Vitamin C Deficiency

What you can do to avoid it

A vitamin C deficiency means you're not getting enough vitamin C from your diet.

Humans are one of the few animals that don't produce vitamin C on our own. It is believed that over thousands of years, humans have evolved and left the ability to produce it behind.

You can think of creating vitamin C as a 4 part process and we're missing the last piece. Some scientists believe that because vitamin C is found in our diet, over the years of evolution we lost the last step in creating it ourselves.

Dr. Linus Pauling who was the major spokesman for vitamin C believed that the inability to produce vitamin C by ourselves is one of the great flaws of the human race.

This is why a deficiency in this particular vitamin can be a problem for some people. This is again why our diets are so important.

These days a vitamin C deficiency will probably not lead to scurvy. Scurvy is the popular disease associated with a lack of vitamin C. But it occurs with a very serious deficiency.

The average person will probably only exhibit a mild deficiency. This can lead to:

Weakness
Fatigue
Delayed healing

If you're constantly getting colds and bronchial infections, or you experience poor digestion, these can be due to a deficiency in vitamin C.

Other clues that you have a deficiency may be the feeling of always being exhausted. If you're always tired for no reason, it may be because of low levels of vitamin C. Also joint pain and an inability to heal wounds might also be signs.

Things you can do to prevent a vitamin C deficiency:

The easiest way to steer clear of a deficiency would be to examine your diet. Are you getting enough vitamin C from your diet? If not, read this article on vitamin C foods.

Another option is supplementation. I mentioned Dr. Linus Pauling above.

He has won multiple Nobel Prizes and is one of the most important scientists of the 20th century. He was the world's primary vitamin C enthusiast.

One of the benefits of eating vitamin C foods and supplementing vitamin C that Dr. Pauling was a big advocate about was the role it played in creating collagen. Collagen is the main protein of connective tissues. This helps your body repair.

According to Dr. Pauling, you should be getting the amount of vitamin C that animals produce themselves.

That's about 10 to 12 grams per day.

Dr. Pauling himself had increased his dosage to 18 grams per day. If you decide to increase your vitamin C dosage, don't do it all in one day. Increase it over a period of time to avoid any type of vitamin C overdose.

Product Recommendation:

If you want to steer clear of any vitamin C deficiencies, get yourself a quality vitamin C supplement. Source Naturals Ascorbic Acid Crystals is a recommended vitamin c supplement.