It had been just a few years since I’d had a typical blood take a look at carried out. I used to be going forwards and backwards between being pregnant and breastfeeding for about 5 years, so any weariness I used to be feeling I naturally attributed to these components.
Not to say, prenatal nutritional vitamins are full of further nutritional vitamins and minerals of every kind. So if I used to be to check my blood on the time, my pure ranges would not be mirrored, anyway. However, years later, I discovered myself feeling an increasing number of drained and not using a strong clue as to why.
So off I went to the physician and acquired a full blood take a look at—a lot to my shock, my vitamin C ranges have been exceptionally low. I had joined the whopping 42% of the U.S. grownup inhabitants1 that has inadequate vitamin C ranges (not a enjoyable membership you need to be a part of), regardless that I prioritized every day fruit consumption. Once I discovered the science behind how vitamin C is absorbed by meals, although, I can not say I used to be too shocked.
See, the type of vitamin C present in meals (and plenty of dietary supplements) is a type known as ascorbic acid. Your physique can deal with round 300 to 400 milligrams of purely ascorbic acid at a time, which is a helpful decrease dose present in meals, multivitamins, and different multi-ingredient complexes. But I discovered that in case you are consuming ascorbic acid in excessive doses, it may be exhausting to really take in greater than your physique can deal with. And as a result of vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin, your physique will not retailer that extra for later use (not like its fat-soluble cousins nutritional vitamins D, E, A, and Ok). It merely will get flushed out, which is a significant bummer.
To say the very least, getting sufficient vitamin C was way more difficult than I believed.