Dosage and Frequency: Two Roots of the Confusion
To experience a significant effect, you must take vitamin C at high doses and at regular intervals.
Why? Humans are one of the few mammals who do not produce vitamin C. It takes four enzymes to convert glucose to vitamin C. But, along the line somewhere, something went wrong with our DNA replication and we lost the instructions for the fourth enzyme. As a consequence, we can no longer make our own vitamin C.
In contrast, animals that make vitamin C on their own, make enormous amounts. Rats, for example, produce 70 mg/kg each day, which for an average human adult would work out to be 5-15 grams (5000 – 15000 mg) each day. (Yet the RDA is a mere 90 mg/day for adults.)
Vitamin C and Heart Disease
A couple large scale studies have been widely publicized as proof that vitamin C has no value in preventing heart disease. Yet one of these studies used doses of only 250 mg - well below the multi-gram doses recommended by most proponents of vitamin C therapy.
And the second study ignored that, while vitamin C did not seem to offer much dramatic help to people already at risk for heart disease, it lowered the risk for seemingly healthy people by an additional 28-41%.
In contrast, just this year, a Japanese study published in Artherosclerosis linked vitamin C to preventing heart disease. Researchers found that the higher the level of vitamin C in the blood, the lower the levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), the most reliable risk indicator when it comes to heart disease.
This adds to the number of animal studies and a few human studies showing that C can possibly help prevent arteriosclerosis. While vitamin C doesn't shrink well-established plaques significantly, it seems to stop plaque growth, stabilize existing plaques and shrink new plaques.
Vitamin C's outstanding antioxidant power helps keep blood vessels and cholesterol healthy, reducing plaque formation and inflammation.
But it also seems to bring further protection due to its key role in the production of the protein collagen, your body's most common protein. Plaques with more collagen are more stable, less likely to break off as a deadly clot.
More... http://www.jigsawhealth.com/resources/vitamin-c-controversy-promiseWhy Animals Don't Get Heart Attacks ... But People Do! (click for link to free "Heart Book")
"Animals don't get heart attacks because they produce vitamin C in their bodies, which protects their blood vessel walls. In humans, who are unable to produce vitamin C, dietary vitamin deficiency of this nutrient weakens the blood vessel walls. Car- diovascular disease is an early form of scurvy. Clinical studies document that the optimum daily intake of vitamins and other essential nutrients halts and reverses coronary heart disease naturally. These essential nutrients supply vital bioenergy to millions of heart and blood vessel cells, thereby optimizing cardiovascular function. An optimum supply of vitamins and other essential nutrients can prevent and help correct cardio- vascular conditions naturally. Heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, heart failure, circulatory problems in diabetes and other cardiovascular problems will be essentially unknown in future generations." Dr. Matthias Rath, M.D.
The Stanford Speech: Eradicating Heart Disease: http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/NHC/cardiovascular_disease/lectu...
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