Why doctors are advising 1000 mg of Vitamin C when your body needs only 40 mg

With the rise in recovery rate of patients from corona virus, the line of treatment what most of doctors have followed included Vitamin C. Among other drugs used for treatment, Vitamin C supplement is commonly used and its benefits are highly accepted by doctors. Therefore, as an advisory by most of doctors to all individuals is to include 1000 mg of Vitamin C on daily basis. Not only it fights with infections, bacteria, foreign substances as an antioxidant but also helps collagen synthesis, wound healing, helps keeping our skin, bone and gum healthy.

RDA recommends that humans require only 40 mg of Vitamin C daily, for all the functions to run smoothly. However doctors are advising approx. X200 more of Vitamin C than what RDA has prescribed.

Why doctors are advising such a high amount of vitamin C? The reasons are as follows:

1. Corona is highly infectious; to fight it off our body needs good supply of vitamins to make antioxidants.

2. Vitamin C is highly destructible; it can easily get oxidized by air, water and heat. Considering all these losses, higher amount if taken may finally give you some remaining amount for body to absorb.

Don’t rely on Amway or Nature’s Bounty or any other brands available on chemist or online shops for Vitamin C instead manage 1000 mg through diet. Eating diet rich in Vitamin C would help you to save on your pocket and also give you other essential nutrient from diet. For e.g. if you take guava fruit to meet your vitamin C requirement, guava will also give you soluble fibers which keeps your gut healthy.

On the other hand purchasing supplements are most of the times will cost you on pocket, produced with chemicals and will only give you selected nutrient.

For body excess amount of any nutrient is unmanageable, so to manage loaded vitamin that you get from 1 supplement of 1000 mg or 500 mg, body will throw most of it via urine and feces. Whereas, if you eat fruit or vegetable to meet Vitamin C, it will be easily manageable for body, as eating 2-3 fruit or vegetable will not give you high amount of vitamin C as supplement gives. In this case, you can manage intake of vitamin C rich fruits and vegetables throughout the day, will fulfill your requirement of 1000 mg a day + other health benefits.

Health benefits are:

1.       Makes your bone healthy

2.       Makes your skin brighter and clear

3.       Keeps your GUT healthy

4.       Helps you burn fat through Carnitine synthesis

5.       Helps in activation of hormones of growth hormone, sex hormones and bone formation hormone

6.       Keeps your hemoglobin level normal

Rich Sources of Vitamin C

 Amla is exceptional fruit which has highest 600 mg of vitamin C in 100 gm of amla. However, 100 mg cannot be consumed at one time. Other sources are bitter gourd (96 mg), orange juice (30 mg) and tomatoes (27 mg) in 100 gm of fruit and veg each.

Of all vitamins, Vitamin C is the most susceptible to destruction by oxidation. Oxidation is a process where vitamins or other nutrients get finished after it comes in contact with oxygen. When you cut a fruit, vitamin present in it gets mixes with oxygen present in air and certain chemical reaction occurs for e.g. after some time, pieces of an apple gets red covering; when you refrigerate immediately after cutting, you will not find any changes as atmospheric oxygen has not come in contact with it.

When vegetables become dry and stale or cut and exposed to air most of the vitamin C originally present in it is destroyed due to Oxidation.

Heating or drying of fresh fruits or vegetables usually lead to destruction of most of vitamin C. Amla is an exception among fruits.

How to prevent vitamin C from destruction?

1.       Harvesting at the peak of maturity

2.       Limiting exposure to sunlight and air

3.       Avoiding soaking food in water

4.       Storing in a cool, moist place

5.       Cooking food in the minimal amount of water

6.       Cooking the food in pieces as large as possible

7.       Eating fruits immediately after cutting

8.       Avoiding making juices or macerating

9.       Eating vegetable preparation immediately after cooking

1.   Whenever possible, fresh raw fruits and vegetables should be used for obtaining enough Vitamin C.