So vitamin C is bad for you now?
“Naturally occurring ascorbic acid and added ascorbic acid — which may be chemically manufactured — may have different impacts on health,” said Touvier, who is also director of research at France’s National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Paris.
“Thus, the results observed here for these food additives are not true for natural substances found in fruits and vegetables,” she added.
I know this might just be the reporting, but this feels kinda wishy washy. Why? What’s different about it
Gonna have to read the paper when I’m more awake
Ascorbic acid has two enantiomers. Only one of them is “vitamin C”. I’m not sure if this is what she’s referring to, though.
In another interview (in French, sorry), when talking about beta-carotene, she says that a substance isolated from its natural environment (other molecules, cells, etc.) and replaced with a pure, synthetic version could have very different biological properties.
Honestly, I think we still know very little about this. This research is about strong statistical associations. A lot more research is needed to understand the exact biological processes.
What about supplements? Those aren’t any more natural than additives. You’d think if vitamin C were dangerous it would have been found out decades ago.
It was. High dose vitamin C is a bad idea. Americans are obsessed with any quick fixes in pill forms.
Something to consider is differences in absorption and context. One angle is coabsorbtion, where two molecules can be absorbed better together than apart. Another is binding, such as with lectins which can bind to some micro nutrients and prevent absorption. So if you add lots of something which is not bound like it naturally would be with foods that contain it then absorption may be disregulated and you may have wildly different levels absorbed than the nutritional label would suggest.
Adding lots of vitamin C to foods because of a cosmetic or preservative function may not be the best idea given how active it is in the body. Maybe it has a similar effect in the gut to what it does in the food in the packet, killing a bunch of microbes, and therefore could impact our gut microbiome. We don’t have the data yet on the mechanisms, so we should withhold judgement for now.
So vitamin C is bad for you now?
Everything is bad for you, it only depends on the dose and conditions.
When I hear “chemically manufactured” I immediately doubt. Everything is chemically manufactured.
Yeah same, I’ll also definitly read the paper later and whatnot.
What they are saying is supplements are bad for you, get vitamins from food, not pills. It has to do with dose and time, too much VitC too quickly triggers the opposite effect of what you want.
Linus Pauling started the whole supplements craze with hyper dosing vitamin C. Both he and his wife died of cancer. Classic example of Nobel disease where an award causes people to start believing their own bullshit because everyone calls them a genius.
Here’s the press release from INSERM, which is likely a better source: https://presse.inserm.fr/en/colorants-conservateurs-trois-nouvelles-etudes-pointent-des-liens-entre-additifs-alimentaires-et-risque-accru-de-cancer-de-maladies-cardiovasculaires-et-dhypertension/72881/
Whatever.
I’m tired, boss.
