Intake Should Be Doubled for Vitamin C.

• Position: Health

The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for vitamin C should be officially doubled to a new level of 120 milligrams per day, with potential benefits for everything from heart disease to cataracts and cancer, suggest researchers from the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, Corvallis. The current recommendation of 60 milligrams daily that has been in place for decades and is reflected in medical textbooks, many vitamin supplements, and nutritional folklore doesn't reflect the wealth of new research done in recent years, which shows that higher levels of this antioxidant vitamin could play a more important role in prevention of degenerative disease. "If the antioxidant function of vitamin C is accepted as relevant to and important for human health, then morbidity and mortality from cancer, cardiovascular disease, and cataract--in addition to scurvy--must be used as criteria for determining vitamin C requirements," maintains Balz Frei, director of the Pauling Institute.

Although many people take supplements of up to 2,000 milligrams per day or even more with no apparent ill effects, studies show that, in healthy people, tissue saturation of vitamin C usually occurs with intakes of about 100 milligrams per day. Some studies have found little to be gained in at least some medical conditions with intake levels a great deal higher than that.

"We most strongly support an intake of five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day, which provides more than 200 milligrams of vitamin C," Frei indicates. "Unfortunately, only a small minority follows these guidelines, and doctors often do not make a strong point about them either because they are trained to treat disease, not prevent it. Lacking a proper diet, the next best thing is a multivitamin."

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