Let's talk about the immune benefits of vitamin C, now vitamin C does a lot of
different things but its influence on your immune system is quite amazing
let's talk about it now vitamin C deficiencies are actually very common
you can have what's called a subclinical vitamin C deficiency where you're not
majorly deficient but you're just deficient enough to cause a weakness
within the immune system I'm going to talk more about that vitamin C is a
water-soluble nutrient so it has a low storage capacity so unless you're
constantly getting vitamin C you can be deficient within weeks vitamin C is a
very powerful antioxidant so when you have free radicals which are basically
molecules with unpaired electrons so you're supposed to have two to balance
without let's say you just have one and it becomes a free radical so it can
damage certain things in the body vitamin C comes in there and donates an
electron to stabilize the molecule so it can actually help counter free radical
damage all right as far as immune benefits it can enhance antibodies
antibodies are proteins that fight pathogens microbes that shouldn't be in
your body also it will increase neutrophil motility neutrophils are a
type of white blood cell it's like a phagocyte that cleans things up it
engulfs and kills certain microbes and it speeds up the motility of these
little guys right here number three it enhances your B cells or B lymphocytes
it's a type of white blood cell which then increases antibodies we've already
mentioned that right here, number four it enhances the t-cells another
type of lymphocyte that helps you fight off infection number five it can
increase interferon now interferon is a hormone that kills infected cells and
their surrounding neighbors so it is a very powerful a new compound that our
bodies make so you can see one big benefit of vitamin C
is it helps fight infection now when your deficient in vitamin C if you're
very deficient you have scurvy but I think there's different levels of scurvy
so there could be subclinical versions of this or major versions
you're not going to probably see a full-blown scurvy case but the point I
want to bring up about vitamin C deficiencies especially scurvy which is
the major vitamin C deficiency is that it makes you susceptible to certain
infections with scurvy it has the ability to increase susceptibility to
fatal infections like pneumonia scurvy is often followed by infectious
epidemics what does that mean it means that when you have an infection they can
actually develop scurvy why is that because infections increase the need for
vitamin C your white blood cells accumulate vitamin C they need the
vitamin C to function so if you're using your immune system more you're going to
deplete your vitamin C reserves especially if you're not putting it back
so this is another way that someone could be deficient number one they're
not consuming enough in their diet number two to get infection it puts
stress on the immune system and that's another way that you can be deficient
minimally 200 milligrams per day a good source of vitamin C would be sauerkraut
leafy greens bell peppers any of the spicy hot peppers jalapenos red peppers
are really high in vitamin C now if you're gonna take a supplement make sure
that you take a whole food base complex vitamin C not a synthetic the synthetic
version of vitamin C is called ascorbic acid and one of the ways they make
it is they combine cornstarch and sulfuric acid so sometimes people tell
you that the synthetic version is the same as a natural there's no difference
but I have a hard time believing that sulfuric acid and cornstarch is the same
is something from actual food and if you haven't seen my other video on vitamin C
I put it up right here check it out