modern processed foods are fortified with vitamin C to prevent deficiency.
