Vitamin C is an essential vitamin, meaning your body can’t produce it. It’s an antioxidant and confers the following benefits (among many others):
1. Helps maintain your skin, bones, and connective tissue
2. Promotes wound healing
3. Helps with high blood pressure
4. Lowers risk of heart disease
5. Strengthens immunity
6. Helps the body absorb iron
7. Potent antiviral activity
Our Need For Vitamin C
When we are challenged with a viral infection, our need for vitamin C can rise dramatically, depending on the body’s immune function, level of injury, infection, or environmental toxicity. Vitamin C has been shown to be one of the most potent anti-viral agents, especially to the influenza virus, through increased production of IFN-α/β.(interferon) our immune guard, which helps prevent cells from being infected by viruses. When vitamin C-insufficient Gulo (-/-) mice are infected with the influenza virus, they have increased mortality. [1]
Interestingly, three research studies in China have approved vitamin C for treating coronavirus (COVID-19). Confirmation has also been obtained that 50 TONS of vitamin C has been shipped to Wuhan province, and on March 3rd, the Shanghai government officially recommended Vitamin C for COVID-19. (OMNS Mar 3, 2020) [2]
The government of Shanghai, China has announced its official recommendation that COVID-19 should be treated with high amounts of intravenous vitamin C. (1) Dosage recommendations vary with the severity of illness, from 50 to 200 milligrams per kilogram body weight per day to as much as 200 mg/kg/day. Richard Z. Cheng, MD, Ph.D., a Chinese-American specialist physician, has been working closely with medical and governmental authorities throughout China. He has been instrumental in facilitating at least three Chinese clinical IV vitamin C studies now underway. Dr. Cheng is presently in Shanghai continuing his efforts to encourage still more Chinese hospitals to implement vitamin C therapy incorporating high oral doses as well as vitamin C by intravenous route. [3]
How to Take Vitamin C
There’s little doubt that vitamin C is of great benefit to the human body. However, how you consume vitamin C makes a huge difference in the amount your body is able to absorb and use (a feature of all supplements called “bioavailability”).
When taken orally, most of the vitamin C you take (either from food or supplements) isn’t absorbed by the gut. However, liposomal vitamin C is a groundbreaking option for high-dose vitamin C that is the closest thing to “intravenous vitamin C.” Being wrapped in essential phospholipids, vitamin C is absorbed like dietary fats. This being so, liposomal vitamin C is much better absorbed than traditional vitamin C supplements. As a matter of fact, liposomal vitamin C is almost as “bioavailable” (absorbable) as IV injections, and it’s much cheaper, more convenient and less invasive.
Vitamin C Supplementation
For my patients, I highly recommend a supplement product called Liposomal Vitamin C. This formula provides vitamin C with liposomal technology with liposomes made from phospholipids, which are the building blocks of cell membranes. The vitamin C delivered in liposomal form offers the best bioavailability and superior absorption. Each 5 mL serving (approximately 1 teaspoon) of this lemon flavored formula provides 1000 mg vitamin C, as sodium ascorbate. A minimum of 1000-2000 mg should be taken on a daily basis as a normal dose. However, with the onset of a cold or flu, higher doses of 5000 mg or more should be taken.
Contact me if you need assistance with supplementation to improve your immune system.
Sources:
1] Yejin Kim, et al., Immune Netw. 2013 Apr; 13(2): 70–74. Published online 2013 Apr 30. doi: 10.4110/in.2013.13.2.70 Vitamin C Is an Essential Factor on the Anti-viral Immune Responses through the Production of Interferon-α/β at the Initial Stage of Influenza A Virus (H3N2) Infection
2. http://www.orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n13.shtml
3. Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, Mar 3, 2020 Shanghai Government Officially Recommends Vitamin C for COVID-19by Andrew W. Saul http://www.orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n16.shtml
