It’s well known that the vitamin C in limes helped the British finally get around debilitating scurvy that decimated their Navy on long voyages. The sailors were short on collagen, as Vitamin C is necessary for the production of it; the absence of which leads to open wounds, loss of teeth, fever, jaundice neuropathy and death.
Science however keeps revealing more and more that vitamins and minerals work in tandem and serve many purposes within your body.
So it didn’t come as a complete surprise to me when I learned of a study indicating that vitamin C may be helpful for your bone health.
At the Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers have shown for the first time that vitamin C in an animal model protects against osteoporosis. Mone Zaidi, MD, lead researcher said “this study has profound public health implications, and is well worth exploring for its therapeutic potential in people.” It’s known that a lack of vitamin C can contribute to brittle bones (another repercussion of scurvy). So Dr. Zaidi was not surprised to find that large doses of it stimulates bone building.
“What this study shows is that large doses of vitamin C, when ingested orally by mice, actively stimulate bone formation to protect the skeleton. It does this by inducing osteoblasts, or premature bone cells, to differentiate into mature, mineralizing specialty cells.”
The researchers reduced bone density in groups of mice by removing ovaries and compared them against mice that had ‘sham’ operations, that left ovaries intact. The mice with removed ovaries were divided into two groups. One of the two groups was given large doses of vitamin C over eight weeks. The scientists measured bone mineral density in the femur, lumbar spine, and tibia bones.
The mice who received no vitamin C and the ovariectomy had a much lower bone mineral density versus controls. Whereas mice who received an ovariectomy and large amounts of vitamin C, had similar BMD as the controls, pointing to vitamin C as responsible for what prevented BMD loss in this group.
Dr. Zaidi also added, “Further research may discover that dietary supplements may help prevent osteoporosis in humans. If so, the findings could be ultimately useful to developing nations where osteoporosis is prevalent and standard medications are sparse and expensive.”
[Editor Note: AlgaeCal is a company that has long suspected that a full range of vitamins and minerals are necessary for optimal health. Because they work as a team and often do double and triple duty. For this reason 100mg of vitamin C was included in a daily serving of AlgaeCal Plus, the only multi-mineral, and vitamin calcium supplement clinically supported to increase your bone density!]
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