Everyone has heard that vitamin C is good for the immune system, but it has so many more benefits than just helping fight off the sniffles.
Found in many of the foods we eat every day, vitamin C can help boost our memory, help our bodies absorb iron, and decrease chances of heart disease and high blood pressure.
The following is an exploration of vitamin C, from a general perspective.
If you find it intriguing and would like to know more, consider pursuing holistic nutritionist training.
If you, like many others, are finding dissatisfaction in your professional life and are considering changing careers, registered holistic nutrition may be an option.
There are many career opportunities for holistic nutritionists beyond private practice, but more on that later.
For now, let’s take a closer look at vitamin C.
What is vitamin C?
Vitamin C is an essential vitamin, which means we can’t produce it on our own.
Instead, we have to get it through diet.
Considered to be one of the safest and most effective nutrients in many ways, vitamin C is water soluble.
What this means is that your body doesn’t store it, and it constantly needs to be replenished.
Compare this with fat soluble vitamins like vitamin A or vitamin D, which are stored in your tissues for use later on.
You can get it through food, or as a separate supplement.
Benefits Of Vitamin C
Research about the many benefits of vitamin C is ongoing, but we know that it is necessary for continued health, and affects different systems of the body.
Some of the benefits of vitamin C are commonly known, and some may surprise you.
Let’s take a look.
1. It’s Good For Your Immune System
Vitamin C is essential to the proper functioning of your immune system, and can help boost immunity.
It helps in the production of white blood cells, which help protect your body against infection.
Vitamin C is an antioxidant, which protects against oxidative stress, and helps your white blood cells perform more effectively.
Necessary to the production of collagen, vitamin C helps strengthen your skin, which further protects against infection.
It can even help wounds heal faster.
2. It Helps You Absorb Iron Better
Vitamin C can help improve the absorption of iron, which decreases your risk of anemia.
Iron is used to make red blood cells, which carry oxygen from your lungs to the rest of your body.
Iron can come from meat or plant based food sources, but plant based sources are harder to absorb.
Vitamin C helps to convert it into a more absorbable form.
For vegetarians and vegans, it can be more difficult to get enough iron, but vitamin C can help to increase absorption and avoid iron deficiency.
3. It’s A Powerful Antioxidant
Antioxidants protect cells from free radicals, which are unstable molecules that can damage cells and cause disease.
By protecting cells against damage, antioxidants boost the immune system.
Vitamin C is one of many antioxidants that can help prevent damage by free radicals.
Oxidative stress is a state in which there is an imbalance of free radicals and antioxidants in the body, and has been linked to a number of different illnesses, including depression, dementia, memory loss, and some autoimmune conditions
Vitamin C increases antioxidant levels in your body, preventing oxidative stress, and helping reduce your risk of these and other illnesses.
Vitamin C isn’t the only antioxidant though – vitamin A, vitamin E, turmeric, selenium, manganese, glutathione, coenzyme Q10, and many others.
4. It Helps Manager Your Stress
Eating healthy can reduce your stress, and vitamin C makes that particularly obvious.
Maintaining levels of vitamin C can be a marker of overall health, as vitamin C is one nutrient that is sensitive to stress.
Vitamin C supplementation has an anti depression effect, and can improve mood.
On the other end of the spectrum, vitamin C deficiency is associated with stress related disorders as well.
Vitamin C can even help to reduce the physiological reaction to stress, which is beneficial to your overall health.
5. It Helps Manage High Blood Pressure
Vitamin C can help reduce high blood pressure, and it can also help prevent high blood pressure before it happens.
It does this by relaxing the blood vessels that carry blood from your heart, reducing blood pressure levels.
More research is needed to understand these effects, but so far it seems promising.
6. It Reduces Your Risk Of Heart Disease
Heart disease can be caused by multiple variables, including:
- High blood pressure
- High levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol
- High levels of triglycerides
- Low levels of HDL (good) cholesterol
- A sedentary lifestyle
- Poor diet
- And much more
Vitamin C can help to control some of these variables, and lower the risk of heart disease.
Multiple studies have found a correlation between a vitamin C rich diet and a decreased risk of heart disease.
More research is needed to better understand how this works, but like with the blood pressure point above, it shows a lot of promise.
Symptoms Of Vitamin C Deficiency
Vitamin C is essential to the production of collagen.
Without collagen, your body’s tissues begin to break down.
Vitamin C deficiency, also known as ‘scurvy,’ is characterized by symptoms such as exhaustion, limb pain, swelling, spontaneous bleeding, tooth loss, and anemia.
Scurvy got its name because long sea voyages made it difficult to get enough vitamin C, and is one of the common and deadly diseases all but eradicated through nutrition
Early symptoms can include irritability, lethargy, loss of appetite, weight loss, and fatigue.
If left untreated, scurvy can lead to neuropathy, fever, convulsions, jaundice, and death.
Dietary Sources Of Vitamin C
While you can get vitamin C through supplements, there are many natural food sources.
Most people know that oranges and other citrus fruits are a great source of vitamin C, but it’s also plentiful in:
- Strawberries
- Watermelon
- Mango
- Blueberries
- Raspberries
- Pineapple
- Goji berries
Vegetables can also be good sources of vitamin C.
These include:
- Brussels sprouts
- Tomatoes
- Green peppers
- Leafy greens
- Squash
- Sweet potatoes
Can you overdose on Vitamin C?
Vitamin C is water soluble, which means it breaks down in water and is not stored in the body.
If you do have excess vitamin C, you’ll eliminate it through your urine.
However, if you go overboard with vitamin C supplements, it can potentially begin to accumulate, and lead to overdose symptoms.
These include digestive trouble and kidney problems, including kidney stones.
It’s generally only a risk with supplementing though – it’s very difficult to overdose on vitamin C only through diet.
Contact The Edison Institute Of Nutrition Today
Vitamin C has so many amazing benefits, from supporting our immune system to helping to relieve stress.
Though one must be mindful of dosage, it is important to consume vitamin C every day.
Overall, vitamin C is safe, and effective, a powerhouse vitamin.
Did you find this article fascinating?
Are you interested in finding out more?
Have you seen yourself or someone you love fall ill, and want to find out how to help them recover?
If so, consider a career as a registered holistic nutritionist.
Established in 1996, The Edison Institute Of Nutrition has been offering best in class holistic nutritionist training to help you on your way to a new career.
The Edison Institute Of Nutrition also offers a number of holistic nutrition continuing education units.
Whether you’re a graduate of our school or another, or even if you’re another type of healthcare provider, we offer programs that can help you broaden your understanding of health.
These programs include:
• Introduction to muscle testing
• Live and dry blood cell microscopy training
• Metabolic balance training
• Holistic cancer coach certification program
• And much more
Contact the Edison Institute of Nutrition today to find out how you can get started with a new career as a holistic nutritionist.
