8/9/2019 Vitamin C Stress Buster

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The researchers believe that vitamin C should be considered an essentialpart of stress management .

Earlier studies showed that vitamin C abolished secretion of cortisol inanimals that had been subjected to repeated stress. Cortisol is a hormonereleased by the adrenal glands in response to stress. Once it gets into thebloodstream, it is responsible for relaying the news of stress to all parts ofthe body and mind.

Cortisol is the hormone, for example, that triggers the "fight or flight"response to stress. That allows us to spring into action when we sensedanger. But like many emergency-alert systems, the stress responsecomes at a considerable cost. Among other effects, frequent exposure tohigh levels of stress hormones exhausts the body's physical resources,impairs learning and memory , and makes people susceptible todepression .

In the animal studies, vitamin C fed to rats undergoing stress not onlyprevented the expected increase in cortisol levels, it prevented the animalsfrom exhibiting the known signs of physical and emotional stress, includingloss of body weight. Animals that did not receive vitamin C had three timesthe level of stress hormones.

The present RDA for vitamin C for adults is 60 milligrams—a far cry fromthe 1,000 mg found helpful in the stress study. But there's a growing beliefthat the RDA for vitamin C is vastly outdated. The current RDA was setdecades ago and is based on the amount of the vitamin needed to ward offscurvy.

Current thinking looks at vitamin C from the opposite direction: The amount

needed to promote health under varying environmental conditions. Thatappears to be a lot greater than the amount needed to preventdeficiencies.

There's also evidence suggesting that prehistoric humans consumed largeamounts of vitamin C in a tropical diet rich in fresh fruits. If so, thephysiological constitution we have inherited may require far larger dailydoses of vitamin C than the current RDA, perhaps as high as 1,000 mg.

Vitamin C is present in fresh, uncooked fruits and vegetables, especiallycitrus fruits and red and green peppers. One eight-ounce glass of freshorange juice provides 97 milligrams of the vitamin.

It's also found in papayas, cantaloupes, strawberries, broccoli, Brusselssprouts, tomatoes, asparagus and parsley. There's no vitamin C in animalfood, and a small amount in raw fish.

An unstable substance, vitamin C is destroyed by cooking and exposure tolight.

The most commonly consumed nutrient supplement, vitamin C comes inmany formulations, but the best may be a time-released preparation thatworks over the course of a day, as the vitamin works rapidly and is short-acting. Alternatively, vitamin C supplements can be taken at intervalsthroughout the day.

Vitamin C: Stress BusterA study finds in addition to benefits related to the common cold and cancer, vitamin C helps reduce both thephysical and psychological effects of stress on people.By PT Staff, published on April 25, 2003 - last reviewed on January 24, 2007

It's already everybody's favorite nutritional supplement, linked, however controversially, to preventingthe common cold and fighting cancer. But vitamin C recently added a new notch on its belt. The vitaminhelps reduce both the physical and psychological effects of stress on people.

People who have high levels of vitamin C do not show the expected mental and physical signs of stresswhen subjected to acute psychological challenges. What's more, they bounce back from stressfulsituations faster than people with low levels of vitamin C in their blood.

In one study German researchers subjected 120 people to a sure-fire stressor—a public speaking taskcombined with math problems. Half of those studied were given 1,000 mg of vitamin C. Such signs ofstress as elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol and high blood pressure were significantlygreater in those who did not get the vitamin supplement. Those who got vitamin C reported that theyfelt less stressed when they got the vitamin.

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