Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin and is one of the most important vitamins for your body with numerous biological functions. Vitamin C helps to prevent a lot of diseases, boosts your body’s immune system and works to help protect your body’s cholesterol from oxidative stress. You can take this vitamin with or without any food, as it can be found in supplement form or in many different juices. Along with being found in supplement and vitamin form, you can find vitamin C in broccoli, strawberries, red peppers, citrus fruits, mustard greens, cauliflower, papaya, and parsley.

Research has shown that the antioxidant properties of vitamin C help protect against heart disease, protect smokers from the vast number of free radicals and is needed by the body to make collagen – the glue of the body. Even though you shouldn’t take excessive amounts of vitamin C, double a blind-trial found that 500 mg of Vitamin C per day taken for one year reduced the risk of developing reflex sympathetic dystrophy. Vitamin C is also thought to protect the body against the accumulation and/or retention of numerous toxic minerals.

Vitamin C is well known as an antioxidant, protecting your skin from the harmful damage of UV rays. If you skin suffers from radiation damage, vitamin C can actually help your skin to recover and reverse some of the harmful effects. If you include vitamin C in your diet and take it every day, you’ll notice that your skin will benefit. If you use vitamin E and C together, you’ll notice that scars and other harmful defects on your skin will start to heal as well.

You can find vitamin C in many fruits and vegetables, although oranges will give you the most amounts. Orange juice is a great way to get some of the vitamin C that your body requires. Even drinking a glass of orange juice in the morning with your breakfast you will want to supplement with vitamin C to ensure that you are getting optimal amounts.

In order to get adequate and/or optimal amounts of vitamin C in your diet, you will want to use vitamin supplements. When looking for supplements, you should always check to see how much vitamin C is in the supplement as vitamin C is provided in a wide range of dosages. In order to get the most benefit from your vitamin C it is best to take several times a day as vitamin C is a water soluble vitamin and will not remain in your system as long as fat soluble vitamins. As long as you monitor your intake of vitamin C and use it on a daily basis, you’ll find that your health and immune system will be better than ever.

The most common signs of a deficiency in vitamin C include fatigue, swollen/bleeding gums, an unexplained weakness, and nosebleeds. Deficiency is common these days, with the most common reasons being alcoholism, smoking and poor diet. Additionally people with kidney failure are at increased risk of vitamin C deficiency, but should only take vitamin C under the supervision of a doctor.