What's the deal with vitamin c?

[DudeMiester]

Actually I only eat 2 meals a day most of the time. My caloric intake is low enough that if I miss a single meal, I feel totally shitfaced, but so long as I keep pace I'm great. Also, I eat a lot more starch/grain and veggies then meat, but I still love my beef! It's close match between what I eat and what I burn, so I'm not worried about that. Rather I'm worried if I'm getting the necessary vitamins/minerals, especially in regard to mental health. Although, in all the blood tests I've gotten, they've never mentioned anything other then my low iron, which isn't low iron in the blood, but rather my iron reserves (in my liver I guess). Not to mention, I avoid virtually all trans-fats and fast-food other then subs/pizza on occasion. Also, I have that shaking leg reflex, but only when I'm sitting, which I heard could be bad maybe.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

The restricted caloric intake Simon F was talking about isn't a balance between normal eating and normal activity, or even increased eating balanced with increased activity (heavy excercise). Rather, the winning combination appears to be near starvation levels (that may be putting it a bit extreme, but it is at the far far end of the "dieting" spectrum) coupled with proportionately reduced activity levels.

Not much fun. You get really skinny, and fairly weak. Done at a moderate level you will probably increase you health, and might add a year or two by avoiding a particular disease state, but to significantly increase your baseline lifespan (which is different for each of us, it seems) you have to go for the starved guy lifestyle.

Which is why, even though it is confirmed to work, not many people bother doing it... even when it can add decades to your life.

 

[zidane1strife]

The restricted caloric intake Simon F was talking about isn't a balance between normal eating and normal activity, or even increased eating balanced with increased activity (heavy excercise). Rather, the winning combination appears to be near starvation levels (that may be putting it a bit extreme, but it is at the far far end of the "dieting" spectrum) coupled with proportionately reduced activity levels.

Not much fun. You get really skinny, and fairly weak. Done at a moderate level you will probably increase you health, and might add a year or two by avoiding a particular disease state, but to significantly increase your baseline lifespan (which is different for each of us, it seems) you have to go for the starved guy lifestyle.

Which is why, even though it is confirmed to work, not many people bother doing it... even when it can add decades to your life.

Well, that's why they're looking for CR-mimetics drugs. Even in humans there's a group of people actively practicing cr, the cr society, their health profiles are through the roof. There's also suggestive evidence from the monkey cr experiments, and of course the multitude of animal data.

Right now, despite it being questioned a while agp, data indicates resveratrol influences the same mechanisms activated by CR(see recent SCIAM for an interesting article), yeast, fruit flies and recently some fish have had their life extended by resveratrol supplementation(alas I've heard the quantities of pharmaceutical grade 100% resveratrol would be substantial if translated to a human.).

Problems are I've heard no additional benefit is obtained if combined with CR in the lab, and maybe even take away the benefits of cr if combined(but anyway it's better not to have to do cr.). Niacinamide(a form of niacin) in high quantities could also nullify the benefits(of resveratrol and of cr), or so I've heard.

Anyway, as I've said, I've started taking wine-extract pills which contain resveratrol(preserved and manufactured ala wine in an oxygen free pill.) precisely for that reason, given variable content depending on where and how the wine was grown, I just want a standardized dose(equiv. to 10-15 glasses of wine minus the alcohol and calories, iirc.).

 

[soylent]

Vitamin C: Humans do not naturally produce vitamin-C, the machinery to produce it has been broken fairly recently on the evolutionary timescale. I suspect that this breakage may have given our predecessors some rather large evolutionary advantage (since it has obviously not been selected against; if it was just detrimental, it would be selected out quite fast), although it is not at all obvious to me what that advantage could possibly be.

Extending your life beyond the age at which you are capable of having offspring is good for you but it's a huge burden on the people who have to support you. Nature is not intelligent or nice; there's no reason to think that it's looking after your best interests unless your only interest is to reproduce.

 

[Gubbi]

Not much fun.

Bingo. You don't live longer, it just feels that way.

Cheers

 

[zidane1strife]

Vitamin C research update

TOKYO, April 4 (UPI) -- Japanese researchers say mice lacking vitamin C age four times faster than normal mice, suggesting the vitamin might help slow aging in humans.

The scientists from the Tokyo Medical and Dental University and the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology analyzed a specific protein that decreases as aging proceeds and found it was the same as an enzyme that synthesizes vitamin C, the Mainichi news service reported.

After six months of observation, researchers said normal mice without the protein were all still alive, but half of the ones lacking the protein had died of old age...

Since humans are unable to produce vitamin C in their body even if they have the protein...

vitamin c mice study