Vitamin C & Rutin

Vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, is an essential water-soluble nutrient. Unlike most other animals, humans cannot synthesize vitamin C in their own tissues, so you must obtain it from your diet. Whenever it is found in foods, vitamin C is usually accompanied by a group of nutrients called bioflavonoids -- rutin, hesperidin, quercetin and catechins -- which enhance its actions and stabilize its structure. Plants produce these compounds for many of the same purposes that make them valuable to your health.

Collagen

One of vitamin C's principal functions in animals is to support the manufacture of collagen, which is the protein that lends structure to your skin, tendons, cartilage, bones, blood vessels, muscles, eyeballs and organs. Vitamin C deficiency leads to production of collagen that is incomplete and fragile, resulting in a condition called scurvy. Nutritionist Elson Haas, M.D., says that vitamin C's ability to cure scurvy has been recognized for centuries, although the vitamin itself was not isolated from lemons -- one of its richest sources -- until 1932.

Antioxidant

Normal cellular metabolism and exposure to environmental toxins and pollutants generate toxic compounds called free radicals, which can provoke cellular injury and promote disease. According to the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, vitamin C effectively reduces the formation of such free radicals even when it is present in small amounts. Rutin is a potent antioxidant in its own right, and when consumed with vitamin C, it improves the latter's absorption and prevents vitamin C itself from becoming oxidized, thus prolonging and improving its function.

Immunity

One of the consequences of a robust immune system is the ongoing production of free radicals and highly reactive substances that can damage your tissues. According to the April 2011 issue of "Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry," these substances are necessary to protect you from pathogenic microbes, but they must be neutralized almost as soon as they are generated. Vitamin C is essential for protecting your immune cells from the reactive molecules they create. Rutin not only accentuates vitamin C's antioxidant properties; it can also act directly as an antimicrobial.

Capillary Strength

Capillaries are the microscopic blood vessels that transport blood, oxygen and nutrients into the tiniest recesses of your body. Sometimes only a few cells in diameter, these living channels are extremely susceptible to oxidative insults. While vitamin C helps provide a healthy collagen matrix that supports your capillaries, rutin and other bioflavonoids lend integrity to their walls and regulate their permeability, or "leakiness." The concerted actions of vitamin C and rutin prevent capillary rupture, bruising and hemorrhage.

Considerations

Your daily needs for vitamin C and rutin vary with your level of exposure to environmental toxins and pollutants -- cigarette smokers have higher requirements than nonsmokers, for example -- your activity level, the presence of underlying illness, injury or stress and the use of medications. Recommended dietary allowances for vitamin C -- the amount needed to prevent deficiency -- range from 40 mg daily for infants to 120 mg for nursing mothers. There is no dietary guideline for rutin, as it occurs in foods along with vitamin C. However, a bioflavonoid supplement containing 50 mg of rutin and 50 mg of hesperidin taken one to three times daily is a reasonable level of intake.