The Essential Facts About Vitamin C

Our body needs many vitamins every single day in order to function properly.

Vitamin C is one of the most important vitamins for your body.

The best way to get vitamin C is to eat a balanced diet. Balanced diet is a diet which includes foods like mustard greens, cauliflower, green peppers, strawberries, green vegetables, fish, potatoes, broccoli, milk, citrus fruits, and tomatoes. Vitamin C, sometimes is also known as ascorbic acid. Therefore look at the labels on your foods. If you realize that you are not getting enough vitamin C naturally in your food, consult a doctor. He will recommend a daily vitamin C supplement to help you maintain the correct levels of vitamin C in your body.

There are actually 13 vitamins that your body needs. Vitamin C is one of these 13 important vitamins. Some of these vitamins are fat-soluble and others are not. If a vitamin is fat soluble, our body can store them for later use. However, vitamin C is one of those vitamins in the body which are not fat-soluble. As vitamin C is not fat soluble, our body cannot store it and therefore it must be provided every day through diet and supplements. Your age, gender, weight, lifestyle, and whether you are pregnant or not determines how much vitamin C you should have in your body.

What does vitamin C actually do? It prevents a lot of diseases, and increases your body’s immune system. C vitamin is an antioxidant, which means that it arrests the substances like free radicals in our body that can cause tissue and cell damage. This way vitamin C protects the body and delays the signs of aging. If you suffer from vitamin C deficiency or in other words if you do not have enough vitamin C in your body, you may develop scurvy. Scurvy is not that common in United States of America, but vitamin C deficiency may cause gum disease, anemia and weakness.

C vitamin supplements are extremely useful to ensure that people obtain sufficient cC vitamin. However, with a balanced diet the amount of C vitamin the body receives is likely to be sufficient. If you take vitamin C supplements on your own there is a chance that you may overdose. Overdose can cause kidney stones and may cause anemia. It may also cause diarrhea. Overdosing is very rare, because vitamin C is water soluble and high amount will be thrown out through urine. Therefore when you start taking vitamin C supplements, make sure that you follow your doctor’s recommendations.

The recommended daily amount of the C vitamin is easily obtained from eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day if they are consumed raw or cooked quickly. If you don’t get enough vitamin C in your diet, your doctor will recommend vitamin C supplements.

In most cases, you will automatically get enough vitamin C in your foods, especially if you are eating a healthy diet. If you are not and your doctor tells you to begin taking vitamin C supplements, look carefully at the labels of different brands before you buy, because vitamin supplements are classified as foods and not drugs. Hence are not regulated by government. Therefore potency of one brand may vary from another.