3 ms·

For ascorbic acid (vitamin C) specifically, there is such a thing as too much of it.. in humans, the level that is too much is when it gives you loose stools..

For ascorbic acid (vitamin C) specifically, there is such a thing as too much of it.. in humans, the level that is too much is when it gives you loose stools.. if you back off that, then the body is likely using what it needs. Most animals make vitamin C internally in the amounts they need. We are only one of a handful that do not, because we have a mutation that prevents us from finishing the process, otherwise we would also be making it ourselves too. Animals don't drop dead left and right from cancer. I would suggest if one tries to eat a balanced diet then this will help with avoiding cancer. Lastly, the longer you live, the more certain it becomes that you will get cancer of any type. What we are doing here is trying to live healthy enough that we die before we live long enough for cancer to become a problem.

classichasclass 3y ago
Humans and other related primates are also very efficient at recycling vitamin C. Our daily requirements aren't zero, but they are lower than I think is popularly surmised.
- sph 3y ago
  It virtually reaches zero the lower amount of carbohydrates you consume. Vitamin C shares the same intake pathway as glucose, so the least glucose in your bloodstream, the less need for supplementation, and the trace amounts found in meat are enough. Inuits consuming their diet of purely meat and fat for 6+ months a year do not get scurvy, and it is not a generic mutation either, as testified by Europeans that lived among them and adopted their diet without issue. See Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the ethnologist who spent years living and eating like an Inuit, and anyone following a strict carnivore diet. The entire meme about sailors getting scurvy because they didn't eat their vegs is because their diet was pretty much poor quality carb-heavy food like rice, potatoes and bread, so even just supplementing with lemons was enough to keep scurvy at bay.
DoesntMatter22 3y ago
Animals don't drop dead left and right - in the wild -from cancer because they typically die before cancer grows. Cancers generally grow pretty slow. You don't go from 1 cancer cell to 2 billion in 6 months. It typically takes a long time. Animals raised indoors do get cancer at a fairly high rate. Though not as much as humans. The diet factor is a huge part for sure. Virtually all the major bodies like the UN agree on this.
bitwize 3y ago
As frugivorous apes we got enough vitamin C from our diet that that mutation was a survival advantage. Synthesizing nutrients you can get from your diet is a waste of energy. Similarly, other species of animals cannot synthesize certain nutrients they get from their diet. Cats, for example, cannot synthesize taurine and must get their required taurine from consuming meat.
- justrealist 3y ago
  > As frugivorous apes we got enough vitamin C from our diet that that mutation was a survival advantage. Synthesizing nutrients you can get from your diet is a waste of energy. This is speculative and honestly not the simplest explanation. Deleterious mutations will happen in the absence of selective pressure, and there was no selective pressure. You don't have to cast everything as evolution playing 4D chess. Sometimes genes just break, and not for good reasons.
  - maxk42 3y ago
    Not to mention it's been at least 4.5 million years since a human ancestor was last a frugivorous ape.
    - SomeRndName11 3y ago
      The last frugivorous ape I know was Steve Jobs. Yeah bad joke I know.
Aurornis 3y ago
> For ascorbic acid (vitamin C) specifically, there is such a thing as too much of it.. in humans, the level that is too much is when it gives you loose stools.. if you back off that, then the body is likely using what it needs. You’re describing absorption tolerance, but the body doesn’t need anywhere near that much Vitamin C. The idea that you need to “titrate to bowel tolerance” as the alternative medicine practitioners say is rather nonsensical. Nothing in the diets we evolved to consume has anywhere near enough Vitamin C to cause loose stools (from Vitamin C excess) You can consume more than enough Vitamin C for your body to ever use with regular food. Taking these megadose supplements at unnaturally high doses may get some absorbed into your body, but it just gets excreted back out. Absorption and use are two different things.
pazimzadeh 3y ago
That exactly right, high dose vitamin C that doesn't go through the GI tract (given IV) is pro-oxidant rather than anti-oxidant. Intravenous High-Dose Vitamin C in Cancer Therapy https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/ras-central/blog/2020/yun-cantley-vitamin-c https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/ras-cent... High-dose vitamin C enhances cancer immunotherapy https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aay8707 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aay8707

classichasclass 3y ago

Humans and other related primates are also very efficient at recycling vitamin C. Our daily requirements aren't zero, but they are lower than I think is popularly surmised.

sph 3y ago
It virtually reaches zero the lower amount of carbohydrates you consume. Vitamin C shares the same intake pathway as glucose, so the least glucose in your bloodstream, the less need for supplementation, and the trace amounts found in meat are enough. Inuits consuming their diet of purely meat and fat for 6+ months a year do not get scurvy, and it is not a generic mutation either, as testified by Europeans that lived among them and adopted their diet without issue. See Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the ethnologist who spent years living and eating like an Inuit, and anyone following a strict carnivore diet. The entire meme about sailors getting scurvy because they didn't eat their vegs is because their diet was pretty much poor quality carb-heavy food like rice, potatoes and bread, so even just supplementing with lemons was enough to keep scurvy at bay.

DoesntMatter22 3y ago

Animals don't drop dead left and right - in the wild -from cancer because they typically die before cancer grows. Cancers generally grow pretty slow. You don't go from 1 cancer cell to 2 billion in 6 months. It typically takes a long time. Animals raised indoors do get cancer at a fairly high rate. Though not as much as humans. The diet factor is a huge part for sure. Virtually all the major bodies like the UN agree on this.

bitwize 3y ago

As frugivorous apes we got enough vitamin C from our diet that that mutation was a survival advantage. Synthesizing nutrients you can get from your diet is a waste of energy. Similarly, other species of animals cannot synthesize certain nutrients they get from their diet. Cats, for example, cannot synthesize taurine and must get their required taurine from consuming meat.

justrealist 3y ago
> As frugivorous apes we got enough vitamin C from our diet that that mutation was a survival advantage. Synthesizing nutrients you can get from your diet is a waste of energy. This is speculative and honestly not the simplest explanation. Deleterious mutations will happen in the absence of selective pressure, and there was no selective pressure. You don't have to cast everything as evolution playing 4D chess. Sometimes genes just break, and not for good reasons.
- maxk42 3y ago
  Not to mention it's been at least 4.5 million years since a human ancestor was last a frugivorous ape.
  - SomeRndName11 3y ago
    The last frugivorous ape I know was Steve Jobs. Yeah bad joke I know.

Aurornis 3y ago

> For ascorbic acid (vitamin C) specifically, there is such a thing as too much of it.. in humans, the level that is too much is when it gives you loose stools.. if you back off that, then the body is likely using what it needs. You’re describing absorption tolerance, but the body doesn’t need anywhere near that much Vitamin C. The idea that you need to “titrate to bowel tolerance” as the alternative medicine practitioners say is rather nonsensical. Nothing in the diets we evolved to consume has anywhere near enough Vitamin C to cause loose stools (from Vitamin C excess) You can consume more than enough Vitamin C for your body to ever use with regular food. Taking these megadose supplements at unnaturally high doses may get some absorbed into your body, but it just gets excreted back out. Absorption and use are two different things.

pazimzadeh 3y ago

That exactly right, high dose vitamin C that doesn't go through the GI tract (given IV) is pro-oxidant rather than anti-oxidant. Intravenous High-Dose Vitamin C in Cancer Therapy https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/ras-central/blog/2020/yun-cantley-vitamin-c https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/ras-cent... High-dose vitamin C enhances cancer immunotherapy https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aay8707 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aay8707