It’s cold and flu season across the country. As you’ve probably seen, flu shots have been popping up left and right at local clinics and pharmacies. For preventative at-home care, many people know to turn to vitamin C to ward off colds and flus; vitamin C, along with other vitamins, helps our immune systems function at an optimum level. However, the benefits of vitamin C go beyond just helping your ward off a cold. Overall, the vitamin is great to consume to maintain overall health in the body, because cells need vitamin C to work properly. Our bodies do not naturally produce it, so it’s important for us to consume this vitamin through our diet.
The following are all the benefits vitamin C provides for the body:
- According to the Journal of American College of Nutrition proper levels of Vitamin C helps the body burn more fat during exercise with up to a 30% difference between optimal and insufficient levels. This vitamin helps pathways that regulate fat oxidation, energy expenditure, and energy intake in the body.
- Vitamin C helps improve blood cell function and vascular relaxation, which theoretically can lower the risk of heart disease and stroke, and lower blood pressure.
- Vitamin C fights off cell-damaging free radicals in the body, which can help your body reduce inflammation cause by any number of things. Compounds that sop up free radicals are known as anti-oxidants.
- Research, studies, and clinical trials done by the National Institutes of Health found that intravenous infusion of this vitamin may enhance chemotherapy’s effect on cancer cells, and improves the quality of life in cancer patients.
- Vitamin C can help with cataracts, because it helps increase the blood supply to the ocular areas.
- This vitamin has been known to help repair wounds in the body, because it helps the growth of connective tissues that speed up the healing process.
- Low levels of vitamin C and diabetes are linked; vitamin C helps with the process of insulin and glucose in the body.
- The classic disease associated with severe vitamin C deficiency is known as scurvy. In the sea-faring ages the sailors learned that citrus provided the yet to be understood “critical nutrient” that kept this from happening after months on the high seas where eating hard bread and fish were all they would eat.
If you’re looking for ways to improve your overall diet and nutrition, besides just adding vitamin C, it’s best to talk to a doctor. Dr. Kordonowy offers the unique Biophotonic scanner to assess your body stores of certain antioxidants. Dr. Kordonowy of Internal Medicine, Lipid & Wellness of Fort Myers provides dietary education services and counseling. To book an appointment, click here or call 239-362-3005, ext. 200.
