Are Vitamin C Supplements Necessary for Maintaining Good Health?

Check out this answer from Consensus:

The necessity of vitamin C supplements for maintaining good health depends on various factors, including dietary intake, individual health status, and specific health conditions. While a diet rich in fruits and vegetables can provide adequate vitamin C for most people, supplementation may be beneficial for certain populations, such as older adults, individuals with higher disease risk, and those with limited access to fresh produce. Overall, vitamin C supplementation is generally safe and may offer additional health benefits beyond the RDA.

Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is a vital nutrient for human health. It is well-known for its antioxidant properties and its role in various bodily functions, including immune defense, collagen synthesis, and the maintenance of skin, blood vessels, and bones. However, the necessity of vitamin C supplementation for maintaining good health remains a topic of debate. This article explores the current scientific evidence on the need for vitamin C supplements.

The Role of Vitamin C in Human Health

Vitamin C is essential for life in humans because the body does not synthesize it. It plays a crucial role in enhancing the immune system, preventing DNA damage, and reducing the risk of various diseases, including cancers and chronic conditions1. Additionally, vitamin C supports the epithelial barrier function against pathogens and promotes the oxidant scavenging activity of the skin, thereby protecting against environmental oxidative stress6.

Dietary Sources and Recommended Daily Allowance

The primary sources of vitamin C are fruits and vegetables. However, modern agricultural practices, transportation, and food storage can significantly reduce the vitamin C content in these foods1. The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for vitamin C is often considered insufficient to meet the body’s needs for optimal health. Studies suggest that higher intakes of vitamin C, beyond the RDA, are safe and may be necessary to achieve optimal health1.

Vitamin C and Cardiovascular Health

The relationship between vitamin C supplementation and cardiovascular health has been extensively studied. Observational studies have shown an inverse relationship between vitamin C intake and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors. However, clinical trials have produced inconsistent results. A comprehensive review concluded that there is no strong evidence to suggest that vitamin C supplementation reduces the risk of CVD in healthy individuals or those at increased risk2 3. Nonetheless, some subpopulations, such as older adults and those with higher CVD risk, may benefit from vitamin C supplementation3.

Vitamin C and Cancer

Vitamin C’s role in cancer prevention and treatment has been a subject of interest. While some studies suggest that vitamin C supplementation can improve immune function in cancer patients, the overall evidence is inconclusive. The quality of studies on this topic is generally low, and the results are mixed. However, vitamin C supplementation is considered safe and may be beneficial for specific patient groups4 5.

Bone Health and Vitamin C

Vitamin C is essential for collagen formation and normal bone development. Research indicates that higher vitamin C intake is associated with lower bone loss in elderly men, particularly those with low calcium or vitamin E intake. This suggests a potential protective role of vitamin C for bone health in older adults9.

Gut Health and Vitamin C

Emerging evidence suggests that vitamin C supplementation may positively affect gut microbiota composition. A pilot study found that high-dose vitamin C supplementation led to beneficial shifts in bacterial populations in the gut, which could have anti-inflammatory effects and promote gut health10.

Are Vitamin C supplements necessary for maintaining good health?

Margreet Vissers has answered Unlikely

An expert from University of Otago in Vitamin C, Biochemistry, Cancer Immunology

Anyone can get enough vitamin C from a good diet to maintain good health, and this should always be the first course of actin. This means eating fresh fruit and vegetables in the recommended amount and variety. Your body will not store vitamin C, so this needs to be a regular habit, not an occasional activity.

Supplements are only recommended if you cannot access the food you need. Very sick people need more vitamin C daily, and a supplement may be recommended for this.

Are Vitamin C supplements necessary for maintaining good health?

Jens Lykkesfeldt has answered Unlikely

An expert from University of Copenhagen in Pharmacology, Toxicology, Vitamin C

No – not if you eat a balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables…

The amount of vitamin C necessary to prevent scurvy is very low and can therefore easily be obtained from a normal diet. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that vitamin C has many other important functions in the body besides preventing scurvy and that the optimal intake is probably higher than most recommendations suggest. A diet rich in fruits and vegetables will contain about 200 mg vitamin C per day, but for most people it is difficult to maintain such a high intake from food sources alone.

Supplements may be an alternative to achieve the 200-400 mg per day that appears to be the optimal intake. However, it is important to stress that the long term benefit of ingesting more than 100mg/day has been very difficult to show in intervention studies—probably for several reasons that I have written about in the scientific literature.

On the other hand, most of the well conducted large epidemiological studies have found a clear relationship between high vitamin C intake an reduced risk of in particular cardiovascular disease, stroke and all-cause mortality.

Are Vitamin C supplements necessary for maintaining good health?

Cornelie Nienaber-Rousseau has answered Unlikely

An expert from North-West University in Nutrition

Vitamin C or ascorbic acid is a water soluble essential vitamin. Several foods contain vitamin C. Citrus fruits, cantaloupe, strawberries, papayas and mangoes are notable sources among fruits. Cabbage-type vegetables, dark green vegetables (like green peppers and broccoli), lettuce, tomatoes and even potatoes are some of the vegetables that provide vitamin C. Vitamin C is easily destroyed by heat and oxygen, hence eating whole raw fruits and some raw/steamed vegetables are recommended. Adult men and women older than 19 yrs require 90 mg/day and 75 mg/day, respectively with smokers/passive smokers needing 35 mg/day more than their non-smoking counterparts. Consuming five varied servings of fruits and vegetables a day will provide an adequate amount of vitamin C, therefore, making supplementation unnecessary.

There are some individuals who might be at risk of vitamin C inadequacy. Deficiency symptoms include anemia, athrosclerotic plaques/pinpoint hemorrhages, bone fragility, poor wound healing, bleeding gums and loose teeth, muscle degeneration, rough skin and blotchy bruises. The deficiency disease of vitamin C is called scurvy and only appears when vitamin C intake is less than 1 mg/day (Hemila, 2017). At-risk individuals include: infants fed on evaporated or boiled cow’s milk, individuals with limited food variety (elderly, those who abuse alcohol or drugs, food insecure individuals) or those with medical conditions limiting vitamin C’s absorption.

Dietary vitamin C’s association with diseases has been researched for cancer, cardiovascular disease, age-related macular degeneration (AMD)/cataracts and the common cold among others. Dietary vitamin C intake is inversely associated with esophageal cancer (Bo et al., 2015) and lung cancer (Shareck et al., 2017), but not associated with ovarian cancer (Long et al., 2019) or pancreatic cancer (Hua et al., 2016) (as summarised by meta-analyses). Dietary vitamin C consumption has several benefits related to hearth health and those who are deficient have higher risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease (Moser and Chun, 2016). Ravindran and colleagues (2018) found that a genetic variant in a sodium-dependent vitamin C transporter gene that could proxy for lifetime ascorbate concentrations support a causal association of vitamin C with age-related cataracts. Vitamin C is unable to prevent or reduce the frequency of the common cold in the general population, but halved the number of colds in physically active individuals (Hemila, 2017). There is limited evidence for beneficial effect of vitamin C supplementation on markers of disease (Ashor et al., 2019). Granger and Eck argue that supplementation in populations with adequate vitamin C intake supplied through dietary sources will add no added benefit to impact diseases (Granger and Eck, 2018).

Are Vitamin C supplements necessary for maintaining good health?

Anitra Carr has answered Likely

An expert from University of Otago in Vitamin C

Yes – vitamin C supplements are necessary for maintaining good health – if your usual diet is low in vitamin C. Foods vary greatly in their vitamin C content, with most staple foods containing very little, if any, vitamin C. Consumption of at least 5 servings of fruit and vegetables per day is required, but at least one of these has to be a high vitamin C food (in order to get at least 200 mg/day of vitamin C). As such, it can be hard for many people to consume enough vitamin C from their diet alone for good health. Many diseases can also decrease people’s vitamin C status and increase their requirements for vitamin C. Therefore, people with low dietary intakes of vitamin C and/or who have diseases which affect vitamin C status and requirements would benefit from taking vitamin C supplements in addition to their normal diet (see [1]).

Reference:

1.       Carr AC, Frei B. Toward a new recommended dietary allowance for vitamin C based on antioxidant and health effects in humans. Am J Clin Nutr. 1999;69(6):1086-107.

Are Vitamin C supplements necessary for maintaining good health?

Gerard Bos has answered Unlikely

An expert from Maastricht University Medical Center+ in Cancer, Immunology, Hematology

No supplements are not necessary as long a people eat healthy. Among the definition of healthy food is two peaces of fruit that contain vitamin C. Hopefully we can supply the world with healthy food, for several reasons so we do not have to really on pills.