The world really must stop thinking of ascorbate as Vitamin C. It is not a vitamin, in fact it is unique and has no category that applies to it.

It was wrongly categorised as a vitamin when it was discovered that just a few mg a day could stop you dying from scurvy. This was long before the bodies metabolic pathways were mapped and it was discovered that man has only got threequarters of the metabolic pathway necessary to convert glucose into ascorbate.

Ascorbate synthesis is so fundamental to life that every animal species has the same four enzyme mechanism to synthesise it from glucose. In a tiny number of species however (man included), that mechanism is broken and one of the key enzymes fails to be manufactured. Those animals only manage to stay alive because their diet brings them 'enough' ascorbate. Enough that is to stop them from dying quickly from scurvy, but in man's case rarely is it enough to stop him from dying slowly from the ravages of sub-clinical scurvy. Anyone interested in the details I suggest should do a search for 'Pauling Stone ascorbate' and be prepared to do a LOT of reading.

Only when we start to think of ascorbate as a missing dynamic metabolite do we stand a chance of being able to accept the large quantities we need to ingest and the frequency needed to ingest it.

Thinking of ascorbate as Vitamin C needs to be consigned to the history books and the days of Pirates and tall sailing ships. It has no place in today's world where we are able to understand and manage our bodies chemistry. The fact that our governments and health services still see this metabolite as a vitamin with an RDA of 60mg should come as no surprise to members of this forum who are witnessing these self interested leviathans at first hand.