Vitamin Info Series: Need & Benefits Of Vitamin C

Vitamin C is critical for health.  Since it’s water soluble, the body can’t store vitamin C for later use in the body, therefore it’s important that we get the recommended dose each day.

Vitamin C plays a part in everything from tissue regeneration and healing to preventing illness and infection.

Vitamin C is used by the body to produce collagen.  Collagen is the building block of skin, bone, cartilage, blood vessels and ligaments, and also keeps the skin smooth and free of wrinkles.  The body also needs vitamin C to produce dentin, which is a structural component in teeth.

Vitamin C helps the body recovery much faster from wounds and injury.  It does this by speeding up the rate at which the body repairs itself. Vitamin C has also been shown to reduce the amount of histamines in the body.

Some studies have shown that one of the benefits of vitamin C is that it helps to reduce blood pressure, thereby lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease.  It does this by keeping levels of nitric oxide up.  Nitric oxide is a chemical produced by the body that relaxes the blood vessels.  By doing this, it also reduces the risk of stroke.

Benefits Of Vitamin C As An Antioxidant

One of the most important benefits of vitamin C is its role as an antioxidant.  Antioxidants work by removing dangerous free radicals from the body.

A free radical is an unstable oxygen atom.  These are normally produced by the body during a process call oxidation and are necessary for life.  However, once formed, free radicals start chain reactions that are then very damaging to cells.

By slowing or preventing the oxidation of molecules, or even terminating the chain reactions free radicals create, antioxidants help regulate the number of free radicals in the body, and minimize the damage they may cause.

Another one of the benefits of vitamin C as an antioxidant is its role in boosting the immune system by increasing the body’s defense against viral infections, such as the common cold and influenza.  Although it hasn’t been firmly proven yet, the antioxidant capacity of vitamin C may also help cancer and macular degeneration.

Conclusion

These are but a few of the benefits of vitamin C.  Essential for life and good health, it is imperative that we include an adequate amount of this hardworking nutrient into our diets.  By consuming foods daily that are rich in vitamin C such as broccoli, berries, leafy green vegetables and citrus fruits, we can be sure that we’re getting just what our bodies need.

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