This comprehensive review highlights that vitamin C is essential for human health because we cannot make it ourselves. The best approach is to get vitamin C from a balanced diet and thoughful supplementation during times of stress. People who eat plenty of fruits and vegetables will get enough vitamin C from food, but certain groups—like smokers or those with poor diets—should pay extra attention to their intake.
This study from Scotland in the early 1970s shows just how fast vitamin C in our white blood cells can drop during a cold, falling to scurvy-like levels within a single day of symptoms! The researchers found that keeping vitamin C intake high, both before and during a cold, helps your immune cells recover their vitamin C stores much faster. If you want to bounce back from a cold as quickly as possible, a higher-dose vitamin C regimen could help your immune system do its job.
While it’s well established that plasma vitamin C levels reach saturation with intakes of about 200 mg per day, this study and others show that higher intakes may be needed to fully saturate vitamin C in tissues—especially in white blood cells (leukocytes). This distinction is important, as plasma reflects short-term intake, while leukocyte vitamin C represents long-term tissue stores and may play a key role in immune function.
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