VITAMIN C - Ascorbic Acid

Now, if you just started singing the nursery rhyme “‘A’ is for apple, ‘B’ for boy, ‘C’ for cat…where did ascorbic acid come in?”, you must have been that guy dozing in front of me in class or that chic passing notes about so & so’s crush on nani. So before you start questioning the title & I’m accused of speaking jargon, let’s talk about vitamin C a.k.a (also scientifically known as) “ascorbic acid” –the word comes from the New Latin word "scorbutus" meaning scurvy.

Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin that we get from our food. Our bodies can neither make vitamin C nor can they store it for later use. Which is why we need to ingest as much of it as possible. However, some animals (mostly carnivores) can make their own vitamin C. This is why lions, leopards, cheetahs & the other cats do just fine without fruits & veggies.

Good sources of vitamin C are fresh fruits and vegetables, especially citrus fruits (like oranges, tangerines, grapefruit & pineapples), strawberries, tomatoes, sweet potatoes (ngwaci), sweet bell peppers (hoho nyekundu na manjano), kales (sukuma wiki) and potatoes. Vitamin C can also be artificially made into tablet supplements. I recommend getting vitamin C from a diet high in fruits and vegetables rather than taking the tabs. Supplementation, especially when not prescribed by a health expert can lead to toxicity/ over-dosage of vitamin C, which in turn has its consequences especially in sickle cell disease.

Vitamin C is one of the most popular micronutrients known to man. Even before its discovery in 1932, nutrition experts back in the day recognized that something in citrus fruits could prevent scurvy, a disease that killed as many as two million sailors, pirates and others who spent long periods of time onboard ships between 1500 and 1800. When the voyages lasted longer than the supply of fruits and vegetables, the sailors began to suffer from vitamin C deficiency, which led to scurvy. Scurvy is known as the bleeding gums disease, because vitamin C helps to make collagen, a tissue needed for healthy bones, teeth, gums and blood vessels. (P.S: if you have any bleeding gums, don’t panic! There is more to scurvy & probably all you need to do is change your toothbrush).

But I’m sure we’ve all first heard of the vitamin when it came to preventing or treating the common cold. Let me refresh your memory, remember when you had a cold & your mum made you drink that bitter concoction of lemon, ginger, garlic & honey (if you’re lucky)? Yeah, that drink she made you gobble down while holding a slipper in her hand, because it worked for her mum & mum’s mum & the shosho of her mum’s mum’s dad? It actually didn’t begin in your lineage, but in the 1970s when Chemistry and Peace Nobel laureate, Linus Pauling promoted daily mega doses of vitamin C (the amount in 12 to 24 oranges) as a way to prevent colds and some chronic diseases. I don’t know about you but I’d rather have shosho’s drink than a dozen oranges in a day…yikes! My taste buds are already getting zingy.

There’s no question that vitamin C plays a role in controlling infections & maintaining proper immune function. We know this is very very important in sickle cell disease. The question is, do we need lots of vitamin C to keep you healthy?

No. Vitamin C’s cold-fighting potential certainly hasn’t panned out. Small trials suggest that the amount of vitamin C in a typical multivitamin taken at the start of a cold might ease symptoms, but for the average person there’s no evidence that mega doses make a difference, or that they prevent colds. It doesn’t sound like it’s living up to its legendary health boosting name when it comes to sickle cell disease, is it?

That’s because most people don’t know it is also a powerful antioxidant that can neutralize harmful free radicals (like germs, viruses, toxins) & protect red blood cell membranes against oxidative damage. Research has shown that sickle cell warriors have low levels of vitamin C in their blood as a result of the disease. If you have low vitamin C (the antioxidant) in your blood, then there will be an increased vulnerability of sickle cells to oxidant damage by the free radicals. This vitamin even goes the extra mile to regenerate other antioxidant buddies like vitamin E. More so, vitamin C increases the absorption of iron from foods in the body; thus replacing any lost iron from sickling of red blood cells. Super! Right?

You can always get the most of this vitamin out of foods by the way you prepare your meals. Since it’s water-soluble, it can easily leach out of fruits & vegetables when washing or cooking. As Kenyans, we mostly have the habit of buying thinly sliced mboga from the soko and immediately giving the shredded strips a thorough wash when we get home. As if that is not enough to get rid of the bacteria we’ve pictured, we cook the veggies until they lose their green crunchy nature to a swampy murky appearance. When we wash our veggies & fruits after they’ve already been sliced, we increase the surface area for their loss through the water being used. And when we over-cook our veggies, the heat evaporates their nutrient-dense fluids; we might as well be eating the empty calories in sweeteners & what not. Other tricks to get more vitamin C from food simply involve choosing fresh foods to eat. For example, a fresh-squeezed orange juice is a better pick than ready-to-drink orange juice, because the fresh juice contains more active vitamin C & no added chemicals or sugars. Better yet, eat the whole fruit! You’ll benefit from the fiber too.

Do you see what’s going on here? Nature is once again curing what ails us. Not the doctors, not the pills. The earth was designed with built-in solutions to our health problems. As our bodies crave healing, the seasons provide all the natural medicine we need. Keep it healthy!

Love life!

Sharlene M.M.