Vitamin C is the best-known vitamin and the most commonly ingested supplement. Even if your customers don't take a C tablet or capsule, they'll invariably encounter foods, beverages and even candy with added C throughout their day. Why do we need to worry about C - don't we get enough? And why write a column about it- isn't C old news?
Of course the answers are NO! I cannot emphasize enough the damage done to society by the simple lack of vitamin C. In a flash we could cut medical expenditures in half by having every adult take 1-2 g per day and every child 500 mg daily. Why suffer fatigue, aches, pains, hay fever, asthma, colds, flu, pneumonia and bronchitis when you can eliminate or reduce the severity of these conditions with a single supplement? Colds are not an inevitable part of back-to-school and colder wheather!
First, you must erase the notion that vitamin C has a single, fixed Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for everybody, everyday. This is surely the most misleading, incorrect notion in modern nutrition. For example, everybody with asthma, allergies or frequent upper respiratory infections can be helped by vitamin C - even if they ignore every other issue that could be affecting their disease - but not at the - 60 mg doses in a multivitamin. Doses for adult and children's asthma control start at 1,000 mg per day, and they may exceed 10 g/d (1-3).
Further, doses vary greatly based on the individual and his/her age, health, lifestyle and environment.
