> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.foodconsumer.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # RDAs for vitamin C should be more than doubled - URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/vitamin_c_1027121136/ - Published: 2012-10-27T12:34:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-22T16:05:18.000Z - Description: The Linus Pauling Institute cites a paper in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition urging that the vitamin C RDA rise from 75 mg for women and 90 mg for men to 200 mg a day, noting marginal deficiency in a quarter to a third of people in US and Canadian studies. - Author: Food Consumer - Tags: Vitamins, Nutrition, Vitamin C, #vivvo-import By Jimmy Downs Saturday Oct 27, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- Linus Pauling Institute this month cited a report in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition as suggesting that the currently recommended dietary allowance or RDA of vitamin C should be more than doubled to increase from 75 mg per day for women and 90 mg per day for men to 200 mg per day for adults. At the current low RDAs, studies in the U.S. and Canada have found marginal vitamin C deficiency in a quarter to a third of the population and severe vitamin C deficiency in up to 20 percent of the population, particularly in college students who often do not have a healthy diet to eat, smokers and older adults. A release posted by Linus Pauling Institute states that vitamin C, which humans cannot make by themselves, can not only prevent scurvy, which is induced by the deficiency of this vitamin, but also have significant effects on public health at a cost of about a penny a day if taken as a nutrition supplement. Marginal vitamin C deficiency can lead to malaise, fatigue, and lethargy among other conditions, according to studies. On the other hands, sufficient levels of vitamin C can enhance immunity, reduce oxidative stress and inflammation such as atherosclerosis, and significantly lower blood pressure. The current recommendation is influenced by some short term clinical trials that showed no efficacy of vitamin C in preventing and treating certain diseases. Researchers said vitamin C should not be tested as a drug for a short period to see its efficacy in preventing chronic diseases because the efficacy shows up only years or even decades after optimal consumption of vitamin C for a certain period. “It’s time to bring some common sense to this issue, look at the totality of the scientific evidence, and go beyond some clinical trials that are inherently flawed,” said Balz Frei, professor and director of the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, and a leading vitamin C expert. “Significant numbers of people in the U.S. and around the world are deficient in vitamin C, and there’s growing evidence that more of this vitamin could help prevent chronic disease,” Frei said. “The way clinical researchers study micro nutrients right now, with the same type of so-called ‘phase three randomized placebo-controlled trials’ used to test pharmaceutical drugs, almost ensures they will find no beneficial effect. We need to get past that.” According to the Linus Pauling Institute press release, metabolic, pharmacokinetic, laboratory and demographic studies have showed that high levels of vitamin C could help prevent chronic diseases that are the major killers in developed countries including heart disease, cancer, stroke, and other underlying conditions such as high blood pressure, inflammation, poor immunity and atherosclerosis. “We believe solid research shows the RDA should be increased,” Frei said. “And the benefit-to-risk ratio is very high. A 200 milligram intake of vitamin C on a daily basis poses absolutely no risk, but there is strong evidence it would provide multiple, substantial health benefits.” A healthy diet that can provide 200 mg of vitamin C per day should include nine servings of fruit and raw or steam-cooked vegetables plus a six-ounce glass of orange juice each day. Many people could not have sufficient intake of this vitamin from their diet, so vitamin D supplements are needed for most people. Examples of vitamin C benefits A recent meta-analysis of 29 human studies concluded that daily supplementation of 500 milligrams of vitamin C significantly reduced blood pressure, both systolic and diastolic. A European study of almost 20,000 men and women found that the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease was 60 percent lower in those whose vitamin C levels were in the highest 20 percent, compared to those in the lowest 20%. Still another study found that men with the lowest serum vitamin C levels were 62 percent more likely to die from cancer or cancer related causes after a 12-16 year period, compared to those with highest vitamin C levels.