Are they all the same?
Should I be looking for something on the label in particular? (for example Ester-C)
Thanks
(I like to take when I am sick or flu season)
For example I am reading this:
Threonic Acid, which has been shown to enhance cellular uptake of Vitamin C.
Or generic brand just as good. Just trying to separate marketing and science.
great, have done some research and apparently 95% all synthetic crap…
I’ll stick to my Simply Orange OJ it looks like.
From what we know, it shouldn’t make any difference if a Vitamin is synthetic or from natural sources.
Hell, synthetic didn’t bother Linus Pauling.
Besides, the vitamin C content varies enormously from orange to orange, or from box of juice to box of juice.
[quote]hit the gym wrote:
great, have done some research and apparently 95% all synthetic crap…
I’ll stick to my Simply Orange OJ it looks like.[/quote]
There is no functional difference between “synthetic” and non-sythetic Vitamin C. “Natural” Vit C is just more expensive
It is a molecule called L-ascorbic acid (or ascorbate in salt form), and since its highly soluble in water (>300 g/l) and easily metabolized, there is no benefit of paying extra money for fancy versions of it (like the ester, or a partially oxidized version of the acid)
There is virtually no Vit.C deficiency in the western world
EDIT: ok i just did some research on “ester-C” and its supposed benefits, the only study i could find (which was referenced several times on different websites selling ester-C) was not published in a peer-reviewed paper, so you can just ignore it and any of its results
OK thanks. Not convinced however.
Here is an interesting article I found:
So according to you guys Walmart brand Vitamin C is same as brand 2x more expensive?
hit the gym, as a science guy, I’m not worked up over GMO foods ( I read the article).
In fact, a lot of people on this planet wouldn’t survive without GMO foods.
But as far as Vitamin C, there’s perhaps something to be said for taking it in a form where you’d also ingest many of the phytochemicals that might interact with it in some unknown way.
That’s the classic story. It’s an issue with many antiox supps. Take for instance the spice, thyme. It contains over 30 antioxidants. It’s plausible that they all need to be present for some or all of them to work. And it’s possible that the same may be true of Vitamin C.
However, I stand by the assertion that synthetic C is the same as “natural” C. There might be benefits to taking the latter if it comes in a natural source (whole foods, vegetable or fruit powders like Biotest’s Superfood, or perhaps even rose hip supplements, assuming you could control for consistency).
So to answer the question, Walmart brand may be just as good as a brand that’s twice as expensive.