Vitamin C

The 10th edition of the Recommended Dietary Allowances, which were recently announced, encouraged smokers to increase their intake of Vitamin C to 100 milligrams per day in order to replenish body stores depleted by smoking. Since winter produce is a primary source of the nutrient, now is a good time to take advantage of its nourishing effect.

The National Research Council today will release the first revision in nearly a decade of its nutritional guidelines, the Recommended Dietary Allowances, adding two new nutrients and encouraging smokers to get more vitamin C. The 10th edition of the guideposts for nutritional adequacy, which lists suggested intakes of 11 vitamins and 7 minerals, also urges a greater consumption of calcium-rich foods during the growing years when bone development is at its peak.

With the arrival of the cold and flu season, many people are stacking their medicine chests with Vitamin C, zinc, antihistamines and aspirin, but whether these compounds will ward off colds or flu or help fight these infections is highly doubtful, recent research indicates.

Rekindling an old debate, researchers at the University of Wisconsin have concluded that large doses of Vitamin C may reduce the severity of the common cold. Elliot Dick, a professor of preventive medicine, presented his team's findings this week at an international symposium on medical virology in Anaheim.

Rekindling an old debate, researchers at the University of Wisconsin have found that large doses of Vitamin C may reduce the severity of the common cold. Elliot Dick, a professor of preventive medicine, presented his team's findings Thursday morning at an international symposium on medical virology in Anaheim.

When the chill returns to the evening air, cold and flu season is usually a companion. And while today's average diet is hardly deficient enough in Vitamin C to cause concern about scurvy, some still find that an orange or a tomato a day is a bitter pill to swallow for a little extra winter protection. Vitamin C (also known as ascorbic acid) performs a number of duties in the body. It has a primary role in the formation of collagen, a protein that facilitates connective functions in the system.

Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, a biochemist and physician who won the Nobel Prize for discovering Vitamin C and who was a vocal peace advocate, has died of kidney failure at age 93. Szent-Gyorgyi, a native of Hungary, won the Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology in 1937, 10 years before he came to the United States. Vitamin C has been used to eliminate scurvy and to treat other diseases. In 1954, Szent-Gyorgyi won the prestigious Lasker Award from the American Heart Assn.

For the second time in five years, a scientifically conducted study by Mayo Clinic researchers has failed to confirm claims by Nobel Prize winner Linus C. Pauling that large daily doses of Vitamin C increase the length of survival of patients with advanced terminal cancer.