Where Does Ray Stand On The "Ascorbic Acid Is Not Vitamin C" Claim?

[montmorency]

Where does Ray stand on the "Ascorbic acid is not Vitamin C" claim?

Now, I know that Ray Peat thinks that (at least modern) vitamin C supplements carry the risk of carrying contaminants and at least for that reason, he's not a fan of vitamin supplementation. (Not sure if he, or someone, said that possibly synthetic vitamin C in Linus Pauling's day was less likely to be contaminated, or maybe that's just my speculation).

Leaving the contamination issue to one side, there is a more fundamental issue that a lot of people seem to be saying that plain ascorbic acid is not the "real vitamin C". See here for example:

http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/vitaminc ... -vitamin-c

And furthermore, I've seen mentions of reports about bad effects from long-term high dose supplementation with synthetic ascorbic acid. (I haven't checked these out for myself though, or tried to establish whether there are many other studies to the contrary). Pauling himself lived to 93, but then did die of cancer. There again, we all have to die of something. To me personally, he's the best argument in favour of supplementing (if only we could avoid contamination).

Anyway, Pauling himself was adamant that ascorbic acid was vitamin C and vitamin C was ascorbic acid.

Here is a counter to the first article:

http://vitamincfoundation.org/NaturalC.pdf


Before I read the first article, I had just accepted what I read in one of Pauling's books about ascorbic acid being vitamin C. While I wasn't (so far) convinced by the first article, I did find what it said about Dr. Albert Szent-Georgi gave me pause for thought, and I'd like to find out more, perhaps from a less biased source than that particular article. After all, you can't just ignore the actual discoverer of vitamin C.

I was also rather disturbed to read of what happened to Dr. Royal Lee, a pioneer in so called whole food vitamins. (I'd really like to know what Pauling might have thought of his ideas - not sure if he would have been aware of them).


Anyway, I got to wondering about what Ray thought about this whole subject.
Does anyone happen to know? Has he ever discussed this aspect of vitamin C?

 

[XPlus]

There was a KMUD interview where he discussed this a little thoroughly.
As I recall, he didn't exactly deny that asorbic acid is vitamin c but he thinks the vitamin c in it's natural form in food is different.
Also, he thinks that our dietary intake of it is generally sufficient. That's probably why he doesn't recommend supplementation.
Actually he warns against eating vitamin c rich foods along with iron rich foods to avoid iron overload.

 

[montmorency]

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/96658/ There was a KMUD interview where he discussed this a little thoroughly.
As I recall, he didn't exactly deny that asorbic acid is vitamin c but he thinks the vitamin c in it's natural form in food is different.
Also, he thinks that our dietary intake of it is generally sufficient. That's probably why he doesn't recommend supplementation.
Actually he warns against eating vitamin c rich foods along with iron rich foods to avoid iron overload.

OK, thanks @XPlus.

I note that some of the people (I don't mean on this forum) who fairly stridently proclaim the idea that ascorbic acid is not vitamin C are often quick to recommend brands of so-called natural supplement forms of it, or whole food supplements, which are inevitably pricey compared to plain ascorbic acid. Makes one wonder.


Would be happy to heaqr from anyone else who can add to this debate, especially if they can give pointers to anything else Ray may have said on the subject.

Thank you.

 

[Giraffe]

Ray Peat considers dehydroascorbic acid (found in meat) as one form of vitamin C. In the radio interview "Antioxidants" he mentions, that dehydroascorbic acid is not measured and therefore not listed as vitamin C in food databases.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... ntioxidant

Not sure I understand your original question. Most vitamins come as different substances, don't they? ... Some of us supplement mixed tocopherols.

 

[montmorency]

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/96762/ Ray Peat considers dehydroascorbic acid (found in meat) as one form of vitamin C. In the radio interview "Antioxidants" he mentions, that dehydroascorbic acid is not measured and therefore not listed as vitamin C in food databases.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... ntioxidant

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/96762/ Ray Peat considers dehydroascorbic acid (found in meat) as one form of vitamin C. In the radio interview "Antioxidants" he mentions, that dehydroascorbic acid is not measured and therefore not listed as vitamin C in food databases.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... ntioxidant

Not sure I understand your original question. Most vitamins come as different substances, don't they? ... Some of us supplement mixed tocopherols.

Well, I would hope that reading the links I posted would make my question clear, but I will try to summarise:

I'd imagine that many and perhaps most people who supplement with conventional synthetic "vitamin C", which is ascorbic acid (or an ascorbate), believe that they are getting the same vitamin C that they would get out of e.g. oranges. Linus Pauling seemed to think this was the case. He said that while it was good to eat natural foods and get vitamins that way, in the case of vitamin C he thought it was impossible to get as much as he thought we needed, and therefore supplementation (with ascorbic acid) was the only answer. If it's true that "vitamin C" in the form of synthesised ascorbic acid really is as good as anything you can get from food, then (if you could guarantee it was contaminant-free), then supplementing high-dose vitamin C Pauling-style might be a good idea. So that is the $64,000 question:

Is "vitamin C" in the form of synthesised ascorbic acid really is as good as anything you can get from food?

.
.
I knew that meat was supposed to contain small amounts of vitamin C (at least when raw), but I had not heard of dehydroascorbic acid, so thanks for the information and link. (I will listen to the interview a little later).

Not sure I understand your original question. Most vitamins come as different substances, don't they? ... Some of us supplement mixed tocopherols.

Well, again, in the case of vitamin C, that's the $64,000 question: is vitamin C simply ascorbic acid (or one of its mineral salts), or is it really a "complex" of different substances?

 

[Giraffe]

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/96857/ Well, again, in the case of vitamin C, that's the $64,000 question: is vitamin C simply ascorbic acid (or one of its mineral salts), or is it really a "complex" of different substances?

Hi Montmorency, I think Ray Peat has not often discussed vitamin C, and the radio interview gives you a good picture of where stands: When you are overloaded with iron, ascorbic acid is potentially harmful. Dehydroascorbic acid is protective. You get a lot of dehydroascorbic acid from meat.

I assume you have read this thread: http://raypeatforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4591 .

 

[pboy]

its a complex, but I think the main bulk of it is ascorbic acid in terms of inter cellular effects....basically its ascorbic acid with copper in the middle, and some flavanols potentially in there. No one really knows for sure how it works, but studies have shown that ascorbic acid alone didn't cure scurvy, yet when the guy fed the animals bell peppers or something it did, so its quite clear that ascorbic acid alone doesn't do the job. Peat is afraid that ascorbic acid supplements are made from yeast fermented corn and will not be a pure product. He also thinks most food has dehydroascorbic acid even if its heated, which the body quickly reduces if it needs to so getting in in that form doesn't matter either. Ive read some stuff about how even that form of ascorbic acid can get degraded with too much oxygen exposure, time, ect...so theres no real telling how much you're getting in food unless you measure it...probably the fresher it is, and more well kept, the more it'll have

ive read up on this quite a bit and theres no definitive answer, at least that I can find, but its pretty clear that ascorbic alone doesn't cure scurvy, but that doesn't mean its still not the main portion of working in the electric chain of cells. The other components of the 'complex' are copper and various flavanols like rutin and hesperidin, but again...no one has come to a definitive conclusion about which flavanols fit in and if they are actually necessary or not. I think Pauling recommending massive ascorbic acid supplements was just like, the first supplement business of all time, and was just that, a business. Its absurd to take the amount he recommended...even getting more than like 1000mg will cause diaareah, studies show that the body is fairly well saturated at like 800ish mg, and that's if the person is pretty deplete to begin with...based on how the body just excretes anything that's taken in after that point rather than utilize it

 

[tara]

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/96889/ Peat is afraid that ascorbic acid supplements are made from yeast fermented corn and will not be a pure product.

What I've read from Peat is that lead is involved in modern cheap production methods, and there is almost inevitably some contamination (before this vit-C was very expensive to produce).

Not from Peat, but if I've understood Reams (RBTI) right, he said it depended on the numbers - specifically UpH (and maybe SpH). He said that for people who were running alkaline, ascorbic acid supplementation was useful - they could use the ascorbic acid for its role in cell/tissue maintenance repair and it would help push their system to a lower pH (desirable if they were too alkaline to start with). But for people who were running too acid, they would not be able to retain or use ascorbic acid and supplementing it would have the undesirable effect of making their systems more acid. He considered some form of vit-C to be essential for maintenance and repair, and for low pH situations, he recommended stewed onions. I have no idea what form or how much vit-C or analogs would be in stewed onion. He would sometimes prescribe more alkalinising supplements just so he could also prescribe ascorbic acid.

Many years ago I once hit bowel tolerance of ascorbic acid - I think it was up around 6-8 grams. I'm sure this varies depending on ones state. Reams also said that people with too low pH tended to diarrhea, while people with too high pH tended to slowed movement. I've not tracked this for myself.

 

[montmorency]

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/96904/

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/96889/ Peat is afraid that ascorbic acid supplements are made from yeast fermented corn and will not be a pure product.

What I've read from Peat is that lead is involved in modern cheap production methods, and there is almost inevitably some contamination (before this vit-C was very expensive to produce).

Not from Peat, but if I've understood Reams (RBTI) right, he said it depended on the numbers - specifically UpH (and maybe SpH). He said that for people who were running alkaline, ascorbic acid supplementation was useful - they could use the ascorbic acid for its role in cell/tissue maintenance repair and it would help push their system to a lower pH (desirable if they were too alkaline to start with). But for people who were running too acid, they would not be able to retain or use ascorbic acid and supplementing it would have the undesirable effect of making their systems more acid. He considered some form of vit-C to be essential for maintenance and repair, and for low pH situations, he recommended stewed onions. I have no idea what form or how much vit-C or analogs would be in stewed onion. He would sometimes prescribe more alkalinising supplements just so he could also prescribe ascorbic acid.

Many years ago I once hit bowel tolerance of ascorbic acid - I think it was up around 6-8 grams. I'm sure this varies depending on ones state. Reams also said that people with too low pH tended to diarrhea, while people with too high pH tended to slowed movement. I've not tracked this for myself.

Thanks @tara. On the acid/alkali thing, Linus Pauling actually has a good answer to this, in his book How to Live Longer and Feel Better . Those who need to keep the urine alkali (e.g those with a tendency to form certain kinds of kidney stones) can take sodium ascorbate or calcium ascorbate. Pauling identifies the ascorbate ion as being the active principle, and ascorbic acid is converted to sodium ascorbate in the body before any vitamin action. He also says that ascorbic acid can be easily converted to dehydroascorbic acid in the body, and that this is reversible.

Thanks to everybody else who responded. I actually emailed Ray Peat to ask if he has a view. He has now been kind enough to reply. I will post this tomorrow, as I've been out all day and am a little tired, and would rather do it when fresh. I've also received a lab analysis of some ascorbic acid powder from a UK company which imports it from China. I'll post that as well.

Those who talked about dehydroascorbic acid are basically on the money as far as Ray's view is concerned. (I also listened to that interview @Giraffe - thanks ).


@pboy: I think you are being a little unfair to Pauling. I'm not aware he had any financial interest in promoting ascorbic acid / vitamin C. Also, he had good reasons for recommending the doses he did. I think he would also argue your point about saturation. Also, there were others who promoted and used large doses, e.g. Dr Robert F. Cathcart. Also, when really big doses are needed, for very serious illnesses, this would always be done intravenously (using sodium ascorbate - ascorbic acid would damage the veins). When lesser, but still large, doses are required orally, these are supposed to be divided over the day, and a dose just short of bowel tolerance is used (this varies from person to person). I think Pauling says Cathcart thought ascorbic acid was only effective in treating a viral illness when using the bowel tolerance method; and also that the bowel tolerance limit goes up in the course of a viral illness. To put it another way, discovering the bowel tolerance (which has to be done by trial and error) is a way of finding out the right dose for that particular person for that particular condition at that particular time - i.e. it's a dynamic thing.

 

[forterpride]

Does anybody think that eating liver every week is enough to meet our vitamin c needs? I honestly don't like OJ and basically subsist off of just cafe con leche and 1 oz of liver every other day. I remember reading somewhere that liver has vitamin c but it's just not labeled right.

 

[montmorency]

Here is Ray Peat's reply. I will wait to give people a chance to read this before adding any comment of my own:

I found that many people are highly allergic to commercial ascorbic acid, reacting intensely to as little as a milligram or two, while they have no reaction to natural foods containing large amounts of ascorbate. When I hadn’t been taking vitamin C supplements for a few months, I analyzed my uring and found that it contained about 1000 milligrams per day. I found that much of the vitamin C in food, for example in meat, is in the form of dehydroascorbate, which isn’t visible to the standard analytic methods that depend on the reducing power of the vitamin. As muscle metabolizes, some of the dehydroascorbate that it contains is reduced to ascorbic acid, and some of that is lost in the urine. When I stopped eating grains, beans, and nuts, the amount of vitamin C in my urine increased considerably. Properly analyzed, a good human daily diet contains 3000 to 4000 mg of vitamin C. Linus Pauling was unaware of the importance of the dehydro- form of the vitamin in food, and he denied that the commercial ascorbic acid could be allergenic. A free radical chemist found that reagent grade ascorbic acid contained enough heavy metals, including iron, to catalyze the formation of an extremely high concentration of free radicals when it’s dissolved in distilled water. Traces of oxidation products, such as those formed when a solution of glucose is heat sterilized, probably account for the allergic reactions. Szent-Gyorgyi recognized the identity of vitamin C as ascorbic acid, though the first names he proposed for it were ignose and godnose.


Photochem Photobiol 1987 Aug;46(2):161-4
ESR detection of endogenous ascorbate free radical in mouse skin: enhancement of
radical production during UV irradiation following application of
chlorpromazine.
Buettner GR, Motten AG, Hall RD, Chignell CF.

Radiat Res 1996 May;145(5):532-41. Catalytic metals, ascorbate and free radicals: combinations to avoid. Buettner GR, Jurkiewicz BA. ESR Facility and Radiation Research Laboratory, University of Iowa, Iowa City, 52242-1101, USA. Trace levels of transition metals can participate in the metal-catalyzed Haber-Weiss reaction (superoxide-driven Fenton reaction) as well as catalyze the oxidation of ascorbate. Generally ascorbate is thought of as an excellent reducing agent; it is able to serve as a donor antioxidant in free radical-mediated oxidation processes. However, as a reducing agent it is also able to reduce redox-active metals such as copper and iron, thereby increasing the pro-oxidant chemistry of these metals. Thus ascorbate can serve as both a pro-oxidant and an antioxidant. In general, at low ascorbate concentrations, ascorbate is prone to be a pro-oxidant, and at high concentrations, it will tend to be an antioxidant. Hence there is a crossover effect. We propose that the "position" of this crossover effect is a function of the catalytic metal concentration. In this presentation, we discuss: (1) the role of catalytic metals in free radical-mediated oxidations; (2) ascorbate as both a pro-oxidant and an antioxidant; (3) catalytic metal catalysis of ascorbate oxidation; (4) use of ascorbate to determine adventitious catalytic metal concentrations; (5) use of ascorbate radical as a marker of oxidative stress; and (6) use of ascorbate and iron as free radical pro-oxidants in photodynamic therapy of cancer.

Biochem Mol Med 1995 Feb;54(1):1-11. Proposed role for a combination of citric acid and ascorbic acid in the production of dietary iron overload: a fundamental cause of disease. Crawford RD. "This paper presents a review of the significant body of literature liking dietary iron overload, not only to heart disease, but also to cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, arthritis, and possibly other disorders."
Photochem Photobiol 1988 May;47(5):635-45
Porphyrin-sensitized photoreactions in the presence of ascorbate: oxidation of
cell membrane lipids and hydroxyl radical traps.
Bachowski GJ, Morehouse KM, Girotti AW.

Free Radic Biol Med 1988;5(1):3-6
Light-stimulated formation of hydrogen peroxide and hydroxyl radical in the
presence of uroporphyrin and ascorbate.
Bachowski GJ, Girotti AW.
Department of Biochemistry, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee 53226.
Blue light irradiation of 2-deoxyribose (DOR) in the presence of uroporphyrin I
(UP), ascorbate (AH-), trace iron, and phosphate buffer resulted in a strong
stimulation of hydroxyl radical (OH.)-dependent oxidation of DOR.
Photostimulated generation of H2O2 was monitored after removal of residual AH-
(i) by ascorbate oxidase treatment, or (ii) by anion exchange on mini-columns of
DEAE-Sephadex. Irradiation of the above mixture produced a strong burst of H2O2
which was intensified by desferrioxamine and suppressed by catalase or EDTA. The
mechanism suggested by these observations is one in which photoreduction of UP
to the radical anion initiates the formation of H2O2, which gives rise to OH.
via Fenton chemistry. This is the first known investigation of H2O2 fluxes in a
Type I (free radical) photoreaction involving AH- as the electron donor.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1985 Nov;82(21):7193-6
The role of ascorbic acid in senile cataract.
Bensch KG, Fleming JE, Lohmann W.
The reductone ascorbic acid, present in the crystalline lens in concentrations
higher than those of glucose, is capable of undergoing nonenzymatic "browning"
in the presence of lenticular proteins. We studied the nonenzymatic browning
with ascorbate in model systems employing bovine serum albumin and lens
crystallins. When bovine serum albumin, alpha-crystallin, or gamma-crystallin
was incubated with [14C]ascorbic acid, the formation of yellow and then brown
condensation products appeared to correlate with increasing protein-associated
radioactivity. The fluorescence spectrum of these products was similar to that
of homogenates of human cataractous lenses. We suggest that the nonenzymatic
reaction of lens crystallins with ascorbic acid may contribute, at least in
part, to the color changes of aging lenses and to the physical lenticular
deterioration leading to senile cataract. High dietary intake of ascorbic acid
did not affect the fluorescence spectrum of murine lenses; thus, we assume that
the speed and extent of the lenticular browning reactions must depend on a
deterioration of other factors of the multicomponent antioxidant system of the
eye.

Int J Radiat Biol Relat Stud Phys Chem Med 1981 Jul;40(1):47-61
A study of the peroxidation of fatty acid micelles promoted by ionizing
radiation, hydrogen peroxide and ascorbate.
Yau TM, Mencl J.
The kinetics of peroxidation of fatty acid micelles promoted by ionizing
radiation, hydrogen peroxide and ascorbate were compared. At the dose-rate range
of ionizing radiation studied, the higher the dose-rate, the greater the total
dose required to produce the same effect. With ascorbate, the rate of lipid
peroxidation was dependent on the concentration of the promoter only up to 1 X
10(-4) M, beyond which a decreasing rate of peroxidation induction was observed.
Higher concentration of ascorbate also suppressed the promoting effect of
ionizing radiation. Formate, a hydroxyl radical scavenger, inhibited the
peroxidation process promoted by these three agents. Caesium was found to be
slightly inhibitory. EDTA and deoxycholate were also inhibitory, which may be
attributed to iron-chelating and micelle-disrupting capacity, respectively.
Addition of iron (Fe2+ or Fe3+) to EDTA-chelated fatty acid micelles
re-initiated the peroxidation process. The ease of fatty acid oxidation at pH
7.5 was arochidonic (20:4) greater than linolenic (18:3) greater than linoleic
(18:2). This order was reversed at pH 11.5. Similarities in the kinetics of
peroxidation obtained suggest that certain biological sequelae encountered in
cells treated with these seemingly dissimilar agents might arise through some
common mechanism(s).

Int J Radiat Biol 1994 Jan;65(1):27-33
Free radicals in biology: oxidative stress and the effects of ionizing
radiation.
Riley PA.
Department of Molecular Pathology, UCL Medical School, London, UK.
The most important electron acceptor in the biosphere is molecular oxygen which,
by virtue of its bi-radical nature, readily accepts unpaired electrons to give
rise to a series of partially reduced species collectively known as reduced (or
'reactive') oxygen species (ROS). These include superoxide (O.2-), hydrogen
peroxide (H2O2), hydroxyl radical (HO.) and peroxyl (ROO.) and alkoxyl (RO.)
radicals which may be involved in the initiation and propagation of free radical
chain reactions and which are potentially highly damaging to cells. Mechanisms
have evolved to restrict and control such processes, partly by compartmentation,
and partly by antioxidant defences such as chain-breaking antioxidant compounds
capable forming stable free radicals (e.g. ascorbate, alpha-tocopherol) and the
evolution of enzyme systems (e.g. superoxide dismutase, catalase, peroxidases)
that diminish the intracellular concentration of the ROS. Although some ROS
perform useful functions, the production of ROS exceeding the ability of the
organism to mount an antioxidant defence results in oxidative stress and the
ensuing tissue damage may be involved in certain disease processes. Evidence
that ROS are involved in primary pathological mechanisms is a feature mainly of
extraneous physical or chemical perturbations of which radiation is perhaps the
major contributor. One of the important radiation-induced free-radical species
is the hydroxyl radical which indiscriminately attacks neighbouring molecules
often at near diffusion-controlled rates. Hydroxyl radicals are generated by
ionizing radiation either directly by oxidation of water, or indirectly by the
formation of secondary partially ROS. These may be subsequently converted to
hydroxyl radicals by further reduction ('activation') by metabolic processes in
the cell. Secondary radiation injury is therefore influenced by the cellular
antioxidant status and the amount and availability of activating mechanisms. The
biological response to radiation may be modulated by alterations in factors
affecting these secondary mechanisms of cellular injury.

 

[DaveFoster]

Here is Ray Peat's reply. I will wait to give people a chance to read this before adding any comment of my own:

4000 mg. 4 grams of Vitamin C. What?

The amount in animal products must be much larger than that in fruit.

 

[burtlancast]

its a complex, but I think the main bulk of it is ascorbic acid in terms of intercellular effects....basically its ascorbic acid with copper in the middle, and some flavanols potentially in there.

The other components of the 'complex' are copper and various flavanols like rutin and hesperidin, but again...no one has come to a definitive conclusion about which flavanols fit in and if they are actually necessary or not.

As Owen R. Fonorow, head of The Vitamin C Foundation, noted:

No scientific basis has been found for the existence of the C-complex or that such a complex can cure scurvy without ascorbic acid present.

No one who is engaged in conventional medical research believes there is a C complex, nor are there any peer-reviewed papers accessible in the Medline medical database that support the idea that there is a C-complex, much less that it is the real vitamin C.

Comatose patients are kept alive using ascorbic acid only. There are no hospitals keeping patients on a feeding tube alive with a vitamin C-complex.

This rumour originates with people claiming to be specialists in the health alternative movement,but which really are simply opportunists, or crypto pharma shills
(Andrea Moritz ( now deceased), Sally Fallon and Thomas Cowan, MD, as well as the Berkley Bedell’s National Foundation for Alternative Medicine (NFAM)).

No one really knows for sure how it works, but studies have shown that ascorbic acid alone didn't cure scurvy, yet when the guy fed the animals bell peppers or something it did, so its quite clear that ascorbic acid alone doesn't do the job.

ive read up on this quite a bit and theres no definitive answer, at least that I can find, but its pretty clear that ascorbic alone doesn't cure scurvy,

Please allow me add another layer to your assertion:

"It is interesting to note that Scurvy, a severe vitamin C deficiency, cannot be reversed with ascorbic acid but can be reversed with paprika or a natural food source vitamin C complex. Szent-Gyorgi, the original discoverer of ascorbic acid, found that it would not cure scurvy; only the natural complex can do that. Isolated ascorbic acid is made from corn sugar (glucose), and it is a naked substance devoid of all the cofactors. The reason ascorbic acid masquerades as vitamin C is for commercial reasons. It is profitable."

This of course is totally, completely, false.

The actual minimum requirements for avoiding scurvy in humans is 10 mg; this limit has been established in the period 1939-1945 during voluntary medical experiments carried with conscientious objectors to military service , in Sheffield, England.

There were 20 subjects for the Vit C privation experiment, which lasted 14 months. It was double blinded, scurvy was induced in 10 of them, and then was cured with tablets of ascorbic acid ("All the volunteers were daily given seven supplementary tablets of identical taste and appearance, some containing vitamin C, the others being dummies."see report in the 1948 Lancet edition)

The 10 mg limit was later confirmed in another medical experiment in 1969 with prisoners in the Iowa State Penitentiary, USA.

All of this is even mentioned in Wikipedia's page on scorbut:

Human trials

Notable human dietary studies of experimentally induced scurvy have been conducted on conscientious objectors during WWII in Britain and on Iowa state prisoner "volunteers" in the late 1960s. These studies both found that all obvious symptoms of scurvy previously induced by an experimental scorbutic diet with extremely low vitamin C content could be completely reversed by additional vitamin C supplementation of only 10 mg per day. In these experiments, no clinical difference was noted between men given 70 mg vitamin C per day (which produced blood levels of vitamin C of about 0.55 mg/dl, about 1/3 of tissue saturation levels), and those given 10 mg per day (which produced lower blood levels). Men in the prison study developed the first signs of scurvy about 4 weeks after starting the vitamin C-free diet, whereas in the British study, six to eight months were required, possibly because the subjects were pre-loaded with a 70 mg/day supplement for six weeks before the scorbutic diet was fed.[52]

Men in both studies on a diet devoid or nearly devoid of vitamin C had blood levels of vitamin C too low to be accurately measured when they developed signs of scurvy, and in the Iowa study, at this time were estimated (by labeled vitamin C dilution) to have a body pool of less than 300 mg, with daily turnover of only 2.5 mg/day.[53]

PS: These experiments included other vitamin privations, and considering their length ( 14 to 24 months) would be deemed illegal today.
It would be easy for Fonorow to mention these studies, and end the Vit C complex debate once and for all; but alas, he doesn't. Maybe he just loves arguing with people ?

There are too published anecdotal medical reports in the late thirties showing cases of scurvy cured with ascorbic acid.

I might add Szent-Gyorgi's discovery was proven by curing guinea pigs of induced scurvy :

"In the fall of 1931, an American post-doctoral fellow, Joseph Svirbely, joined Szent-Györgyi's research team. Svirbely had been working with C. G. King at the University of Pittsburgh, trying to isolate vitamin C. Szent-Györgyi gave him the remains of the hexuronic acid he had isolated at the Mayo Clinic and asked him to test it, using guinea pigs with induced scurvy. Repeated trials proved that "hexuronic acid" was, in fact, vitamin C. (Szent-Györgyi had suspected this, but had put the project aside rather than take up the messy, expensive, and labor intensive animal studies required.)"

Peat is afraid that ascorbic acid supplements are made from yeast fermented corn and will not be a pure product. He also thinks most food has dehydroascorbic acid even if its heated, which the body quickly reduces if it needs to so getting in
in that form doesn't matter either.

What Ray has said is the first ascorbic acid put on the market in the fifties was a good product, but they quickly came with a cheaper production process that used a lead room, which contaminated the product, and caused him and many other people allergies.

I think he's right about that, as i've myself become allergic to ascorbic acid after taking it regularly for 2 years.

 

[DaveFoster]

As Owen R. Fonorow, head of The Vitamin C Foundation, noted:



This rumour originates with people claiming to be specialists in the health alternative movement,but which really are simply opportunists, or crypto pharma shills
(Andrea Moritz ( now deceased), Sally Fallon and Thomas Cowan, MD, as well as the Berkley Bedell’s National Foundation for Alternative Medicine (NFAM)).



Please allow me add another layer to your assertion:


This of course is totally, completely, false.

The actual minimum requirements for avoiding scurvy in humans is 10 mg; this limit has been established in the period 1939-1945 during voluntary medical experiments carried with conscientious objectors to military service , in Sheffield, England.

There were 20 subjects for the Vit C privation experiment, which lasted 14 months. It was double blinded, scurvy was induced in 10 of them, and then was cured with tablets of ascorbic acid ("All the volunteers were daily given seven supplementary tablets of identical taste and appearance, some containing vitamin C, the others being dummies."see report in the 1948 Lancet edition)

The 10 mg limit was later confirmed in another medical experiment in 1969 with prisoners in the Iowa State Penitentiary, USA.

All of this is even mentioned in Wikipedia's page on scorbut:



PS: These experiments included other vitamin privations, and considering their length ( 14 to 24 months) would be deemed illegal today.
It would be easy for Fonorow to mention these studies, and end the Vit C complex debate once and for all; but alas, he doesn't. Maybe he just loves arguing with people ?

There are too published anecdotal medical reports in the late thirties showing cases of scurvy cured with ascorbic acid.

I might add Szent-Gyorgi's discovery was proven by curing guinea pigs of induced scurvy :





What Ray has said is the first ascorbic acid put on the market in the fifties was a good product, but they quickly came with a cheaper production process that used a lead room, which contaminated the product, and caused him and many other people allergies.

I think he's right about that, as i've myself become allergic to ascorbic acid after taking it regularly for 2 years.

I don't know about others but consuming 3000 calories a day (with lots of milk / OJ) has increased my weight maybe 5kg so far in about a month or so.
An above poster said more fat cells = more estrogen.

Perhaps a lot of peoples issues are because they are gaining weight while peating (which I hear is very common, at least initially). Peats ideas seem very long-term focused.

I know a few raw carnivores who do well without vitamin c; or at least they don't get scurvy.

 

[Aleksandr]

I know a few raw carnivores who do well without vitamin c; or at least they don't get scurvy.

I've heard that gut bacteria can create vitamin C.

 

[misery guts]

I've heard that gut bacteria can create vitamin C.

And parasitic gut worms apparently! Cooling Inflammation: Vitamin C, Guinea Pigs, Limeys and Gut Worms

 

[johnwester130]

SUPPORTIVE STUDIES:

1. “According to a double-blind randomised experiment, concentrated ascorbic acid Acerola powder was found to be 1.63 times more bio-available and better synthesised by the human body than U.S. Pharmacopeia ascorbic acid which is synthetically produced (p < 0.0254).” [A p-value of less than 0.05 is considered demonstration of a strong, significant conclusion]

Tang L. 1995. Comparative study of the bioavailability of ascorbic acid in commercially produced products. [dissertation]. 1995: University of Pensylvania, Department of Chemistry.


2. “In Comparison with synthetic ascorbic acid, the vitamin C produced by acerola is better absorbed by the human body. In fact, the human body can only absorb 50% of synthetic vitamin intake compared to that of natural vitamins (Byrne, 1993). In a study reported by Johnson (2003), it was found that infants consuming apple juice supplemented with Acerola showed average or above average growth and development for their age and weight. Vitamin C levels in the blood were higher for all infants after the acerola/apple juice was introduced into the diet.”

Postharvest biology and technology of tropical and subtropical fruits volume 2 – Acerola - M. Mohammed, University of the West Indies St Augustine Campus, Trinidad).


3. “Abstract: It has been suggested that some food components, such as bioflavonoids, affect the bioavailability of ascorbic acid in humans. Since little is known in Japan about the effective intake of this dietary requirement, we tested young Japanese males after the ingestion of commercial ascorbic acid or acerola (Malpighia emarginata DC.) juice to compare the quantities absorbed and excreted. Healthy Japanese subjects received a single oral dose of ascorbic acid solution (50, 100, 200 or 500 mg) and received distilled water as a reference at intervals of 14 d or longer. All subjects were collected blood and urine until 6 h after ingestion and evaluated for time-dependent changes in plasma and urinary ascorbic acid levels. Predictably, the area under the curve (AUC) values in plasma and urine after ingestion increased dose-dependently. Next, each subject received diluted acerola juice containing 50 mg ascorbic acid. Likewise, their plasma and urinary ascorbic acid concentrations were measured. In plasma, the AUC value of ascorbic acid after ingestion of acerola juice tended to be higher than that from ascorbic acid alone. In contrast, the urinary excretion of ascorbic acid at 1, 2 and 5 h after ingestion of acerola juice were significantly less than that of ascorbic acid. These results indicate that some component of acerola juice favorably affected the absorption and excretion of ascorbic acid.”

Absorption and excretion of ascorbic acid alone and in acerola (Malpighia emarginata) juice: comparison in healthy Japanese subjects. - PubMed - NCBI


4. “Vitamin C produced by Acerola is better absorbed by humans:

When compared with synthetic ascorbic acid, the vitamin C produced by this fruit is better absorbed by the human organism. We can only absorb 50% of synthetic vitamin intake in opposition to that of natural vitamins.”

Araújo P.S.R., Minami K., Acerola, Fundação Cargill, Campinas, SP, Brazil, 1994, 81 p.

Acerola: importance, culture conditions, production and biochemical aspects Sandra Aparecida de ASSIS1,2, Fernandes PEDRO FERNANDES2, Antônio Baldo Geraldo MARTINS3, Olga Maria Mascarenhas de FARIA OLIVEIRA1

 

[Jon]

@montmorency In my personal experience, ascorbic acid with a flavonoid complex (minus rutin) made my pee burn at just 300mg dose. I've recreated the same result multiple times and tracked my micronutrient intake extensively. Always the same, whether I was replete or deficient in vitamin c from diet my urine burned after vitamin c supplement ingestion.

Not sure why exactly, and I know from urinalysis tests I excrete pretty neutral urine so it could possibly be that ascorbic acid just doesn't absorb very well or maybe I just don't absorb it very well in supplement form.

Fast forward to the past year of me getting in an average of 500mg a day through diet alone and I never have the burning urine issue. As far as I'm concerned the kind in food is more agreeable for assimilation. My two cents lol.

 

[Douglas Ek]

I'd like to add I have had migraines on and off my whole life. I do have some triggers and one of them is supplemental ascorbic acid. I've tried all vitamin C supplements. cheap ascorbic acid, ester-C, natural vitamin-C (Actually read that these are just ascorbic-acid put together with food), vitamin C with flavonoids and calcium bound vitamin C. If I even take a dosage of 300mg I get migraine symptoms and feel terrible for the rest of the day. But if I drink 1 liter of orange juice and eat 8 clementines which i did just now :P where according to chronometer I get almost 1 gram of natural vitamin C I don't feel anything at all. So I am 100% convinced that the only way to get vitamin C is through diet, not supplements. It's not the same. I'm so sure about it because these effects are like clockwork in me

 

[Jon]

I'd like to add I have had migraines on and off my whole life. I do have some triggers and one of them is supplemental ascorbic acid. I've tried all vitamin C supplements. cheap ascorbic acid, ester-C, natural vitamin-C (Actually read that these are just ascorbic-acid put together with food), vitamin C with flavonoids and calcium bound vitamin C. If I even take a dosage of 300mg I get migraine symptoms and feel terrible for the rest of the day. But if I drink 1 liter of orange juice and eat 8 clementines which i did just now :P where according to chronometer I get almost 1 gram of natural vitamin C I don't feel anything at all. So I am 100% convinced that the only way to get vitamin C is through diet, not supplements. It's not the same. I'm so sure about it because these effects are like clockwork in me

Hmm migraines eh? That's very interesting. I was reading a piece on how ascorbic acid can inhibit nitrosamine conversion from nitrate interacting with heme iron and stomach acid in the stomach. In a lipid free environment it does quite well at inhibition BUT when lipids are present the ascorbic acid INCREASES Nitroso conversion 1000 fold!

Now, I'm far too uneducated to know if Nitroso could make migraines happen but it might be interesting to research lol. I've read that nitric oxide can lessen migraines (pain anyway) so i suppose it stands to reason that a rise in oxidants like Nitroso could have the opposite effect.