Vitamin C

An antioxidant powerhouse for your brain and body.

Dave Asprey, the godfather of biohacking, writes about it in his fasting manifesto...

Vitamin C: Like the B vitamins, you can take vitamin C with water during a fasting period. It is usually easy on an empty stomach if you don’t have reflux, and overall it is one of the safest, most effective supplements you can take. Vitamin C is needed for collagen and connective tissue formation. It’s used to manufacture glutathione, one of the most powerful antioxidants in the body. Studies indicate that vitamin C can enhance your immune system and can help quench the aging-related molecular fragments known as free radicals. Even quite high doses are safe. When you’re fasting, 500 milligrams to 1 gram twice a day is a good idea for basic support. (p. 185)

For Immunity

Some newer studies confirm that 1,000 mg per day of the right type of vitamin C can shorten the duration and mitigate the severity of colds while also preventing colds from developing, especially in people with low vitamin C levels. (p.644)

Vs COVID

Vitamin C is one of the more affordable COVID countermeasures that you should have in your immune armamentarium. From The Truth About COVID-19 by Dr. Mercola...

A number of studies have shown that vitamin C can be very helpful in the treatment of viral illnesses, sepsis, and ARDS,54 all of which are applicable to COVID-19. Its basic properties include anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, antioxidant, antithrombotic, and antiviral activities. At high doses, it actually acts as an antiviral drug, actively inactivating viruses. Vitamin C also works synergistically with quercetin.

The beneficial antiviral effects of vitamin C apply to both the innate and adaptive immune systems. When you have an infection, vitamin C improves your immune function in part by promoting the development and maturation of T lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that is an essential part of your immune system. Phagocytes, immune cells that kill pathogenic microbes, are also able to take in oxidized vitamin C and regenerate it to ascorbic acid.

A recovery hack

It turns out that Vitamin C is pretty awesome for wound healing and recovery from surgery. From the deep-dive chapter in Ben Greenfield's Boundless...

Back in the 1940s, physicians began routinely giving their surgical patients 1,000 mg of vitamin C daily for three days before surgery, followed by 100 mg of vitamin C daily during recovery. These doctors reported in the British Journal of Surgery that 76 percent of wounds treated this way healed properly, with a three- to sixfold increase in the strength of the wound scar. Russian researchers have shown that surgical patients who take vitamin C are discharged from the hospital one to two days earlier than patients who don’t, probably due to vitamin C’s crucial role in collagen formation (collagen is the primary component of connective tissue). In fact, when bone broth is combined with vitamin C, exercise-induced collagen synthesis more than doubles. Vitamin C also works as an antioxidant to limit free-radical damage to tissues and boosts the growth of fibroblast and chondrocyte cells, which produce connective-tissue fibers and cartilage. (p.453)

Sources

To find a good-quality vitamin C product, look for an all-organic food-based supplement or a USP-grade vitamin C, produced in a GMP-certified facility (GMP stands for “good manufacturing practices,” and supplements produced at a GMP-certified will be higher-quality and safer). (p.644)

Downloadable Vitamin C?

You may be interested in taking it as an infoceutical - a non-pharmacological, side-effect-free version of the supplement that takes advantage of the phenomenon of water memory - which is imprinted on water via quantum collocation and electromagnetism using this device...

IC Pad by Infopathy

 

4.3

Category: Mind Hardware

Infocueticals typically have 1/3 or half the effect of the actual medicine being imprinted. If you're skeptical of Infopathy that's understandable, it's a game-changing application of a little-known scientific phenomenon. But I'd urge you to evaluate the scientific evidence (presented in my biohacker review) that downloadable medicine is no longer science fiction...

Cofactors

Collagen - is the most commonly recommended cofactor. It's crucial for strong Collagen "cross-links" if you bruise easily or suffer bleeding gums frequently that's a tell-tale sign of low Vitamin C. Supplementing Vitamin C is a cheap no-brainer, especially if you're on pricier Collagen. By the way, the best presentation on Vitamin C that I could find was done by Dr. Peter Osborne - it's worth watching if you want to understand this essential vitamin.

Collagen

Category: Nootropic Ingredients

In the German study, Collagen peptides were combined with acerola extract, vitamin C, vitamin E, biotin, and zinc. In a Slovenian study, it was combined with the anti-aging agent Coenzyme Q10 with favorable results.

Dosage

If you take more than 500 mg at a time in an oral form, you’ll likely experience stomach upset. But you may not get any extra benefit from a dose higher than 500 mg in any case. Dr. Mark Levine, chief of molecular and clinical nutrition at the National Institutes of Health and author of a research project proposing increasing the recommended daily amount of vitamin C, said: “At 100 milligrams all the tissues are saturated, at 200 milligrams, the blood plasma is saturated, but at 500 milligrams dose, then absorption levels appear complete, and rate of absorption begins to decrease.” Dr. Andrew Weil, an alternative medicine physician, reduced his recommended dosage of vitamin C, from 2,000 to 6,000 mg divided into three doses a day to only 200 to 500 mg divided into two doses per day. He made this change after he examined two studies that showed lower levels of ascorbic acid more than adequately saturate the body’s tissues and are sufficient to protect against cancer, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses. And a review of clinical trials published in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that 200 mg a day is the maximum humans can absorb when taken orally. But aside from the potential stomach upset, you don’t need to worry if you do take higher doses because vitamin C is water soluble, and anything not used by the body quickly passes out. Ultimately, based on all this evidence, I suggest taking 200 to 500 mg oral vitamin C during cold and flu season. (p.645)

Bottom line

As a biohacker, I'm all about implementing cheaper, low-hanging-fruit anti-aging hacks before the fancy ones. And actually, aging has a lot more to do with Vitamin C deficiency. If you have varicose veins, thinning hair, and get sick during the wintertime before splurging on Collagen you may want to just supplement Vitamin C - make sure you're getting at least a gram daily.