Vitamin C - Week of 2/26/06

Vitamin C - Week of 2/26/06

Good Day…to all group members. I hope this day finds each of you
enjoying God's abundance. Again this week, we will focus on something
that may be timely, as we are in the depths of the cold and flu
season. This week we will look at a well-known nutritional
supplement, rather than an herb. (Please forgive me for not sticking
solely with herbs. Hopefully our list owner won't disapprove, either.)

Vitamin C or ascorbic acid, while widely known in a general sense, has
specific uses and true benefits that are illusive to most of us. What
we do know is pretty general, and that is that Vitamin C is used for
colds and flu.

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. This is, of course, 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. When purchasing
Vitamin C, you will note that, sold separately, it is usually sold in
amounts of 250mg, 500mg or even 1000mg tablets. There is sound logic
for these quantities; 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 cannot 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.

"..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..."

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.

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 every day 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 jalapeno peppers
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.

Until Next Week,
REGAL