Can vitamin C help with antivirals?

Original title: Can Vitamin C Help Antivirals?
anti-epidemic period, there is always a discussion on the Internet about "what to eat can be antiviral", especially vitamin C. Many people debate whether it can improve the body's immunity and fight viral infections. Below, for the common 10 related issues, from the perspective of food nutrition professionals, to help you understand these inexplicable statements.
1: Is it possible for a doctor to say that vitamin C in treatment can help a patient recover?
: It's possible. If a person's long-term vitamin C supply is insufficient (e.g. regular box lunch, takeaway, convenience food), or for physiological reasons increased vitamin C consumption (e.g. infection, burns, stress, etc.), then appropriate vitamin preparations are reasonable.
new coronary pneumonia patients are in a state of viral infection, mental and psychological also in a high degree of stress, the physiological demand for vitamin C is bound to increase. When hospitalized, the patient is in a loss of appetite and may not be able to guarantee adequate vitamin C in the diet. Therefore, moderate supplementation during treatment is beneficial and harmless for disease recovery.
by the way, our country is a big producer of vitamin C, abundant and inexpensive, without worrying about using this drug to increase the financial burden on patients.
question 2: Is it beneficial to increase the supply of vitamin C in patients with neo-coronary pneumonia, and can it prove that taking vitamin C can help prevent viral pneumonia?
: virus infection vitamin C supplementation is beneficial, does not mean that in the case of adequate intake of fruits and vegetables, and then take a large dose of vitamin C, can effectively prevent the disease. There is no evidence of such research.
prevention and treatment are not the same thing, the physical status of the sick and healthy people is not the same, the demand for vitamin C is not the same. Therefore, people who are not infected with the virus, there is no need to eat large doses of vitamin C in order to prevent disease, as long as the daily dietary supply is adequate.
You know, the amount of vitamin C used for treatment is usually hundreds to thousands of milligrams, whereas the recommended daily diet is only 100 milligrams, and even for pregnant women, the recommended amount is less than 200 milligrams.
question 3: Take pills health care products, can you replace eating fruits and vegetables to supplement vitamin C?
: For people who are not sick, the best source of vitamin C is naturally natural fruits and vegetables. There is no possibility of excessive vitamin C in eating natural fruits and vegetables. On the contrary, it is common for many people to eat less fruits and vegetables on a daily diet, or to cook unconscionably, and to consume less than the recommended amount.
vitamin C tablets are only one nutrient, while fruits and vegetables have a variety of nutritional health components besides vitamin C. Therefore, vitamin C tablets can only prevent deficiency, but can not completely replace the health benefits of fruit and vegetable intake. Adequate intake of fruits and vegetables is the best option without impeding digestion and absorption and other food intake.
4: Now there are so many vitamin products, should buy domestic, or imported? Does the price have anything to do with the quality of vitamin C?
: In fact, it doesn't matter whether it's domestic or not, it doesn't matter what the price is. The key depends on the dose and whether it meets your needs.
fact, more than 90% of the world's vitamin C is produced in China. Many countries import Chinese vitamin C raw materials, and then add some auxiliary raw materials, to make different tastes, different formulations, different tablet types of products.
because of China's high level of vitamin C production process, low product costs, 1 kg of vitamin C is less than 100 yuan (market price fluctuations), then 100 mg is less than 1 cent. At the cost of this massive purchase, you can calculate how profitable those high-priced vitamin C products can be if marketing advertising investment is not included.
, of course, there are differences in the consumption attributes of different products. Ordinary small tablets only vitamin C and a small amount of starch / dedexion, etc. (easy to form pressure tablets), chewing tablets need to be added with chewing ingredients, and add sweeteners, citric acid, flavor and so on. Add orange flavor has orange flavor, add strawberry flavor has strawberry flavor, can bring pleasure to the eater. Such products also have the consumer value of candy. If made into bubble tablets, added instant foaming ingredients, added sugar, acid and flavor, it also has the consumer value of sweet drinks. However, these have nothing to do with the value of vitamin C itself.
question 5: Pharmacy staff said, that a few dollars a bottle of vitamin C products are chemically synthesized, harmful to the body, more than a hundred dollars a bottle is all natural, really?
: Vitamin C on the market is almost always made from starchy raw materials through microbial fermentation. Interested friends can check the Internet, have a detailed process. From starch to glucose, from glucose to the prelude to vitamin C, 2-ketone-L-gucciloric acid, and then converted to vitamin C, and then adjusted acidity and refinement, you can get the finished product.
, with the appropriate amount of medication, fermented vitamin C does not have toxic residues and is no less safe than expensive products. As for overdosing, even if it's salt and rice, eating too much can be harmful, and it doesn't matter if it's "natural."
, few people use natural fruits and vegetables to extract vitamin C. This is because vitamin C is too low in natural foods (only 10 mg to 1000 mg of vitamin C in 1 kg of fruits and vegetables), while fruit and vegetable raw materials are difficult to store easy to rot, extraction and separation costs are too high, the process of low concentration of vitamin C is very easy to oxidize and break down. Therefore, the so-called naturally extracted vitamin C, basically does not exist.
of course, all-natural products containing vitamin C are not without them. That's a variety of vitamin C-rich fruit and vegetable freeze-dried powder. They contain both vitamin C and many other nutrients and health components, which are very health-friendly, and many advantages cannot be replaced by vitamin C itself. However, vitamin C in these products is not isolated and extracted, their health advantage is the effect of synergy between other ingredients in fruits and vegetables, and vitamin C itself is not natural.
of the high-priced vitamin C products on the market are not pure fruit and vegetable freeze-dried powder. Their main ingredient is fermented to produce vitamin C, plus a small amount of fruit and vegetable freeze-dried powder, plus some color, flavor, taste of the ingredients made. However, most of these ingredients have no nutritional value.
Question 6: When should vitamin C pills be eaten? Can I have dinner with you? Can I eat with iron and calcium supplementation products?
: Vitamin C is water-soluble, very easy to be absorbed and used by the body, when you can eat.
if eaten with a meal, it also helps non-hemolyrobin iron absorption (i.e. iron in plant foods), so doctors often give vitamin C to anemia patients. Because of its acidity, it is also conducive to the use of calcium carbonate calcium tablets. With some sweet fruit to eat together, and yogurt to eat together, is no problem.
7: I am anemia, the doctor let me eat iron capsules at the same time, eat 600 mg of vitamin C and 600 mg of folic acid every day, is not too much?
: You should follow your doctor's advice in this situation.
only temporarily, the dose of treatment will be higher than the daily dietary amount. Anemia people do not have to worry about 600 mg of vitamin C and folic acid per day. It's not the same as taking large quantities without the need to increase your vitamin supply, without medical advice, without the advice of your dietitian.
question 8: the elderly afraid of cold, eat vegetables dare not eat raw, eat fruit also afraid of cold, can heat the fruit to eat?
: Even if you put the fruit on the heating heating, or hot water, microwave oven heat up a little and then eat, it is better than not eating.
of dietary fiber, potassium, magnesium and other ingredients can be completely preserved, flavonoids and other substances can also be retained most. However, after all, after heating may lose some vitamin C, in addition to eating fruit can be added a small vitamin C tablets, to make up for the loss.
question 9: We all know that vitamin C is easy to oxidize, but also very afraid of heat, then, daily cooking such as steaming, cooking, frying, is it easy to destroy? Is it better to eat fruit than vegetables to supplement vitamin C?
: Eat fruit generally do not need to heat, vitamin C no loss, this is right. However, most fruits eaten daily low vitamin C content, such as apples, pears, peaches, grapes, bananas, vitamin C content of no more than 10 mg / 100 grams, or even lower, can not guarantee the day's vitamin C supply standards.
Citrus (teak, orange, citrus, orange, golden orange, lemon, etc.), raspberries and berries (strawberries, blueberries, cranberries, mulberry etc.) more, the highest content is fresh dates, kiwis.
, most vitamin C still comes from vegetables for Chinese people. Vegetables reduce vitamin C after cooking, but if they don't heat up for long, they can actually be preserved in half or more.
, cabbage has the same vitamin C content as oranges. But for northerners, there is much more cabbage than oranges to eat in a year. Cabbage, rape (including rape, cabbage, chicken hair, etc.) have higher vitamin C content than cabbage.
in a variety of cooking methods, steaming, water oil and short-term frying, can make vitamin C preservation rate is the highest. In the case of smoeren and hot, vitamin C will lose more than half due to water-soluble, but it can also be preserved in half. In contrast, the method of stewing is both long-term heating, oxidation, and water loss, vitamin C preservation rate is the lowest. But even so, the preservation rate is not zero. And adding acidic seasonings such as vinegar, ketchup and lemon juice can improve preservation.
question 10: Vitamin C is water-soluble, but also easy to dissolve in the soup, is it necessary to drink the soup to not waste it?
: That's right. Vitamin C is very water-soluble. Therefore, daily hot vegetables will cause a large loss of vitamin C, even up to 50%. If you make soup, more than half of it will melt into it. When cooking and frying, a small amount of vegetable soup will also dissolve a part, the specific loss of the main and cooking time, the amount of salt added, the texture of the dish itself closely related to such factors.
if the soup is very light, you can really drink it directly. But if there's a lot of oil salt in the soup, don't drink it. It's a pity that the soup dissolves at that point, it's better to add an extra 100 milligrams of vitamin C.
hope that the above 10 questions can help you clarify some confusion. In fact, scientific research has not exhausted all the unknowns, and human understanding of virus-related dietary treatments is very limited. Therefore, there is no need to over-tangle, improve diet, exercise and living habits, to maintain their own health at a high level, is the best way to fight most diseases!
/ Fan Zhihong (Director of the Chinese Nutrition Society)