An adequately maintained diet is undoubtedly your primary tool to stay healthy. A balanced diet means that your daily food consumption contains the right amounts of calories, protein, fat, vitamins, and other nutrients that your body needs. However, vitamin C appears as one of the most crucial and safe nutrients.
In this article, we’ll discuss the requirement of vitamin C in our body and how to consume it safely. If you’re looking for a healthier lifestyle, take a moment to plan and supplement your diet safely.
Vitamin C Supplements – A Brief Idea
Vitamin C is water-soluble and an essential nutrient, which means that our bodies have no tool to produce it ourselves. Therefore, we must consume vitamin C via food sources or by having dietary supplements rich in vitamin C. Several edible resources are rich in vitamin c, like oranges, broccoli, bell pepper, spinach, strawberry, and kale.
However, if you fail to manage edible sources to meet your daily vitamin C requirement, there’s an alternative; vitamin C supplements. These supplements come in the form of capsules, pills, or powder and contain a high amount of vitamin C.
Research reveals that a healthy adult needs 500mg of vitamin C daily. It is quite an amount, and you need many fruits and vegetables to fulfill the requirement. Thus, a lot of people resort to vitamin C supplements to meet the need.
Why do we need it?
Vitamin C or Ascorbic acid plays a crucial role in keeping our body functions intact and uninterrupted. From growth to bone development, absorption, and repair mechanisms, vitamin C is involved in many of our body’s functions. Hence, it is necessary to add vitamin C supplements to the diet if you are not intaking a sufficient amount organically.
Immunity Enhancement
Vitamin C supplements help produce white blood cells like phagocytes and lymphocytes that are directly responsible for natural immunity. It also supports the immunity and repair processes of the skin.
Blood Pressure Management
Studies reveal that vitamin C supplements help to stabilize high blood pressure. In a healthy adult, vitamin C supplement reduces systolic pressure by 3.8 units and diastolic pressure by 1.5 units.
Heart Diseases Management
People who consumed 700mg of vitamin C supplements daily have lowered the possibility of heart attacks by 25%. It has also proven effective in lowering cholesterol, triglyceride, and blood pressure.
Uric Acid Management
Vitamin C supplements have significantly lowered the risk of arthritis and joint inflammation by managing uric acid levels in the blood.
Iron Absorption
Vitamin C supplements convert the iron from plant sources into a readily absorbable form that helps prevent anemia.
Antioxidant Property
Vitamin C has antioxidant properties that help the body fight free radicals, toxic chemicals and reduce the signs of aging. Moreover, these supplements help to achieve good memory and fight dementia.
Why You Should Limit the Vitamin C Supplement Consumption
However, it is crucial to understand the limit of consuming vitamin C supplements. Supplements fulfill the daily requirement of essential Vitamin C, but we often forget to draw the line. Excessive intake of vitamin C supplements has potential side effects and risk factors.
- Since vitamin C is water-soluble, the extra supplement that the body doesn’t need dissolves in urine. Now excessive vitamin C in urine can lead to the formation of kidney stones.
- Vitamin C supplement consumption of more than 2000mg can lead to digestive issues like diarrhea, nausea, etc.
- Vitamin C supplements can lead to excessive deposition of iron in the blood and cause hemochromatosis and damage to the liver.
- Other adverse effects include heartburn, upset stomach, headache, pancreatic diseases, etc.
Liposomal Vitamin C Over Oral Consumption
However, studies showed that the cell only absorbs 12-14% of your daily intake of oral vitamin C supplements. Moreover, intravenous absorption of vitamin C lowers oxidative stress and appears more effective than oral intake.
The liposomal pathway appears like a safer, faster, and more effective way to consume vitamin C. Liposome is a small bubble-like element with lipid bi-layered covering just like a cell membrane. Here the vitamin C supplement enters the cell directly with the protective covering of the liposome. Hence, liposomal vitamin C can avoid the complicated digestive pathway, and the cell can use most of the consumed supplement.
In this terrible time of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s our primary need to build up a healthy immunity to survive the grave situation. Hence, it would help if you considered consuming vitamin C supplements daily and safely.
