Vitamin C: How I use it to Protect my Health

I am getting a lot of questions regarding what I am doing for me and my family for optimal health and preventative measures. I am going to share and focus on just one nutrient: Vitamin C. Just like most of you, I was told to take it when sick. It wasn't until my nutritional therapy training a couple years ago, that I really started to understand the power of this vitamin, and how I had completely underestimated it.

These uncertain times lead to stress, or maybe I should say additional stress, as it's no secret that most of us live very busy and stressful lives. Stress increases your need for vitamin C. When we are stressed, or in a continual state of stress, you may have heard the term "fight or flight", the adrenal glands are working overtime. Your adrenal glands have one of the highest concentrations of vitamin C in the body. Vitamin C plays a critical role in adrenal function, including their ability to produce numerous hormones, notably cortisol. Vitamin C is a key nutrient that I supplement, in addition to focusing on including it in my diet. I noticed that colds for my family were less severe, and were not lasting long, once I faithfully started incorporating whole food vitamin C. Vitamin C is very powerful for fighting infections and boosting your immune system. When you are in adrenal burnout, it is very common to get sick frequently and recover slowly.

In light of the coronavirus right now, I want to share some information with you, as well as some recommendations for vitamin C products.

Just like with food choices: QUALITY MATTERS. Vitamin C (the whole complex of the vitamin, not solely ascorbic acid) is essential to human survival. We can't manufacture our own vitamin C, so we have to get it in our food.

Vitamin C in Foods

The best source of vitamin C comes in vine ripened, raw fruits and vegetables. Foods like; strawberries, acerola cherry, citrus fruits, papaya, kiwi, bell peppers, tomatoes, dark leafy greens, and broccoli. Vitamin C is degraded and lost in the cooking process, so it's best to consume fresh produce to ensure you get the most from your food. Fully ripened fruits and veggies will have higher concentrations of the vitamin than produce picked early and shipped across the country.

If you are in a deficiency or in adrenal burnout, you would need to eat anywhere from 8-12 servings per day to get the recommended dose of 1,000-2,000 mg to help you get out of a deficiency or adrenal fatigue. In reality, most of us won't consistently eat this much on a daily basis, which is why adding a supplement is important. It's supplementing what you are not getting from your food.

Vitamin C Quality

Most vitamin C on the market is in the form of ascorbic acid and is made from GMO corn. I steer clear of it and recommend my clients do the same. I look for vitamin C in it's whole food form for my primary supplement, then compliment it with other forms when I need to up my dose, such as when I'm dealing with an illness. I also prefer the whole food form for daily use because it comes from food. Our bodies recognize food and know what to do with it. When I look for vitamin C supplements, I'm looking first for vitamin C sourced from quality whole foods, and whole food sourced from non-GMO. Then, when flus, colds and viruses go around, and I need additional vitamin C, I add in ascorbic acid in a non-GMO form, on top of the whole food vitamin C.

Vitamin C Dosages

I prefer to introduce any new supplement slowly and titrate it up over time. However, in times of extreme illness, you won't have time for that. Right now, I am recommending my clients start with 1,000 mg daily, divided in four equal doses throughout the day. Then they can work up to 2,000 mg doses daily, again divided up throughout the day. Higher therapeutic doses up to 6,000-10,000 mg might be helpful when ill and that illness gets more urgent.

I really like this article: Dr. Carolyn Dean shared a post about intravenous vitamin c that China used. It's good to know we have more holistic treatment options growing in awareness. I'm not going to assume I will have access to that level of treatment, so that's why I'm preventing now. This is something you can also do now as a precaution. Here are a few whole food vitamin C options that I personally use and recommend and you can order them through my supplement dispensary:

Jigsaw Adrenal Cocktail
Innate Response C Complete Powder (my kids use this one too!)
Garden of Life MyKind Organics Vitamin C spray - great for kids too!

You will notice on the label, these show Whole Food Vitamin C from the specific foods listed, and some have a very small amount of vitamin C from ascorbic acid, but the majority of the vitamin C is sourced from whole food.

Vitamin C is just one nutrient we need right now for optimal health and preventative measures. Given the low cost and relative safety of vitamin C supplementation, and its possible benefits preventing respiratory infections, it seems worth including it in an overall daily cold and flu prevention plan and isn't contraindicated in a COVID-19 prevention plan.

If you are ready to recover from burnout so your body is healthy day in and out I invite you to check out how you can work with me. I offer a few ways to support you on your health journey.

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