Vitamin C
Vitamin C: What We've Overlooked
A landmark 1944 experiment and groundbreaking reanalysis from 2021 reveal that recommended vitamin C intake may fall short of what's needed for optimal wound healing and health.
Vitamin C
A landmark 1944 experiment and groundbreaking reanalysis from 2021 reveal that recommended vitamin C intake may fall short of what's needed for optimal wound healing and health.
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In 1944, one of the most famous and important experiments on humans took place in Sheffield, England. Food was scarce at the time, so researchers decided to make a virtue of necessity.
The researchers tested, based on the vitamin C shortage at the time, what the lowest vitamin C threshold was to prevent scurvy, the vitamin C deficiency disease – 20 test subjects were divided and were allowed to consume 0, 10, and 70 mg of vitamin C daily for nine months.
Just a few years earlier, in 1933, the famous researcher and future Nobel laureate Albert Szent-Györgyi discovered that scurvy, the mysterious sailor's disease of the time, could be prevented with vitamin C, which he had discovered in 1926.
At that time, scurvy had been known for almost 2,000 years. Even during the Age of Discovery, starting around 1500, many sailors died regularly from scurvy – historical records show that Canadian indigenous peoples had already discovered a «remedy» for scurvy at that time (vitamin C-rich plant parts).
500 years later, in England in 1944, research would show what dose was necessary to prevent scurvy. In the course of this extreme experiment, which would never be permitted today, some test subjects became dangerously ill – fortunately, there were no long-term effects.
In addition to extreme fatigue and exhaustion, inflammation, muscle loss, and increased susceptibility to infections, disruption of collagen formation is a primary feature of vitamin C deficiency. Without vitamin C, collagen cannot be formed.
Therefore, typical scurvy symptoms include excessive gum bleeding (oral gangrene) – but also wound healing disorders. The test subjects were examined in exactly this way. The researchers created wounds in the test subjects and analyzed scar strength.
With the conclusion at that time: 10 mg of vitamin C is at minimum what is needed to prevent this severe deficiency disease. Based on these findings, the WHO then set a minimum vitamin C intake of 45 mg as its recommendation.
In 2021, a reevaluation of the old data appeared in the renowned journal The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In their «detective work,» researchers used the most modern methods of data analysis that didn't exist back then.
With the result:
«Robust parametric analyses of the old data show that an average daily vitamin C intake of 95 mg is required to prevent weak scar strength in 97.5% of the population.»
The doses required for normal scar healing in most people are many times higher than the minimum doses required for wound healing itself.
Furthermore, the new analysis showed that restoring normal vitamin C levels after a (prolonged) deficiency requires high doses of vitamin C. In fact, even 90 mg of vitamin C over a period of six months could not restore normal scar strength.
Let's state it clearly: many people always look downward. «How much do you need to reach a threshold that prevents the critical case?» Even the WHO writes in current work on vitamin C that preventing extreme deficiency has nothing to do with optimal intake.
What exactly optimal vitamin C intake could be is indicated not only by the new study – but also in our [source no longer available], we briefly address the question of what vitamin C intake is sufficient to saturate vitamin C levels.
As always – one should know this!
