8 Signs of a Vitamin C Deficiency You’ve Never Heard About

8 Signs of a Vitamin C Deficiency You've Never Heard About

You might know that vitamin C deficiency could cause a lowered immune system. But do you know about these surprising vitamin C deficiency symptoms?

I’d like to share with you some really unusual symptoms that are associated with a vitamin c deficiency , things that you probably have never heard before .

Commonly known vitamin C deficiency symptoms

You may know if you’re deficient of vitamin C , you’re going to get bleeding gums or you might get tired or you might have a loss of collagen that can show up in a lot of different ways with your skin , joints , tendons , ligaments , things like that .

You also probably know that people take vitamin C when they get sick because a deficiency can create a lowered immune system .

Can you get enough vitamin C from juice?

I recently did a topic talking about vitamin C deficiencies and increasing your risk to getting biofilms , which can actually be the plaquing or tartar in your teeth .

What are vitamins, and what do they do?

But I think what’s even more important is to understand what vitamins really are .

What actually does a vitamin do ?

Many people don’t really know .

They know it’s associated with their health .

But what is that vitamin doing in your body ?

Vitamins are cofactors .

Now what is a cofactor ?

It’s something that works with 15 different enzymes .

15 different enzymes . vitamin C

Without vitamins and certain minerals , these enzymes can’t work .

Now what happens when you’re deficient in vitamin C is your body’s gonna start allocating the vitamin C that you have to just the essential enzymes to keep you alive .

Not all of them .

So this is the reason why some people have certain symptoms of a vitamin deficiency , but not others .

They may have a subclinical deficiency , but they don’t have a major deficiency .

But you do have to realize that if you completely run out of vitamin c , you will die .

It’s very fatal .

vitamin c and milk

You know , scurvy , which is a severe vitamin c deficiency , became a really big problem when they started to use pasteurization , like for milk and giving it to babies .

Babies would end up with scurvy .

So heat does degrade vitamin c .

Lesser-known symptoms of vitamin C deficiency

Now that you have that information , let’s go through some symptoms that you probably never connected with a vitamin c deficiency .

Number 1 , hypochondria .

That’s right .

Hypochondria is a symptom of a vitamin c deficiency , which is pretty wild .

And I’m gonna put the references down below .

So if someone’s a deficient vitamin c , they can literally be kind of paranoid thinking that they have every single disease around when they really don’t .

That’s interesting .

Depression is another symptom of a vitamin c deficiency .

This next one is called perifollicular hyperkeratosis .

Now what is that ?

Peri means around the follicle , like the hair follicle .

And hyperkeratosis is kinda like a roughened red little scaly , skin lesion that is around the hair follicles .

hair follicle coils .vitamin C

And sometimes the hair follicle coils .

That is a vitamin c deficiency .

So if you have it , you should start taking vitamin c .

Number 4 , anemia .

We think iron , b 12 , but we don’t really think vitamin c .

A vitamin c deficiency can cause anemia .

Dry hair , inflamed veins as in spider veins , shortness of breath .

Also , vitamin c is needed for the adrenals .

So you can have a problem with your adrenaline if you don’t have enough vitamin c .

Foods rich in vitamin C

Now where do we get vitamin c ?

It’s in fruits and vegetables .

Now there is some vitamin c in beef liver , but it’s only like 27 milligrams per 100 grams of liver .

vitamin C liver

That’s not too much .

The RDAs are the requirements that our body needs .

It’s roughly about 70 milligrams , and this is 27 .

Steak has a vitamin c , but it’s 25 micrograms , right ?

Not milligrams , just a tiny bit .

But mainly if you eat berries , peppers , sauerkraut has the most , is like 10 times more than anything else , or leafy greens , you’re gonna get your vitamin c .

Can you get enough vitamin C from juice?

However , if you get a 100% apple juice , right , it says right here , it’s high in vitamin c .

It says on the back of label , if you drink 1 cup , you’ll get a 100% of the RDAs for vitamin c .

Well , could this be true ?

Well , let’s take a look .

So we have a large apple in 1 cup of apple juice , which comes out to 237 milliliters .

If we take a look at the sugar and we compare it , we have 6 teaspoons of sugar and one apple And we have 7 teaspoons of sugar in 1 cup of apple juice .

apple juice

The thing to know about is this thing right here .

This is 1 teaspoon of sugar .

This is how much sugar that we’re supposed to have in all of our blood at any given time .

One teaspoon of sugar .

That’s in our entire system , person consumes , well , I’m not gonna even get into it because it’s just way , way too much .

So if we were to chop this apple up , you know , it’d be roughly like 1 cup .

And so what I wanna show you is the amount of sugar in one apple is almost the same amount of sugar in 1 cup of apple juice .

However , the effect on your hormones from eating an apple versus juice is drastically different .

When you’re consuming juice without the fiber , you’re gonna get a big spike in blood sugars , and you’re gonna get a rebound effect of insulin coming in to push that blood sugar down , which is gonna make you hungry and a little tired about 30 minutes after drinking this juice .

Versus an apple , which has a good amount of sugar , but it also has that fiber which buffers this blood sugar response .

So fiber kind of dampens out the spike in blood sugars .

There’s actually 2 things that will lower this blood sugar insulin response .

sugars

1 is fiber and the other is fat .

So if you were gonna have the choice of consuming these 2 , of course this would be better .

And if you added fat with this , as in maybe some nut butter on your apple , you would buffer the insulin response even more .

And , of course , I’m not recommending this because there’s still a lot of sugar in here .

But if you were to have the choice , this would be a much better choice .

And , of course , adding the nut butter would even be a better choice .

Now what’s interesting about this apple juice , it says a 100% apple juice , not from concentrated .

But if you look really close right here , it’s hard to make this out what this says .

It says with added ingredients .

What are the other ingredients ?

Well , it says apple juice and ascorbic acid .

Ascorbic acid .

Why are they putting ascorbic acid in there ?

Well , the answer lies in the expiration date .

It says September 23 , 2024 .

It’s 2022 right now .

It’s November 2024 .

So this is gonna expire in like 2 years .

How can this sit on the shelf without being refrigerated for another 2 years ?

apple juice vitamin c

Well , because it’s pasteurized .

That’s heated .

One thing that is interesting to know about vitamin c , it is very sensitive to light and heat .

As in pasteurization .

Even at temperatures at 86 degrees Fahrenheit , you start to break down vitamin c .

The temperatures they use to pasteurize this juice is like a 185 degrees Fahrenheit .

So as you can see , they destroy the vitamin c in apple juice and they have to add it back in there .

So that way on the label , they can say it’s high in vitamin c .

The only problem is the source of vitamin c they’re using doesn’t come from natural apples .

It comes from cornstarch and sulfuric acid .

It’s made synthetically .

It’s out of the normal vitamin c complex .

It’s basically a synthesized version of a part of vitamin c called ascorbic acid .

Key Points:

Commonly known vitamin C deficiency symptoms:
• Bleeding gums
• Fatigue
• Loss of collagen
• Lowered immune system
• Increased risk of biofilms

Vitamins are cofactors that work with enzymes. Without vitamins and certain minerals, important enzymes in the body can’t work.

When you’re deficient in vitamin C your body will allocate the vitamin C you have to the essential enzymes, but not all of them. A complete lack of vitamin C is fatal.

Lesser-known symptoms of vitamin C deficiency:
• Hypochondria
• Depression
• Perifollicular hyperkeratosis
Anemia
• Dry hair
• Inflamed veins
• Shortness of breath
• Problems with adrenaline

The best sources of vitamin C are fruits and vegetables. Juice, like apple juice, is not a good source of vitamin C. Juice has too much sugar and is pasteurized, which destroys natural vitamin C.

Foods rich in vitamin C:
• Berries
• Peppers
• Sauerkraut
• Leafy greens

DATA:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352241014000188

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4959991

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30666502

Dr. Berg

I am a health educator specializing in weight loss through nutritional and natural methods such as the keto diet plan and intermittent fasting

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