Can Too Much Vitamin C Be Bad For You?

by Scott
(Rochdale, Lancashire, UK)

Scott's Question: I've just started a mainly raw food diet diet and eat a lot of vitamin C-rich fruit daily.

So, for instance, I eat a lot of oranges, strawberries, melons, mangoes, grapes,and tomatoes.

I was wondering, can too much vitamin C can be bad for you?

Andrew's Answer:

Hi Scott.

Good question, and good timing.

I just finished an article explaining why humans only consume a fraction of the amount of vitamin C we require for optimal health, and why we're at the bottom of the barrel in terms of vitamin c levels when compared to the other species on this planet.

So I highly suggest you start off by reading it here.

Fruit Hang

But let me answer your question specifically.

Although there have been some reports of isolated cases of people taking huge-dose supplement pills and having problems, there has been no confirmation of these reports.

Studies looking at people consuming a massive 10,000 mg of of vitamin C through supplement pills have shown that the subjects run into no unusual health problems.

One side effect reported from high-dose pills is diarrhea. This is also sometimes reported by people just starting raw food diets, but in all cases the situation resolves itself within days, and is likely just a sign of the body adapting from deficiency in vitamin C to a state of abundance.

I've been following this diet since 2005, and often consume 2,000 to 4,000 mg of vitamin C a day, far more than anyone else but raw foodists and those taking supplement pills consume. During that time my health has continued to flourish, and I certainly see no downside.

What To Do:

From what science can tell us, there's no safe upper limit to vitamin C intake.

However, I highly suggest you don't attempt to supplement your way to sufficiency, as that often backfires.

Instead, just keep doing what you're doing and eating those fruit. A healthy, low fat fruit-based raw food diet certainly isn't going going to cause you any harm.