Vitamin C Capsule

This is Vitamin C

Vitamin C is one of the most famous vitamins. It is known as a water-soluble antioxidant and thus an important free radical scavenger in the human organism.

Vitamin C was first isolated from the adrenal gland and foodstuffs nearly 100 years ago by the later Nobel Prize winner Albert Szent-Györgyi. Until then, it was known that lemon juice contained an unknown anti-scurvy factor.

For nearly thousands of years, scurvy (also: oral inflammation) was an important cause of death, especially among seafarers, who had to live for weeks and months without fresh plant-based food, thus consuming a vitamin-C-poor diet.

The condition known today as vitamin C deficiency leads to defects in collagen synthesis, since vitamin C is essential for the body's collagen production. The functions of vitamin C in the body are diverse (based on approved health claims):

• Vitamin C is important for normal immune function
• Furthermore, vitamin C acts as an antioxidant and thus protects DNA, proteins and fats from oxidation
• Vitamin C regulates collagen formation and is therefore essential for normal blood vessels, mucous membranes, teeth, skin, bones, ligaments and cartilage (connective tissue)
• Since it drives carnitine formation, it is essential for energy metabolism function
  
• In this way, it can reduce fatigue and exhaustion
• By regulating neurotransmitter formation, vitamin C is crucial for mental function
• Vitamin C regenerates vitamin E
• Vitamin C improves iron absorption

Humans lost the ability to synthesise vitamin C about 60 million years ago. Before that, vitamin C requirement was also very high. Since vitamin C is formed from glucose, the energy requirement was accordingly much higher.

Presumably, the loss of vitamin C synthesis is an evolutionary advantage. Because new research shows that the loss of endogenous synthesis was replaced by a very robust and efficient recycling system in red blood cells, which reduces vitamin C requirement by a factor of 100.

In this way, the body not only saves energy. The general requirement has also dropped dramatically through recycling. Studies show that all vitamin C-dependent systems are saturated at approximately 200–500 mg of vitamin C per day (see figure).

(See Levine et al. 1996)

Our Vitamin C Capsules

Each vitamin C capsule provides 500 mg of vitamin C. We have decided to use Calcium Ascorbate ("buffered vitamin C") and Ascorbyl Palmitate in a ratio of approximately 5:1 as our vitamin C forms. Both forms are considered well-tolerated. Ascorbyl Palmitate offers the advantage of being fat-soluble – it can therefore accumulate in cell membranes, for example, and protect them better from oxidation.