High-Dose Vitamin C: Working With It May Improve Internal Health
07/02/2020 | By: Emily Murray
With the events of early 2020 and the coronavirus epidemic, mega-dosing your body with Vitamin C has become a hot topic of discussion. Some people believe it is like a miracle, and others wonder if it’s all a bunch of hogwash. As with any new idea, there are folks on both sides of the fence. But the argument in favor of high-dose Vitamin C therapy is certainly a compelling one. It’s worth a closer look, and some deep-dive research of your own to satisfy your curiosity about it, but here is the gist: mega doses of Vitamin C may in fact be the cure for what ails you. Almost anything that ails you, it seems.
Mega-dosing with Vitamin C is thought to be a powerful anti-viral, anti-bacterial, and anti-cancer method. Vitamin C (also called ascorbic acid) is essential to our survival and supports almost every one of our bodily systems. Our immune system, cardiovascular system, adrenals, and more, all take from your body’s Vitamin C stores.
High-Dose Oral Vitamin C Therapy
Vitamin C itself is a powerful antioxidant, combating the free radicals in your body that are there just to cause a ruckus, cause oxidization, just like rust in your pipes. Free radicals begin to take over when our immunity is down, or when we have a chronic problem going on in our body, and they lead to further degradation of our systems. So, the less healthy you are, the more Vitamin C you need. You need more of that antioxidant power to fight all the oxidizing free radicals. The more healthy you are, the less Vitamin C your body needs because there’s nothing to fix.
A healthy person can take between 4-15 grams (4,000-15,000 mg) of vitamin C throughout a 24 hour period without experiencing any negative side effects (diarrhea), but a sick person can tolerate as much as 10-20 times that. They can take as much as 100-200 grams per day by mouth, depending on what’s going on with them.
If you have ever taken vitamin C when you had a cold and it didn’t help, it is likely that you didn’t take nearly enough to replenish your stores and get to actually helping the cold symptoms. It’s likely that went to something more urgent.
Titrating To Bowel Tolerance
When you have enough (or too much) Vitamin C in your body, you will experience diarrhea. When this happens, it is said that you have reached “bowel tolerance”.
This leads me to what is known as “titrating to bowel tolerance”. This is a way you can experiment with your own levels of Vitamin C. Boosting your health and immunity by ensuring your Vitamin C levels are appropriate, is as simple as finding your own tolerance for Vitamin C. It’s also a great indicator of your overall health. If you can’t take too much without a negative result, that’s actually a really good sign.
How To Do It Yourself
It’s important to be aware that the half-life of Vitamin C in the body is about 30 minutes. So, about an hour after you take the Vitamin C dose, your body has already used up most of it. This makes it important to keep your body saturated with vitamin C all day, so dosing every 1-2 hours is ideal, except when sleeping of course.
The goal is to find your 24-hour Vitamin C limit, not the single-dose limit.
The easy way to find your bowel tolerance is to ingest 2-3 grams of Vitamin C powder or crystals (ascorbic acid) every two hours. Take with a glass of water. This will give you around 12-18 grams on your first day. Be sure to write down your exact numbers so you can keep track.
Remember, this works the opposite way one would think: the less tolerance you have for Vitamin C, the healthier all your internal systems are. The more tolerance you have, the more your body is gobbling up what you’re giving it. If you reach bowel tolerance in the first 24 hours, pat yourself on the back and start scaling down on the dosage until you’re at the right tolerance. If you do not, don’t despair! Start to dial it up until you find your own unique tolerance, and gently walk it back as you get healthier and healthier over time.
Good luck!
Disclaimer: As with any medical issue, always consult a physician prior to attempting any treatment, preventative or otherwise. This blog is not intended to diagnose or offer treatment for any issue.
Do you know what else is good for immune health?
Vitamin C+Magnesium+K2 and Vitamin D
Research on Vitamin C shows that taking this one vitamin has the potential to reduce the duration and severity of upper respiratory tract infections as well as supporting the fight against chronic diseases.
Yup not only that but add Magnesium to the mix and you have just tapped into the dynamic-duo of immune support.
>>Did you know that 80% of Americans are Magnesium Deficient and it is leading to a myriad of health issues? This deficiency just might be might be the source of all your symptoms download our free comprehensive guide: “The Magnesium Solution Solving the Biggest Deficiency in America”<<
Sources: