Vitamin C helps all cells and tissues in the body. But we can’t manufacture it in our bodies, so we must get it from diet or a supplement.
This study found that just 500 mg per day of extended-release vitamin C reduced endothelin-1- mediated blood vessel constriction as much as walking.
Think about that. Simply taking a safe and inexpensive supplement had as much a positive benefit as walking.
I encourage all of my patients to exercise, and I think walking is an excellent way to move the body. To get the best of both worlds, I suggest walking 30 minutes and taking vitamin C on a daily basis. Between 3,000 and 5,000 mg per day seems optimal for most people.
If you are ill or becoming ill, your vitamin C requirements markedly increase. In this case, I suggest taking vitamin C to bowel tolerance, which can mean 10,000 mg or more per day.
The only side effect with vitamin C dosing is diarrhea. If you get diarrhea from vitamin C, simply lower the dose.
As a rule, you can best meet your vitamin C needs by consuming a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables every day. If you consume the Institute of Medicine's recommended 75 milligrams of vitamin C for women, or 90 milligrams for adult men, each day, excess vitamin C is unnecessary and potentially harmful. However, if you have trouble meeting your vitamin C needs, time-release capsules will provide the most benefit to your body. Excess vitamin C intake may result in kidney stones, so avoid consuming beyond the recommended daily dosage for your age and sex.
I hope it is just for the time I have taken it. Who knows what is in food supplements or the quality.. I have not noticed a measureable affect. A few more days when my supply runs out, I will discontinue.
Vitamin C, in whatever form, has a special place in my supplemental heart. Years ago I had a adrenal disorder and Dr. Lam, a doctor specializing in hypoadrenal disorders, treated me with many supplements, including vitamin C. Over the 13 month period I took prodigious quantities of multiple forms of vitamin C, including:
High absorption LipoNano vitamin C. A product of liposome and nanotechnology. This form has to be taken slowly because it can overwhelm the body and cause diarrhea - this never happened to me. I took 3 doses of this a day with 3 doses of glutathione because glutathione helps the body recycle vitamin(s) C and E.
And I also consumed all-natural slow release vitamin C (2 doses three times a day). All of these forms of vitamin C were taken concurrently and at its peak, I was taking over 23,000 mg/day of the high tech vitamin C with no consequences (other than regaining my health).
It was an unexpected consequence of Dr. Lam's therapy that I figured out how to use dietary supplements to treat disease and I applied this information to PD. All during the 13 month period I researched what the supplements I was using and their effects on the human body. Hypoadrenal conditions are not fun and I had great fatigue and could not work. One day I had an epiphany and understood what he was doing: pushing buttons and throwing switches in the body.
One of America's most pre-eminent scientists, Linus Pauling, the only person to every win 2 Nobel prizes, took 12,000 mg/day of old fashioned ascorbic acid and lived to the ripe age of 93. Recently it was discovered that ascorbic acid can cause DNA mutations and natural vitamin C does not. I commented, in another thread, the only thing worse than taking ascorbic acid and getting DNA damage, is to not take ascorbic acid. I also noted that Sinemet causes DNA damage and mucuna pruriens does not:
Anti-Parkinson botanical Mucuna pruriens prevents levodopa induced plasmid and genomic DNA damage.
"In the present study two different doses of MPCP protected both plasmid DNA and genomic DNA against levodopa and divalent copper-induced DNA strand scission and damage. It exhibited chelation of divalent copper ions in a dose-dependent manner. The copper chelating property may be one of the mechanisms by which MPCP exerts its protective effects on DNA."
In Dr. Levy's book he illustrates how vitamin C, when taken in large enough quantities, has antibiotic like effects on bacteria and antiviral effects on viruses. In one chapter 25,000% of the daily allowance of ascorbic acid brought 5 patients with terminal tuberculosis back from the brink and each of the patients gained between 20 and 70 pounds of weight - cachexia, muscular wasting, is a symptom of TB (and Parkinson's too).
When the body's immune system is compromised it can absorb more vitamin C than a normal healthy person. The concept of bowel tolerance is when the body consumes too much vitamin C through the gastrointestinal tract, diarrhea happens. A doctor in the 1980's treated AIDS patients with astronomical oral doses of vitamin C to the tune of 50.000 to 200,000 mg/day with no side effects other than raising their T cell levels.
Really the best way for the body to use vitamin C is either an intravenous or intramuscular injection - thus bypassing the stomach. There have been several cases of parkinsonism related to vitamin C and, the title says it all:
Ascorbate- and zinc-responsive parkinsonism.
"A 66-year-old man with Parkinsonism, pleural effusion, and bipolar disorder was found to have low serum vitamin C and zinc levels. Intravenous replacement of these micronutrients led to resolution of the movement disorder in less than 24 hours."
"Whereas vitamin C has a strong link with Parkinsonism, the potential role of zinc has only been suspected. This case report highlights some of the potential links between zinc deficiency and Parkinsonism."
Most mainstream vitamin C clinical trials are flawed because they use the least effective delivery route for vitamin C, the oral route, and their doses are too low - they usually peak at 3,000 mg/day.
"The current recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for vitamin C for adult nonsmoking men and women is 60 mg/d, which is based on a mean requirement of 46 mg/d to prevent the deficiency disease scurvy."
The problem with RDA levels of supplementation is they are only able to prevent a disease caused at the dose slightly less than they are recommending and are not promoting optimal health by taking larger doses. I take 4,200 mg of C (in various forms) including a slow release tablet.
The Vitamin C Foundation recommends 3,000 mg/day for a healthy person:
"The Vitamin C Foundation recommends that every man, woman and child over the age of 3 consume at least 3 g (3000 mg) vitamin C daily in order to enjoy optimum health."
The bottom line for vitamin C, is if you are not feeling a positive physical response to vitamin C therapy, and you have an compromised immune system, you are not taking enough to get a therapeutic response. The daily RDA of vitamin C is a joke for PWP or anyone with a compromised immune system. The problem with this is large doses of vitamin C must be taken incrementally, slowly build up to larger doses over months, for it to have a therapeutic effect (and not cause diarrhea). Before Dr. Lam reached 23,000 + vit c/day, he took about 4 months of weekly changes in the dose to maximize the amount of vitamin C I was taking. And what did he ask me every week, do you have any diarrhea? Not one instance of vitamin C side effects here.
Many years ago the US and CDN governments declared that Citric acid was vitamin C. They had brought in legislation that all juices must be pasteurized like milk was and that killed all the vitamin C . It was necessary to put the words "Vitamin C added" on the cartons.
The problem is that Citric acid, while it is similar to some of the components of vitamin C, it is not vitamin C. Eat raw fruit and vegetables and get real vitamin C. An apple a day keeps the mortician away.
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C/L induced dyskinesia - severe wrist pain 
Should he increase C/L dosage?
Here's PROOF our VITAMINS are POISONING us!
Is this a side effect of c/l or what?
