Are You Sure You're Taking the Right Vitamin C?

All Vitamin C Is Not Created Equal

Humans are unable to make Vitamin C. In fact, we are part of a small group of animals in the world whose bodies cannot make Vitamin C. We need to eat foods that are rich sources of Vitamin C. And, given our toxic, stressful environment, we need to supplement our diet with the right amount of Vitamin C every day.

TriVita promotes neutral pH, Sodium-L-Ascorbate Vitamin C crystals. It’s important to understand why!

The journey of Vitamin C
Every nutrient you ingest including vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats and sugars has a specific transport mechanism that takes it from your digestive tract into your body. Once it enters your system, each nutrient has a transport mechanism that takes it to the cells where it is needed. For example, Vitamin B-1 has a transport mechanism that transports B-1 and nothing else. Iron has a transport mechanism that transports iron and nothing else.

Vitamin C has its own transport mechanisms as well. But, the need for Vitamin C is so great that our bodies let us use other transport mechanisms in addition to the one marked “Vitamin C only.” The two that are most important are sodium (salt) and glucose (sugar). We can actually transport Vitamin C in channels for salt and sugar! This is possible because Vitamin C is a great impersonator.

Sodium: Vitamin C looks enough like sodium to be taken from the intestines into the body just like the sodium from your food. Because we need a lot of sodium, the transport channels for sodium are very large and Vitamin C can “ride along” with sodium through this open channel into your bloodstream. That’s one reason we attach our Vitamin C to sodium as Sodium-L-Ascorbate: to maximize absorption with minimum effort.

Why sodium?
Now, sodium has a really bad reputation because many of us put too much salt (sodium chloride) on our food. But, the fruits and vegetables we eat are naturally very high in sodium. Our blood is naturally high in sodium. In fact, the sodium content of our blood is about 32 times greater than the potassium level in our blood. It is comparable to the sodium content in sea water.

Glucose: The most abundant fuel in our bodies is a sugar called glucose. Glucose is so familiar to each cell that receptor sites on the cell wall – guardians of who gets in and who stays out – readily accept large amounts of glucose to fuel the cell and give it energy. These receptors are very large because large amounts of glucose are needed inside the cell. Glucose is a six-sided crystal and so is our Vitamin C. To take advantage of the glucose transport site, we use Vitamin C with the crystal structure intact. This combination allows the most Vitamin C to get into the cell with the least amount of effort required. So, Vitamin C from your diet is taken in through Vitamin C transport sites and through glucose transport sites as well.

Why neutral pH Vitamin C?
Vitamin C is acidic and we don’t need more acid in our body. Our blood is slightly alkaline with a pH of 7.2 to 7.4 (pH 7.0 is neutral pH). Highly acidic environments in our cells breed disease and suffocate our cells. Oxygen is transported more efficiently when we have a more neutral balance in our cells. Neutral pH Sodium-L-Ascorbate crystals neutralize some of the acid in our body caused by toxicity, injuries and stress.

How much Vitamin C is enough?
This is a hard question to answer. We are all different so I prefer to let my body tell me how much Vitamin C it needs. If I am feeling tired, I take more Vitamin C. Many people find that extra Vitamin C benefits their blood sugar and dental health, and helps them recover quicker from injuries. Use the Vitamin C flush to help determine the maximum amount of Vitamin C you need at any given time.

In any event, using neutral pH, Sodium-L-Ascorbate crystals makes the most sense when selecting Vitamin C.

Take Control of Your Health

* Eat your fruits and vegetables, fresh and ripe when possible:
o 5 servings for children
o 7 servings for women
o 9 servings for men
* Select the right Vitamin C supplement as part of your healthy aging program

These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA, and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Healthy Fun Facts

Fact #1:
Since I take my Vitamin D everyday, I hope I don’t outlive my 401K.
Low levels of vitamin D may increase the risk of death from all causes by 26 per cent, suggests a study with 13,000 initially healthy men and women. In adults, vitamin D deficiency may precipitate or exacerbate osteopenia, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, fractures, common cancers, autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases and cardiovascular diseases.

Vemma contains 1000 iu of Vitamin D in every 2 oz. serving.

Source: 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and the risk of mortality in the general population.

Fact #2:
Spicing up your diet may also add years to your life and life to your years.
Herbs and spices are rich in antioxidants, and a new University of Georgia study suggests they are also potent inhibitors of tissue damage and inflammation caused by high levels of blood sugar. In addition to finding high levels of antioxidant-rich compounds known as phenols, they revealed a direct correlation between phenol content and the ability of the extracts to block the formation of compounds that contribute to damage caused by diabetes and aging.

A process known as protein glycation occurs in which the sugar bonds with proteins to eventually form what are known as advanced glycation end products, also known as AGE compounds. The acronym is fitting because these compounds activate the immune system, resulting in the inflammation and tissue damage associated with aging and diabetes.

If you’re spice cabinet is a little bare, you can always reach for the Ultimate Antiox HS which contain a wide variety of herb and spice extracts.

Source: Inhibition of protein glycation by extracts of culinary herbs and spices.

Fact #3:
“Very funny Billy. Yes, you look like an elephant but your celery sticks belong in your stomach not in your nose.”
It appears that as parents, we have a greater influence on our children’s eating habits than we might believe. When parents eat more fruits and vegetables so do their children. On the other hand the same occurs when the parents are reaching for sugary and salty snacks.

"Overweight children have already been exposed to salty, sweet foods and learned to like them," says Debra Haire-Joshu, Ph.D., a professor at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work and who also holds an appointment at the School of Medicine as a professor. "To keep a child from becoming overweight, parents need to expose them early to a variety of healthy foods and offer the foods many times."

Haire-Joshu says many children today are taught patterns that lead to obesity. "We want families to provide their child with an environment in which they not only learn how to eat healthy but have the opportunity to practice what they learn," she says.

Source: High 5 for Kids: The impact of a home visiting program on fruit and vegetable intake of parents and their preschool children.

Fact #4:
This may help those going through a difficult time.
According to a recent study, high protein meals with ginger reduced the delayed nausea of chemotherapy and reduced use of antiemetic medications. Protein with ginger holds the potential of representing a novel, nutritionally based treatment for the delayed nausea of chemotherapy according to the authors.


Source: Protein and ginger for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced delayed nausea.

Fact #5:
…and it’ll also help with those stubborn cases of H. Pylori.
Extracts of ginger demonstrated inhibitory properties against H. pylori growth.

Source: Inhibition of gastric H(+),K(+)-ATPase and Helicobacter pylori growth by phenolic antioxidants of Curcuma amada.