Taken from a Focus On Nutrition Radio Program featuring Dr. Berkowsky formulator.

He starts, as you're getting older, your need for vitamin C goes up, so any shortfall of vitamin C is going to make a bigger difference.

Environmental Pollutants

Do you live in an urban area? In other words, you live in an area where there's lots of auto traffic and other types of air pollution and so forth. Environmental pollutants increase your need for vitamin C.

Smoke Destroys Vitamin C

Do you smoke? Do you smoke cigarettes? Did you ever smoke cigarettes? Are you around someone who smokes cigarettes? Are you exposed to secondhand smoke? That will increase your need for vitamin C. I can't say if this is an exact number or not, but every cigarette destroys something like 20 milligrams of vitamin C in your body or uses it or destroys it.

That means if you are taking vitamin C through your diet it’s not really going to work in terms of providing a sufficient amount of vitamin C. But let's say through your diet that you're eating a fairly decent diet and you have 200 milligrams of vitamin C that you're taking in a day. That would be a very high amount, by the way, the diet would be 200 milligrams of vitamin C and you're smoking ten cigarettes a day. If you multiply ten times 20, that means those ten cigarettes have completely wiped out that vitamin C and the vitamin C is necessary for virtually every function in the body.

We Experience Dysfunction

Vitamin C is absolutely necessary for all of us or we are going to be starved of it. And what's going to happen is systems of the body are going to start to experience dysfunction in various ways.

Various Drugs

Various drugs will increase your need for vitamin C because those drugs decrease the amount of vitamin C in the body. Here's an example of a few, antibiotics, especially tetracyclines decrease vitamin C in the body.

Internal or External Cortisone

Cortisone, if you're on any type of a cortisone medication at all, even cortisone that you place on the skin, bear in mind, that you can never isolate anything in the body. There are blood vessels within the skin. The skin is blood vessel rich, so cortisone will be absorbed even through the skin. Even though they like to tell you that it's localized, that's going to decrease your level of vitamin C in the body.

Aspirin Decreases Vitamin C

Aspirin. Some people take aspirin just for headaches. Other people have been told, well, you know, take half an aspirin a day or one aspirin a day to put your blood circulation, to prevent heart attacks, and so forth. Aspirin decreases the amount of vitamin C in the body.

Painkillers & Sulfa Drugs

Some people take painkillers, not some people, a lot of people, take painkillers on a regular basis. Painkillers reduce vitamin C in the body. Sulfa drugs reduce vitamin C in the body.

Anything that reduces vitamin C, takes it away from all the body functions that are necessary in the body. And we will talk about information showing you just how treacherous it is to reduce vitamin C in your body.

Things Fall Apart

Vitamin C goes into, well, maintaining the body in general, maintaining the body even just holding itself together. For things not to just fall apart, which is what basically literally begins to happen when vitamin C becomes low.

Eating Fruit Not Enough

You may say, well, you know, I eat lots of fruits and vegetables. And my guess is if the people listening or anything like it, like the American public in general, most of you don't eat enough fruits and vegetables. Well, here's the thing is, that's the only place you're going to get vitamin C is from fruits and vegetables. And you'd have to eat an awful lot of them to give you the amount of vitamin C that you need in this modern era.

No Vitamin C Left

Not only that, vitamin C is sensitive to both light and heat. You're not going to get much from orange juice at all no matter what the label claims. First of all, juice in clear containers, the vitamin C will be destroyed by that light. Also, whatever vitamin C came from the oranges themselves, not added in afterward, but came from the origin themselves is going to be destroyed by pasteurization.

Hard On Adrenals & Blood Sugar

And, of course, orange juice is very sweet, especially if there's added sugar. And this is very hard on your adrenal glands, and it will elevate your blood sugar levels. And vitamin C is necessary to support your adrenals and support your blood sugar levels.

Strategic Best Option

The only real option, the only real strategic option, is to use supplemental vitamin C. It's not just a matter of, well, let's go to the store and let's see what's on the shelf and let's get any vitamin C. You want an excellent source of vitamin C with FULL potency bioflavonoids, minerals, and many different forms of vitamin C bonded to good minerals, and I think Premium Nutrition BioLife C™ is the very best choice.

Estrogen & Vitamin C

By the way, before I move on here, one other item that increases the need for vitamin C because it decreases vitamin C in the body is any type of estrogen. Oral contraceptives or estrogen replacement therapy, vitamin C levels will go down. To compensate for that, supplementation is the best route to go because the diet is not that trustworthy for most people. They don't know how much they're getting. And you need a lot of it.

Anti-Stress Nutrient

Is vitamin C an anti-stress nutrient? It's one of the most important nutrients to compensate for stress in the body.

Most Animals Make C

One of the interesting things in the animal kingdom is among vertebrates. Vertebrates are animals that have a spine. Among vertebrates, I would say 90%, maybe more, I couldn't give you the exact number, but it's very high, produced their own vitamin C. They make their own vitamin C. For instance, your dog makes its own vitamin C. You don't have to give your dog vitamin C unless you're treating it for this illness or that. Vitamin C is useful in that particular capacity. But in general, if a dog, especially if it's happy and it's well-fed, is producing its own sufficient vitamin C, I believe a 50-pound dog is producing somewhere close to 1000 milligrams of vitamin C a day.

Of the various vertebrates, only something like about 10 or 15 different animals do not manufacture their own vitamin C. And among those, unfortunately, are human beings. Human beings do not produce their own vitamin C.

Stress Tests Increased C Production

In response to stress tests given to dogs, their body produced more C. It's not like the dog is thinking, you know what, I better start making some more vitamin C. The dog is not involved in the process. It's automatic. Then, in response to stress, the dog increases its production of vitamin C by 600%.

Stressed Humans

If we humans are stressed out and not getting enough vitamin C to begin with, because A, your diet is not what it should be. And even if it was, and I want to emphasize this, even if your diet were the best diet of anybody, you know, you still would not be getting enough vitamin C, there's just simply not enough vitamin C in the diet, even the best of diets to compensate for the levels of stress that the modern century human being is exposed to. And the level of environmental toxicity and the level of substances, such as certain types of prescription drugs and so on and so forth, that I've just mentioned increase your need for vitamin C.

What happens when you get stressed out, and you don't have enough vitamin C to begin with? Well, then there's going to be some real issues. You're going to really suffer from this as well.

Most Fall Short

Most people today are more than likely to have a shortfall of vitamin C. You'll see varying degrees of this. You may say, well, you know, I'm only a little tired. Well, maybe it’s about the degree to which you are tired; vitamin C plays a role in that.

Fatigue

I'll go through this brief list of deficiency symptoms. The first one is fatigue. Who do you know who doesn't complain about being tired these days? Well, it's a lot of it is their lifestyle. People not eating right. They're stressed out most of the time. They're not sleeping well. They're working too long. They're not they don't have the right cycle of work and sleep. So, they're tired. I understand that. But if you're deficient in vitamin C, no matter what you do along those lines, you're tired. Your tiredness is going to be institutionalized into the body. You're not going to be able to remove that pattern of fatigue.

Muscle Weakness

Muscle weakness. You feel like, you know, I can't lift this like I used to. I used to be able to lift things, and now maybe it's because I'm old. Sure. Maybe it is because you're getting a bit older. But if we go back to what I said just a few minutes ago, as you age, your need for vitamin C increases. So it could be that you really haven't lost any muscle mass. Loss of muscle may not be the reason you're not able to lift that box as easily as it used to. It could be because your need for vitamin C, increased vitamin C as you have aged, has not been met. And this has left those muscles, despite their mass being sufficient left them not strong enough to lift the boxes you did earlier on.

Joints & Muscle Aches

Joints and muscle aches. You may think, well, you know, I'm just getting some problems in the knees and the ankles and wrists. Sure, it could likely be that, but it could be something even simpler. It could be that you don't have enough vitamin C, and not enough vitamin C translates into muscle aches. Because most people are used to this, as I said in the opening, most people use vitamin C for other things. People don’t tend to think of vitamin C for joints and muscle aches.

Bleeding Gums

Bleeding gums. You brush your teeth in the morning, and there's some bleeding. Every time you brush your teeth, or you use the Waterpik a little bit too high intensity, and so forth. And you go to the dentist, and the dentist says you have a gum problem. Lack of vitamin C will increase the risk of gum issues. If there's bleeding in the gums, in addition to doing all the dental hygiene and so forth that you need to do, look at increasing your level of vitamin C. Now, why would vitamin C be involved in bleeding gums? Because vitamin C is necessary, and again, I'll explain this a little bit, is necessary to maintain the health of your blood vessels. The blood vessels will weaken if you do not have enough vitamin C, and then they will become porous, or the capillaries will break easily, or the pores will dilate on the capillaries, and they will bleed easily as well.

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These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This is intended for informational purposes only. This product and information are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.