
Signature
Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]
Why, you are absolutely right!! By this time other compensatory
mechanisms have had a chance to replace the actions of the
missing Vitamin C. We can surely count the ways. We tend to
consume less fruits and vegetables, we tend to cook what we
do eat, we "warm it up" if it's a leftover, 27% or so still smoke,
obesity levels are at an all-time high, sedentary lifestyles have
become the norm, "supersize me" has become wonderfully
prophetic, glutathione, the major tissue antioxidant diminishes
with age, and you in your naivete assure yourself and others that
our bodies have certainly developed compensatory mechanisms
for making up for the deficient Vitamin C.
That's fine. You could probably note how the ascorbate gets
oxidized into dehydroascorbic acid (DHA) and then glutathione
comes along to reconvert DHA back to C; but then the glutathione
is oxidized. But then we throw in lipoic acid, in its reduced form,
which can then regenerate oxidized glutathione, and NADH can
regenerate oxidized lipoic acid.
But you didn't come in to discuss biochemistry, you came in to
suggest that surely over these many years, the body has developed
ways of compensating. Yep, you're right. There are ways. That are
relatively effective.
Too bad that there are still too many people that are tired of being
tired,
and don't know what to do about it. Dealing with the oxidative
stresses is
one of those ways. Think they are being effective at that with their
diet
soft drinks? High phosphoric acid and they wonder why their bones are
disintegrating, high caffeine to give them a big physiologic sugar
load,
and cause steady central nervous system activation, along with being
fattening (isn't that ironic?) by driving the sugars up, so they can
go
into the tissue for CNS-driven activity, and then if they don't get
used
they get stored as fat. Kinda neat how such a descriptive word as
"diabesity" has come along. And how the fast-food places generally
only have caffeinated 'diet' drinks.
But anyway, you were telling how "simple minded generalisations about
human vit C needs should be treated with caution." And I completely
agree with that simple-minded reminder. That's why I say things 'might
be considered', because whatever gets done needs to be well-researched
by the person considering it.
> In alt.support.diabetes Michael B <baugh...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
> IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
> [http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]
Chris Malcolm - 18 May 2008 16:52 GMT
In alt.support.diabetes Michael B <baughfam@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Why, you are absolutely right!! By this time other compensatory
> mechanisms have had a chance to replace the actions of the
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> our bodies have certainly developed compensatory mechanisms
> for making up for the deficient Vitamin C.
> That's fine. You could probably note how the ascorbate gets
> oxidized into dehydroascorbic acid (DHA) and then glutathione
> comes along to reconvert DHA back to C; but then the glutathione
> is oxidized. But then we throw in lipoic acid, in its reduced form,
> which can then regenerate oxidized glutathione, and NADH can
> regenerate oxidized lipoic acid.
> But you didn't come in to discuss biochemistry, you came in to
> suggest that surely over these many years, the body has developed
> ways of compensating.
How fortunate that you can read my mind. It saves any need for further
discussion.

Signature
Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]