What Do Vitamins C & D Do For Your Body?

Go into a health food store, and you will see rows upon rows of vitamins and supplements to help with almost any condition. It would be difficult to choose more effective vitamin supplements than vitamin C and D, however. Years of research demonstrates that they can help prevent and cure a variety of ills.

Daily Recommended Intakes

Vitamins C and D are essential vitamins. Eat a diet devoid of these nutrients while staying out of the sun, and you risk deficiencies that can result in serious diseases. Women should get 75 mg of vitamin C each day, while men need as much as 90 mg of this nutrient. Both men and women should get at least 15 IU of vitamin D daily. While many foods, including citrus fruit, berries and potatoes, are high in vitamin C, it can be difficult to get vitamin D without exposure to sunlight. Mushrooms, along with fortified foods, such as milk, are dietary sources of this nutrient.

Prevent Deficiencies

A lack of vitamin C can result in disease. The most well-known is scurvy, a painful condition that affects numerous bodily tissues. Even today, when few people spend months at a time at sea, people can get this disease, which results from not including vitamin C in the diet. Insufficient vitamin C might play a role in lung cancer, stroke and heart disease.

When you don't get enough sun or eat foods enriched with vitamin D, your health can suffer. People who have low levels of vitamin D are more likely to develop high blood pressure, heart disease and obesity. They also have a higher risk of osteoporosis. Getting sufficient vitamin D might reduce your risk of some cancers.

Disease Prevention

Supplementation with vitamin C helps to prevent breast cancer and cataracts. It also can decrease the symptoms of gout, a disease that causes joints to become swollen and painful. Treatment with only 500 mg per day of this nutrient can also cause increased vasodilation, which helps to treat angina pectoris, congestive heart failure, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes, according to The Linus Pauling Institute.

Adding additional vitamin D to your diet in the form of supplements can help to decrease the severity of seasonal affective disorder, a form of depression. Vitamin D can also help to prevent Type 1 diabetes when administered to infants. Just 400 mg of vitamin D per day can decrease your chance of getting multiple sclerosis. Fetuses that develop in a uterine environment poor in vitamin D may end up experiencing an increased risk of schizophrenia later in life, indicating that this nutrient has a powerful effect on the brain.

Immunity

Anecdotally, vitamin C is known for preventing colds. In actuality, it doesn't prevent colds, but may keep you from getting as many as you otherwise might have had you not supplemented with vitamin C. Vitamin C may decrease the duration of cold as well.

Vitamin D also has an effect on the immune system. Individuals who get colds and flu are more likely to have low levels of this nutrient than people who have adequate levels. During winter, when you are unlikely to get enough vitamin D from sunlight, consider taking a supplement.