Just about everything doctors have been telling us about vitamin C is wrong.
The current medical opinion says people can gain all their vitamin C requirements from a healthy diet. They tell us to make sure we get five, or perhaps even nine, helpings of fruits and vegetables each day. And admonished that we do not need dietary supplements.
However, the book Vitamin C: The Real Story, the Remarkable and Controversial Healing Factor, written by Steve Hickey, explains why eating more vegetables and fruits alone, while good advice, will not provide the benefits of vitamin C supplementation.
One problem of conventional advice is that it’s based on a flawed notion of what is optimal.
The Real Story on Vitamin C
In 1932, nutritional researchers discovered that citrus fruits contained a substance that, when extracted and fed to laboratory animals, would prevent scurvy. This substance is what we call Vitamin C.
The government’s Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) suggests an intake of vitamin C just enough to prevent acute deficiencies such as scurvy.
According to the conventional view, they consider intakes above this minimum level unnecessary. But, let’s face it. Who wants to aspire to a healthy level just above not getting scurvy?
Achieving optimal health means going way beyond what traditional recommendations consider to be sufficient.
There is substantial evidence showing the intake of vitamin C necessary to prevent chronic illness is much greater than the RDA.
Mr. Hickey even contends that someday, medicine without vitamin C therapy will be compared to childbirth without sanitation or surgery without anesthetic!
Another one of the early scientists to realize vitamin C’s potential is Irwin Stone, Ph.D. (1907-1984). Dr. Stone used vitamin C to prevent oxidation in food, a purpose still commonly used.
Dr. Stone also supplemented his diet with large amounts of vitamin C. He proposed that humans had inherited a genetic trait to need, but not manufacture, ascorbic acid. You can address this innate dependency from your diet, but not easily.
According to Dr. Stone, the present recommendations are far less than what we really need, based on the amount produced each day by other mammals.
Linus Pauling, Ph.D., (1901-1994) arguably the most highly qualified, and the best known, critic of the vitamin C-deficient medical system.
He reassessed many of the “vitamins are useless” studies. Dr. Pauling explained how researchers misinterpreted their own data or presented biased opinions, thus showing that vitamin therapy had a statistically significant value.
The Fragile, Water-Soluble Nature of Vitamin C
Soaking of vegetables in water will weaken their Vitamin C values in a very short time, so wash your vegetables quickly and NEVER allow them to remain in the water longer than is absolutely necessary.
Vitamin C is depleted by stresses to the body such as those that come from infections, illness, fatigue surgery, anxiety, pollution, birth control, smoking, alcohol, and extremes in temperature. And as we age there is a greater need to regenerate collagen which requires even more vitamin C.
So you can see why — especially in today’s modern world – getting the minimum RDA of vitamin C is almost worthless to what your body really needs.
The Many Benefits of Vitamin C:
Vitamin C deficiency is a major cause of much of our common aches and pains. That’s because vitamin C affects the functions of ALL body cells.
A recent study published in Seminars in Preventive and Alternative Medicine looked at over 100 studies over 10 years. It revealed a growing list of benefits of vitamin C.
The most prominent role of vitamin C is its immune-stimulating effect. This is why it’s important for defense against infections such as common colds. It also acts as an inhibitor of histamine, a compound released during allergic reactions.
As a powerful antioxidant, it can neutralize harmful free radicals and it aids in neutralizing pollutants and toxins.
Thus, it can prevent the formation of potentially carcinogenic nitrosamines in the stomach (due to consumption of nitrite-containing foods, such as smoked meat).
Aside from its best-known role in the prevention and clearing of the common cold, vitamin C also performs the most important function of metabolism.
It influences the coagulation of blood in case of an accident or surgery, strengthens the teeth and bones, and aids in the production of collagen, which is like cement that binds the tissue cells together.
Vitamin C has shown to help with all the following:
- Anemia
- Bleeding gums
- Decreased ability to fight infection
- Decreased wound-healing rate
- Dry and splitting hair
- Easy bruising
- Gingivitis (inflammation of the gums)
- Nosebleeds
- Weight gain because of slowed metabolism
- Rough, dry, scaly skin
- Swollen and painful joints
- Weakened tooth enamel
- Natural Antihistamine
- Reduces the risk of cataracts
- Reduce the risk of heart disease
- Helps body absorb iron and calcium
- Increases the resistance to ligament and tendon injury.
- Protection from radiation (x-rays)
Why Shaklee Vita-C is a Better Vitamin-C Supplement
Most people don’t know Vitamin C is actually a complex. Losing any of its basic substances will weaken the whole.
This is why Dr. Shaklee writes in his book: “A Study Course in Nutrition,“, that a synthetic, man-made substance can never take the place of vitamin C, which nature produces.
Here is a chromatography of natural vitamin C and a synthetic one for comparison
The synthetic vitamin C, (ascorbic acid) looks dead. How can your body use something not created with nature in mind? Yet today a lot of vitamin C sold in stores is in a synthetic form with labels touting much higher levels of vitamin C than you’ll see in Shaklee Vita-C. But what good are high levels if it does nothing in the body?

One of the reasons we recommend Shaklee’s high-potency Sustained Release Vita-C is because it’s a natural, whole Vitamin C Complex like nature intended. Even better, it uses a proprietary plant-based sustained-release system that naturally delivers the vitamin C equivalent of one-and-a-half oranges every hour for five hours!
Shaklee’s Sustained Release Vita-C has been clinically tested to maintain vitamin C levels for over 12 hours! Taken strategically around meals you could benefit from a continuous supply of highly beneficial and natural Vitamin C in your bloodstream for most of the day and night!
Vitamin C is one of our most important vitamins and one our body can’t reproduce. And as mentioned its water-soluble, so it’s very fragile and perishable. All of which makes it very important to use a premium source of natural Vitamin-C. Like that found in Shaklee’s Sustained Release Vita-C.
Note: For children or adults who have difficulty swallowing tablets Shaklee offers Chewable Vita-C in 100 mg form with a great citrus flavor.
For more information on Shaklee supplements including why they are better than even organic, check out our article Beyond Organic.
* Results may vary from person to person. All statements in this article have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.