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Vitamin C in your Daily Lives: How vitamins and diet promote
 healthy lifestyles.

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Written By

Staci has been a registered dietitian since 2010 and is also a freelance writer and health editor. She has been a featured expert and writer on websites like Shape and Health and has graduate nutrition degrees from Columbia University. Staci offers nutrition tips and body and mind positive inspiration on her blog at www.lighttracknutrition.com as well as her Instagram page at @lighttrack_dietitian.

Vitamin C is well-known for its immune-boosting benefits and is found in every multivitamin on the market today. This is likely because there is more to vitamin C than most may know. And with new liposomal technology, vitamin C supplements, such as those by Haroutine, can help your body achieve more health advantages than ever from this versatile vitamin.

What is Vitamin C?

Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin that is an essential micronutrient since the human body does not make it on its own. It is also an antioxidant, which means vitamin C can help protect the body from free radical damage to cells (1). In turn, vitamin C can help prevent or delay the onset of chronic diseases such as heart disease and certain cancers (2).

Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is in foods like oranges, tangerines, grapefruits, lemons, and limes, as well as in peppers, kiwifruit, and leafy green vegetables like broccoli and Brussels sprouts. But if you are not eating such foods daily, then a supplement may be best for you.

Most adult men need about 90 mg of vitamin C, while adult women need about 75 mg of vitamin C daily (1). This increases to 85 mg daily for pregnant women and 120 mg daily for lactating women.

Vitamin C benefits

Vitamin C is well-known for its immune health benefits that include reducing the length of the common cold as well as reducing the severity of cold symptoms (1). However, vitamin C provides the body with a variety of other health benefits like (1):

  • regenerating other antioxidants like vitamin E
  • improving absorption of non-heme iron, like that found in plant-based foods such as beans, peas, lentils, oats, and leafy green vegetables like spinach
  • breakdown of protein from the food you consume and the synthesis of certain proteins like collagen, which plays a vital role in wound healing

References:

  1. National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements (updated March 26, 2021) “Vitamin C.” https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Vitaminc-Healthprofessional/
  2. Wang, A., Zhu, C., Fu, L., Wan, X., Yang, X., Zhang, H., Miao, R., He, L., Sang, X., & Zhao, H. (2015). “Citrus Fruit Intake Substantially Reduces the Risk of Esophageal Cancer: A Meta-Analysis of Epidemiologic Studies.” Medicine94(39), e1390.
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