Cold And Flu / Vitamin C

Herb Of The Week / Cold And Flu / Vitamin C


I think I'll conclude the series on colds and flu, not with an herb
but with a well-known nutritional supplement. Vitamin C (ascorbic
acid). Most of us know we need it and some of us try to make sure we
get enough, but many of us don't know much about it.


How is vitamin c used for colds and flu?

"..Vitamin C is very essential to any detoxification program, because
it is what the body uses for energy to process and eliminate these
toxic wastes. Think of vitamin C as the gas in the dump truck
carrying toxins to the waste dump. Without gas the truck is not going
to remove wastes or move at all. Without vitamin C our body is not
going to "dump" its toxic load. Therefore, ensure adequate vitamin C
and always take vitamin C with bioflavinoids for optimal benefit..."

So as your body is fighting off the cold and killing the viruses and
associated germs and parasites, there has to be some way to speed up
the process of removing the dead "soldiers" from the battlefield,
including some of your dead white blood cells.

There is a thing called "bowel tolerance". Bowel tolerance is the
amount of vitamin c that you need to cause diarrhea. To get rid of a
cold, you need to give yourself a case of vitamin c diarrhea.
Diarrhea will result if Vitamin C is taken in VERY HIGH doses. Don't
worry. You cannot overdose. You will first pee it out and then began
excreting it from the other end - along with all the dead toxins and
other old stuff. Bowel tolerance is different for different people.
Some persons reach tolerance at 4-5 grams (4,000-5,000 mg), while
others may not reach tolerance until 10-15 grams (10,000-15,000 mg).
Cancer patients notoriously can take 20-30 grams (20,000-30,000 mg)
of vitamin C before tolerance is reached ... meaning that they needed
more vitamin C than most people did. By trying to reach bowel
tolerance we can find out how sick we are. If it takes a whole lot,
we might be very sick. If only a little gives us diarrhea, then we
apparently don't need that much.

Any discussion of vitamin C has to begin with the Minimum Daily
Allowance or the Recommended Daily allowance. The RDA for vitamin C
is 60 milligrams. That is an EXTREMELY small amount of vitamin C. A
deficiency in vitamin c will result in a disease called scurvy, where
along with other horrors, your gums bleed and your teeth rot out of
the sockets. English sailors were called "limeys" because they
carried limes with to eat to prevent scurry. Most citrus fruits, like
limes are high in vitamin c content. Well 60 milligrams of vitamin c
is the minimal amount a person needs to prevent scurvy. Since those
days it has been learned that vitamin c performs a host of other
useful functions, but the RDA has not been increased.

So FIRST THING is check out your multivitamins. If they say 100% of
the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C, now you know that is
only 60mg... the bare minimum!! For instance if you smoke
cigarettes, one cigarette depletes the body of more than 60 mg of
vitamin c trying to detox your body. If you drink alcohol then your
body will use even more vitamin c to detox. If you buy vitamin c buy
itself it is usually sold in amounts of 250mg, 500mg or even 1000mg
tablets. There is a REASON for this; 60mg is not enough to do
anything worth taking it for. The human being is one of the
few "animals" whose body cannot manufacture it's own vitamin c. When
dogs, cats, or elephants or giraffes get sick, their body immediately
starts producing enormous amounts of vitamin C until the sickness
passes. Humans can not do that. The extra vitamin C must be derived
from outside sources. In quantities that exceed the bare minimum!!

Vitamin C is primarily a plant vitamin, present varying amounts in
almost all plants. An ongoing and continuous supply of vitamin c must
be provided in the food we eat, since our body cannot make or save
it. It is a WATER-SOLUBLE vitamin that we constantly urinate out of
us during the day. We cannot overdose on vitamin C. All excess is
peed right out. Vitamin C also helps the body to use the out other
nutrients, such as iron and calcium, B vitamins, vitamins A and E
etc. By promoting the formation of strong connective tissue, it helps
to heal wounds and burns. Stress, fever, and infection VASTLY
increase the body's need for vitamin C.

QUICK NOTE:
There are two types of vitamins: Water-soluble and fat-soluble. Fat-
soluble vitamins can accumulate over time in our fat cells whereas
water-soluble vitamins pass right through and have to be constantly
replenished. B vitamins (b1, b2, b6, b12, niacin, biotin etc) are our
other water-soluble vitamins. Vitamins A and E are our fat-soluble
vitamins.

Believe it or not, nutrition is not a valued as an extremely
important method to preventing disease and maintaining good health.
We are recommended to eat healthy but a food regiment of specific
foods for a particular ailment is usually not part of the remedy or
cure unless the disease is thought to be directly food related such
as diabetes and/or high blood pressure. The simple truth that is
being proven more and more everyday is that ALL disease and all
health functions are affected by, caused by and/or prevented by the
food we eat. But sadly, only a few hours of study of nutrition are
required to be a doctor. If you are ill and you are gorging yourself
on junk food, (grease, sugar, refined, flour, hydrogenated vegetable
oil etc.) you are doing yourself a GRAVE disservice, but not many
doctors emphasize such guidelines.

So do yourself a favor a get some POTENT multivitamins. Don't go into
a store and get the cheapest vitamins they have. Go out to a good
health food store and invest in your health would some good, quality
multivitamins.... FOR STARTERS.

Citrus fruits, berries, peppers, tropical fruits and green leafy
vegetables have lots of vitamin C. A couple of jalepenos contain as
much vitamin c as an orange!!

But..... of course...

IT'S YOUR HEALTH. Why take my word for it? You can research anything
mentioned on this site yourself. Two good search engines are
www.mamma.com or www.google.com. or www.dogpile.com or
www.askjeeves.com Enter one or more keywords and do your own research.

Until next time remember .... most illness (upwards of 80% according
to experts) can be attributed to FOUR important factors that can
weaken your immune system and your ability to fight off disease:

1. Anxiety, depression, anger, guilt and other STRESS factors
LEARN TO FORGIVE AND LET GO

2. Improper and/or inadequate NUTRITION habits
LEARN TO AVOID PROCESSED AND/OR REFINED FOODS

3. A sedimentary lifestyle that does not include enough EXERCISE
FIND SOME KIND OF PHYSICALLY ENGAGING ACTIVITY IF IT IS NOTHING BUT
MORNING OR EVENING WALKS.

4. Not enough rest and quality SLEEP time
GO TO BED. "EARLY TO BED AND EARLY TO RISE; MAKES A MAN HEALTHY,
WEALTHY AND WISE"

LEGAL DISCLAIMER - Required by the FDA. The statements on this page
have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and these
statements are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any
disease