Vitamin C supplements

What are the benefits of taking vitamin C?

Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is a water-soluble vitamin and is considered an essential vitamin for maintaining optimal health. Most of its health benefits stem from its role in forming blood vessels, muscle tissue and collagen, as well as its antioxidant powers.

When your body has optimal vitamin C levels it improves many aspects of your health, including healthier skin, joints, eyes, better gut health, heart health and immunity (the first three are due to vitamin C’s vital role in collagen synthesis).

Did you know that vitamin C boosts the adrenals and lowers cortisol levels, helping to reduce stress and improve sleep? So, improving your vitamin C intake with vitamin C tablets can simultaneously improve your heart health, blood pressure and blood sugar levels. Not bad, right?

We cannot produce vitamin C ourselves, and we also cannot store the vitamin in our bodies in large quantities. This means that we rely on consuming it through the food we eat on a daily basis. Due to the significant role it plays in our overall health, you may not be getting enough through your diet and might want to use vitamin C supplements to ensure you're reaping all the benefits it has to offer.

3 tips on how to get as much vitamin C as possible in your diet:

• Consume fruit and vegetables as soon as possible after buying them
• Wash them thoroughly, but briefly
• Steam vegetables only briefly in a little water

How does vitamin C affect collagen?

Vitamin C helps enzymes stabilise and strengthen collagen molecules in our body. Collagen is the most abundant protein in your body and one of the major building blocks of bones, skin, muscles, tendons and ligaments. 

Does vitamin C make your skin clear?

When we are deficient in vitamin C, the collagen produced is unstable, so tissue repair is less efficient and wounds take longer to heal. Vitamin C’s antioxidant properties also boost your skin’s natural regeneration process, which helps your body repair damaged skin cells, protecting them from stress caused by pollution, smoking and UV rays by neutralising the production of highly reactive molecules known as free radicals.

Clearly, vitamin C is important for maintaining optimal skin health – in other words, maintaining healthy-looking skin that heals faster. Unfortunately, Vitamin C is destroyed in the process of forming collagen, so it is essential to maintain your vitamin C levels through diet and/or vitamin C tablets. Our collagen and vitamin C supplements combined are especially efficient at minimising wrinkles and other signs of aging, as well as optimising hair thickness, hair length and strengthening fingernails.

Does vitamin C deficiency cause joint pain?

Alongside youthful skin, a vitamin C supplement could also improve the health of your joints for similar reasons. Collagen (for which, as mentioned previously, vitamin C is vital) helps maintain healthy cartilage, the tissue that covers the surface of your joints, protecting them from wear and tear.

As you age, the amount of collagen in your body decreases so your intake of vitamin C needs to increase to maintain a balance. Vitamin C tablets can consequently reduce your risk of developing conditions such as osteoarthritis as you age. Not only is the best vitamin C supplement good for prevention, but if you already have osteoporosis or osteoarthritis, vitamin C intake has the potential to increase bone mineral density, as well as relieving pain. Arthritis specialists have long recommended vitamin C tablets because of their potent antioxidant qualities and role in cartilage health.

Best vitamin C supplement: what is the best strength to take?

According to the NHS, the daily vitamin C requirement for adults is 40 milligrammes. A vitamin deficiency can be quickly detected by various vitamin deficiency tests – and appropriate, targeted measures can then be initiated.

Are you vegetarian or vegan? Did you know that vitamin C promotes iron absorption and assists with converting poorly-absorbed types of iron (such as plant-based iron) into a form that is absorbed more efficiently? Iron is vital in making red blood cells and transporting oxygen throughout the body, so being able to absorb it effectively is especially beneficial for people on a vegan diet. In fact, consuming 100 milligrammes of vitamin C tablets may improve iron absorption by 67 per cent! This means vitamin C supplements can also reduce the risk of anaemia for those prone to iron deficiency.

For a super immune booster, we recommend taking zinc supplements in combination with vitamin C, as zinc is also effective for immunity against the common cold. This is because vitamin C prevents the adherence of cold viruses to the host’s cells in the nasal mucosa. Additionally, it inhibits the growth of germs and stops their reproduction.

Certain people require a higher vitamin C intake, including breastfeeding women and smokers, who, for example, should consume between 125 and 155 milligrammes daily, according to experts.