So I noticed that just about all of the sport/energy/health drinks seem to have at least 100% of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C in them, these days. Some have two or three times that. Despite this, they tend to have much less of other vitamins in them. What is it about Vitmain C that makes it so easy or feasable to put into things in such comparably large amounts? Or is it just that one doesn’t need much of it to meet the RDA?
Thanks,
–CiaTH
Vitamin C tastes good.
And it’s water-soluble, so if you ingest a lot of it, it’ll just flush out easily. Might make you a little too acidic for a while.
There was some big hubub about vitamin C being a cure-all. Was before my time, though.
Vitamins A and D are toxic in megadose quantities, i.e., multiple times the RDA. For D in particular the healthy range between “too little” and “dangerously too much” is relatively narrow. Except thiamine (B-1), excessive quantities of the B vitamins are not known or theorized to provide any health benefits beyond those the RDA provides, and excesses of these water-soluble vitamins are excreted.
C, on the other hand, is different. Toxicity level is quite high (meaning there’s a wide safe range) and some people report increased resistance to, and more rapid recovery from, viral infections such as the common cold and influenza from taking it in quantity. AFAIK, tests of this claim are at best inconclusive, but there remain a group of people who are apparently sincere in their anecdotal claim that it helped them.
Needless to say, the whole subject of “vitamin therapy” is hotly debated. I would say the majority of medical practitioners would call it bullfeathers, or at best non-proven. But there is limited, anecdotal evidence that for some people and some ailments, higher-than-needed doses of water-soluble vitamins, particularly C, has some health benefits.
I think you’re mistaken there. From wiki:
10,000 IU is 25x the RDA sustained over time.
Also, noone is putting megadoses of C into drinks, but everyone loves to adverise how their drink has “100% of it.” Frankly, drinks should have 100% of a lot of other things too… And getting 100% (or a bit extra) of all your vitamins and minerals is NOT “hotly debated”!
You’re right. But you misinterpreted my comments.
First, regarding Vitamin D: The “safe range” for D is from 1X to 5X the RDA. That’s what I meant by “relatively narrow.” That toxicity shows up at 25X is irrelevant – it’s fat-soluble, so it tends to accumulate if consumed at higher-than-needed doses on a consistent basis.
Second, there is absolutely no question, as you say, that getting one’s RDA, or at least MDA, of all vitamins is necessary to continued good health. What I meant was “hotly debated” was “vitamin therapy,” i.e., the claimed practice of giving megadoses of vitamins, particularly C (and often E), for additional health benefits, including incrreased resistance/improved recovery from viral infections.
By all means, people should get their RDA for good health. But it’s highly questionable if doses at multiples of the RDA have any benefits beyond what one gets from the RDA. That’s what I intended to convey by that comment.
By the way, thanks for the disagreement – without it, I would not have realized how easily what I said could have been misunderstood, and would be guilty of “Handy posting” – giving false information on health matters, though inadvertently.
Not according to Reinhold Vieth
Michael Holick, Ph.D., M.D., is the Professor of Medicine of Physiology and Biophysics at Boston University School of Medicine says:
There is more and more research that many of us are D deficient and that current recommended doses are too low.
Also B1 is not the only B to worry about: B6 can be dangerous - I’ll let you do the Google yourself, but from one site:
Hmmmm… I was trying to answer the basic question about “What are people claiming about Vitamin C, and is there anything real to it?” using such information as I thought I had. Apparently research has gone on beyond what I thought I knew.
Probably it would be best for someone with medical expertise, like the Chief Pedant or Qadgop, to comment based on current research. My apologies for any false information I may have purveyed.
As others said, it’s very difficult to ingest so much Vitamin C that you overdose on it.
So it makes a great marketing ploy.
Vitamin C is a cure all for the common cold, cancer, and all sorts of things :D, well supposedly anyway
It’s also cheap, put in Vitamin C and raise the cost of the product.
One thing to remember though is smoking cigarettes actually does deplete the body of vitamin C quicker than non-smokers, so smokers should take in “a little more” between 10 and 50 mg per day, depending on how much you smoke
Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is also added to many processed foods because it acts as a preservative.
People’s pH generally doesn’t change much.
Anything that starts with c, really.
Crabs, canker sores, carpal-tunnel syndrome, crotch-rot.
That article is old and outdated. Recent studies have shown that vitamin C (ascorbic acid) does shorten the duration of a cold and alleviates the cold’s symptoms to some extent. There was a time, a short while ago, that the Wellness Health Letter recommended that the daily requirement of vitamin C be raised to 250 mg, and that this was going to be done. However, that health letter changed its mind due to some new studies.
Anecdotal evidence: I have found that it does lessen my symptoms and has helped me on several occasions. But you have to take megadoses. Linus Pauling recommended taking a couple of grams every couple of hours (IIRC) once you have a cold. When I get a cold, I take enough to stifle my symptoms. When the symptoms recur, I take another gram or two, until I get diarrhea. Then I stop. The only side effect from too much vitamin C is diarrhea.
I don’t know why sports drinks would add vitamin C, except as a selling point. Some sports drinks add the B vitamins, since those are necessary to use the fuel for energy.
As to vitamin D, it comes in several forms. Your body cannot make toxic amounts of vitamin D no matter how much sun you get because the form your body makes is safe in megadoses. This is what I recall, but I’d have to do some searching to verify, which I may do later.
It seems, after all, that vitamin C is necessary for energy: Vitamin C | Linus Pauling Institute | Oregon State University
Well, no. By definition, 90% of people need less than RDA, and 10% of people need more than RDA. Sometimes considerably more. However, RDA is often just a guess (in which case we don’t know if RDA is really sufficient for 90%). I wish we spent even a fraction of what we do on drug research (and bullshit ‘nutrition’ research of what does and does not give us cancer) on knowing more about vitamins.
Are you sure it wasn’t due to a thundering herd of cynics still hung up on the old debate?
Vitamin C is a necessary nutrient, but the mega doses specified by some people have never been shown to be of any benefit.
The big thing about Vitamin C is that it is cheap, water soluble, and won’t kill you if you over dose on it. Thus, you can pack a drink with Vitamin C, advertise the benefits, and watch the dough roll in.
When I was a kid, there was some sugary punch drink called "Hi-C’ which was advertised as being good for you because it contained 100% of your daily needs of Vitamin C, or that it had more Vitamin C than orange juice. Quick Google reveals it is still around, but now sold as a energy drink.
If so, Cecil needs to be notified immediately so that report can be brought up to date. Got some cites to help him?
Also anecdotal: Thomas Glovich says Pauling was once asked if he and his wife ever caught colds. He said, “It’s true. We don’t get colds at all. Just sniffles.”