I thought this was potentially important enough an article that people should see it.
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v06n20.shtml

It states that vitamin C doses considerably higher than RDA can effectively eliminate atherosclerosis in populations.
Most animals produce it in their own bodies, and at huge levels, but humans and a few others dont. Animals that do produce it naturally, and animals who get it through their diets, in which cases their diets contain much more vitamin C than ours, essentially do not suffer from atherosclerosis.

I did some searching around to see if I could find mention of this. it has about one sentence in wikipedia. wikipedia does say that doses upto 2000mg per day are considered ok, and that large overdoses barely do anything more than cause diarrhea. small studies have shown that restricting vitamin c in animal diets, for those that depend on diet for vitamin c, actually produced atherosclerosis within weeks.

nothing exists, as far as I can find, that directly opposes this hypothesis. the thing that stands out, is that there's a noticeable lack of funding that has ever been granted for research to conclusively prove it right. to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised at all if pharmaceutical companies, among others, were being deliberately quiet about the issue. the biggest killer in western society can make a lot of money for the right people.

anyway, for a long time now i've been quite concerned about the prospect of developing heart disease, how awful a heart attack would be. I think, although not so important for someone as young as me, that, on the basis of available evidence, and the non-existent risk, that i'm going to make a conscious effort to increase vitamin C intake, mostly through natural sources, like chilli peppers, brocolli, etc, to a target of at least 1000mg a day. I hope my pointing this out may give others the opportunity to consider this as an informed decision, and it may just prevent a lot of bad stuff.

Yes, humans cannot make Vitamin "C" from glucose, so daily supplement is important unless you eat lots of fruits and vegetables, raw or very lightly cooked.

Dr. Linus Pauling was a fore-runner in vitamin "C" therapies for a variety of illnesses.

Here are a couple of good links to get you started:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_C

He died at 93, even though he most likely should have died younger, so that's something to think about.

Too, the US FDA wanted to take Vitamin "C" off the shelves of supermarkets and health-food stores and
onto prescription pads of doctors way back in the 1980's, even though its _impossible_ to overdose on this
needed substance and it has no effect on the mind like a "drug", per se', unless you have Scurvy, that is.

I don't think it is a good idea. The Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) also Recommended Daily Value (RDV) of vitamin C is about 100mg. Anyway - it not easy to get such a quantity by natural sources since 100g of lemons contain about 53mg vitamin C, 100g bananas 8.7mg ; 100g oranges 45mg; 100g kiwi - 92,7mg. Chilli peppers (100g) - 144mg.
The Tolerable upper intake levels (UL) however is 2000mg. So intake of 1000mg of vitamin C daily seems somewhat tolerable.

It can be overdosed. For example i have a soluble tablets (in a glass of water) containing 1000mg each. Overdosing should start at more than 2-3 daily. Anyway - anybody can overdose taking tablets whatever he wants.

that doesn't make sense. the RDA is 50mg here. if taking 40 times the RDA per day is deemed safe, then I declare the RDA to be poorly formulated and possibly biased. also, that site and others on the topic recommend 3000mg per day minimum. a red bell pepper contains about 200mg. I bought some supplements today. i'm going to take 2 supplements a day, for a total of 1000mg, then try to aim for 500+ from food, to start off. it's worth bearing in mind that Linus Pauling took 18,000mg a day and died far above the average age of death. in addition, animals that manufacture their own vitamin C consume on the order of 10s of grams of it a day, and even those that depend on diet for it consume far more than we do.

the evidence against taking substantial amounts of it is virtually non-existent. studies indicate at a certain threshold of dosage, you might get diarrhea. taking 6000mg+ a day for long periods of time in certain individuals produced mild symptoms. big deal. I think i'll chance it.

Have you checked absorption rates? I'd do that if you haven't, just to make sure that you're getting the full benefit of what you're taking in.

There is a saying "too much of a good thing is bad for you"

but where do you draw the line at too much?

2000 mg in a day is regarded as an acceptable upper limit for vitamin C dosage. As for the other stuff like heart disease and cancer the evidence that large doses of the vitamin are of any use is very shaky. It doesn't even help with the common cold.

deliberately so, I reckon. No large studies, because no one will even give it a chance, despite amazing results in smaller studies. if the reason for that was that the smaller studies were proven flawed, then that would have been vocally stated among the various articles and information sources i searched on the topic, and so it must be concluded that funding was not given to very hopeful preliminary results for no apparent reason. why could this be? (rhetorical question)

so, lack of definitive proof, but no disproof, and convincing existing evidence, to support the case of a potentially highly beneficial course of action with little to none downfalls if it fails.

From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_C

"With regular intake the absorption rate varies between 70 to 95%. However, the degree of absorption decreases as intake increases. At high intake (1.25g), fractional human absorption of ascorbic acid may be as low as 33%"

"At high dietary doses (corresponding to several hundred mg/day in humans) ascorbate is accumulated in the body until the plasma levels reach the renal resorption threshold, which is about 1.5 mg/dL in men and 1.3 mg/dL in women. Concentrations in the plasma larger than this value (thought to represent body saturation) are rapidly excreted in the urine with a half-life of about 30 minutes."

"Studies with much higher doses of vitamin C, usually between 200 and 6000 mg/day, for the treatment of infections and wounds have shown inconsistent results"

"High doses (thousands of milligrams) may result in diarrhea in healthy adults, as a result of the osmotic water-retaining effect of the unabsorbed portion in the gastrointestinal tract (similar to cathartic osmotic laxatives)"

... and so on in the article.

You cannot overdose on Vit C. At most you will spend some time on the toilet with diarrhea, but you wont
be in a hospital. Your body will rid itself of any excess. I take 1000 to 2000 Mg per day and I never get colds
or the flu, and I do not take flu shots as they are dangerous. Vitamin C is not dangerous in any way.

the articles suggest increasing your intake until diarrhea, then reducing it below that threshold, as your personal dosage.

I have been using vitamin C for years. Frankly I think 3000 MG per day is plenty for most people.

If you get ill, just up the dose and your cold or flu will usually go away faster and easier.

just a little update, because i've noticed that the shadows under my eyes have improved. enough for me to notice, and I don't tend to notice details like that lol. It wasn't a possibility I had even considered, but it makes sense it would happen. If vitamin C improves vascular wall strength, it would minimise leakage of blood in the eye area that causes the bruising effect. I've increased to 1.5g per day to see if I can draw more benefits, since I haven't had any particular side effects.

The theory here is evolution is not perfect.
Once upon a time our ancestors produced a lot of vitamin C endogenously - but due to their high fruit diet got a lot via food. A mutation occured and one of em didnt make it anymore and had a slight edge on others and that geneset spread.

You're not supposed to get enough from food unless you eat nothing but fruit etc etc. For Vitamin C to optimize levels, you supplement.

Read the book for free online that got Linus Pauling interested in Vit C.

http://vitamincfoundation.org/stone/


(P.S I cant be arsed to supplement myself).