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Vitamin C - The Key to Great Health
By: Srivathshan Nagarajan
Vitamin C is important to all animals, including humans, because it is vital to the production of collagen. Vitamin C is also important because it helps protect the fat-soluble vitamins A and E as well as fatty acids from oxidation. Vitamin C prevents and cures the disease scurvy, and can be beneficial in the treatment of iron deficiency anemia. I have to confess that I knew nothing until I joined my pharmacy, about what collagen was, and why it was so important? Collagen is the most ubiquitous substance in the body because it is the most abundant of the fibers contained in connective tissue. Connective tissue gives our body form and supports our organs. Collagen is everywhere in the body, and vitamin C plays a role in the formation of collagen. So, how is vitamin C involved in collagen synthesis? When collagen is produced, there is a complex series of events, some occurring inside of the cell, and some outside of the cell. Vitamin C acts inside the cell, where it adds hydrogen and oxygen to proline and lysine, the amino acids. This helps form a procollagen that is later modified into collagen outside the cell. Vitamin C is found in citrus fruits such as oranges, limes, and grapefruit, and vegetables including tomatoes, green pepper, potatoes and many others. Vitamin C is easily damaged during the food preparation stage, such as during chopping, exposure to air, cooking, boiling, and being submerged in water. The amount of Vitamin C is high enough in most foods that the quantity that remains after processing is usually more than enough for a daily supply. The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of vitamin C is 60 to 90 milligrams per day. Individuals who smoke cigarettes are encouraged to consume more mgs of vitamin C than average adults. This is due to the fact that smoking depletes vitamin C levels in the body and is a catalyst for biological processes which damage cells. Intake of antioxidants like vitamin C can prevent or counteract cell damage due to aging and exposure to antioxidants. A high dose of vitamin C at the beginning of a cold has shown only to reduce the severity of the symptoms rather curing or preventing the cold. It is interesting to note that Vitamin C is used as an inexpensive preservative in many processed foods, making deficiencies even rarer. N.SRIVATHSHAN MBA(PHARMA MARKETING),BA SALES,PRODUCT, ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT,PHARMACY,NUTRITION&DIETETICS. PRODUCT MANAGER NANDAN BIOMATRIX srivathshan@yahoo.com http://www.geocities.com/srivathshan Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
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How to Benefit from the Mind-Body Connection
(excerpt)
You are about to gain insight into the
mind-body connection. The number of
people who truly understand these principles on our
planet are relatively few.
There is an undeniable connection between our minds and
bodies, you can learn
to use this fact to your benefit.
Dr. Bernie Siegel, author of "Love, Medicine and
Miracles" was once a
distraught cancer surgeon until he
began to understand the greater principles
of the mind-
body connection. He felt dragged down by the artificial
barriers
that existed between patient and doctor, and the
helplessness he often felt as
a result of his inability
to effectively serve those patients. Eventually, those
barriers
were disintegrated by Dr. Siegel's recognition
and growing understanding of the
mind-body connection and
how it could serve his patients and himself.
Dr. Siegel, or Bernie as he began to have his patients
refer to him, had some
startling realizations as a cancer surgeon. He found that
there were actually
quite a few people in the world that successfully beat
the statistics on cancer
survival. He began to recognize that a patient's ability
to defeat something as
serious as cancer had to do with the patient's mind and
attitude about their
disease.
If you would like to see the rest of
this article, please go here:
http://www.tobeinformed.com/repository/mind-body.html
copyright 2004 - David Snape
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