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- NEW YORK - People in the US are still not getting enough vitamin
C and the daily recommended dose for vitamin C should be doubled, according
to Oregon researchers.
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- A higher intake of vitamin C may help
prevent chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and cataracts,
they note in the June issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
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- The current US recommended dietary allowance
(RDA) is 60 milligrams per day (mg/day) for adult nonsmokers. However,
this level is based on that needed " an average of 46 mg/day "
to prevent scurvy, a vitamin C deficiency characterized by tooth loss,
joint pain, and poor wound healing.
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- However, 90 to 100 mg of vitamin C per
day could help prevent other chronic disease, according to Drs. Anitra
C. Carr and Balz Frei, with the Linus Pauling Institute, Oregon State University
in Corvallis.
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- Because the RDA of vitamin C is under
revision by the National Academy of Sciences, they reviewed existing studies
on the benefits of vitamin C in preventing a range of chronic diseases.
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- The evidence "strongly suggests"
that higher doses of vitamin C may be beneficial. "Therefore, we suggest
that the RDA for vitamin C be doubled to 120 mg/day," they conclude.
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- The recommendation is consistent with
one made by Dr. Mark Levin, of the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda,
Maryland, and colleagues in a recent article published in The Journal of
the American Medical Association. As reported by Reuters Health in April,
Levin's group recommends increasing the RDA for vitamin C to between 100
and 200 mg/day.
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- The new analysis was funded in part by
Roche Vitamins, Inc. and by the National Institutes of Health.
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