Vitamin CVitamin C, or ascorbic acid, is a water-soluble vitamin critical for maintaining optimal health in many different life functions. Nobel prize winner Linus Pauling argued that vitamin C was a macronutrient, not just a vitamin. This substance is a critical amine for all plants and animals, and most plants and animals create it themselves. Humans, apes, and guinea pigs are among the few living things that do not produce it themselves. Pauling also thought that vitamin C should be administered to those who do not produce it in proportions similar to that produced by other living things, which would be a massive dose.
Chemically, vitamin C is a weak acid. The ascorbate ion is the biologically critical portion of vitamin C. Its functions in the body are many and varied and include:
- Production of collagen and connective tissues
- Synthesis of dopamine, noradrenaline, and adrenaline
- Synthesis of carnitine, a critical part of mitochondrial energy transfer
Some human tissues and organs build up much higher levels of vitamin C than the rest of the body holds: the adrenal glands, retina, pituitary gland, brain, spleen, lung, liver, thyroid, kidney, leukocytes, and many others have concentrations from ten to over a hundred times the level in plasma. In addition, vitamin C is an antioxidant.
Deficiency in vitamin C can cause a variety of diseases such as acute scurvy (which is marked by loose teeth, easy bruising, fragile blood vessels, anemia, and eventually death through massive internal hemorrhage).
Government-recommended levels of vitamin C are much less than those proponents of vitamin C say are really necessary for optimal health. Vitamin C is less toxic to the human body than water; sick people have been known to take as much as a pound a day before showing any signs of toxicity. In addition, tolerance to vitamin C is proportionate to how sick you are, suggesting that the immune system uses it in ways we don’t really understand.
Web Resources On Vitamin C
How Stuff Works: Vitamin C
MedLinePlus: Vitamin C
Book Resources On Vitamin CAscorbate: The Science of Vitamin C by Hickey & Roberts
Vitamin C in Health and Disease by T. K. Basu et al.
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