Vitamin C is essential for growth and health. One way to get your vitamin C is through the use of vitamin C powder that can be added to drinks for a quick and easy way to get your daily recommended dose.
Identification
Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is a water-soluble vitamin that your body can't make on its own and thus needs to get from your diet. It's found in foods like citrus fruits, green vegetables, tomatoes and potatoes. Vitamin C powder is a supplement that often contains four buffering minerals in addition to ascorbic acid, helping to make it less irritating to your digestive tract and improve the taste when added to water or other food and beverages. Most brands of vitamin C powder contain 4,000 mg per teaspoon.
Benefits
Vitamin C is an antioxidant, meaning it counteracts harmful free radicals in your body and protects tissues. Vitamin C also help your body absorb iron and plays an important role in synthesizing your brain's neurotransmitters, as well as collagen, a structure in blood vessels, tendons, ligaments, skin and bone, according to the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University. Vitamin C may also be involved in the metabolism of cholesterol into bile acids, with effects upon your blood cholesterol levels and the risk for gallstones. Until 1932, many people suffered from scurvy, a disease that causes spots on the skin, spongy gums and mucous-membrane bleeding, until it was discovered that a vitamin C deficiency was the cause.
Misconceptions
According to both MayoClinic.com and Drugs.com, various claims have been made for vitamin C's health benefits that it can cure almost everything, from preventing the common cold, to treating asthma, mental problems, cancer, hardening of the arteries, allergies, eye ulcers, blood clots, gum disease, and pressure sores. None of these claims have yet to be proven in clinical trials, and consumers should be wary of any vitamin C powder or other supplement that makes such claims.
Considerations
The Recommended Daily Value set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of vitamin C to prevent a deficiency is up to 45 milligrams daily for children, 50 to 60 milligrams per day for adults, 70 to 95 milligrams for pregnant and breast-feeding women and up to 100 milligrams a day recommended for smokers. Certain health conditions may increase your need for vitamin C, including AIDS, alcoholism, burns, cancer, diarrhea, infection, hyperthyroidism, ulcers, tubulerculosis and the surgical removal of the stomach.
Warning
Because vitamin C powder provides high concentrations of the nutrient, it's easy to consume a large dose. Very high doses of vitamin C may occasionally cause gastrointestinal problems, headache, flushing or redness of skin. Because oxalate is metabolized by vitamin C, some health organizations, such as the Linus Pauling Institute, feel that high vitamin C intake could increase the risk of oxalate kidney stones.
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