Having pain in joints is common these days among adults and old due to hectic lifestyles and lack of vital nutrients in their diet. However, not only lacking essential nutrients and vitamins cause several health complications. Sometimes, intake of excess vitamins can also affect your body!
Do you also intake vitamins and nutrients more than your body’s requirements?
If yes, then you are on the wrong track.
This way, you also get vulnerable to numerous diseases affecting your overall well-being. Although vitamins play a crucial role in fueling our body, exceeding their amount can lead to health issues.
This post will uncover the adverse effects of one of the vitamins, i.e., Vitamin C (L-ascorbic acid), on your health.
Vitamin C is essential and usually safe to include in everyday meals for a fit body and supple and soft skin. It is a good source of antioxidants and aids several critical body processes, such as frightening inflammation, wound healing, enhancing brain function, collagen production, keeping your bones strong, and lowering blood pressure.
Even doctors and health experts recommend taking an adequate amount of Vitamin C for better functionality of the body and getting joint pain relief. But sometimes, people intake excess amounts of Vitamin C, which may lead to digestive discomfort, mild side effects, bloating, and worsening Osteoarthritis.
Shocking? Taking the upper limit of Vitamin C is not suitable for your health. Let’s take a deeper look.
Why is balancing the amount of Vitamin C in your diet necessary?
On the one hand, Vitamin C supports a healthy lifestyle, while on the other hand, exceeding the recommended amount can cause side effects and stall your joint pain relief process.
So, what’s the recommended dietary allowance of Vitamin C?
The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of Vitamin C in adult males is 90 mg (milligrams), and for females, it is 75 mg. Intaking Vitamin C more than 2,000 mg per day may lead to several complications. But how does exceeding the recommended allowance of Vitamin C affect the body?
Since our body can not produce Vitamin C on its own, taking it from external sources becomes crucial. But sometimes the Vitamin C supplements contain excess amounts of Vitamin C, which may result into:
- Heartburn
- Digestive distress
- Kidney stone
- Insomnia
- Cramps and abdominal pain
- Diarrhea
- Vomiting and nausea
- Fever
- Irritability in the gastrointestinal tract
- Hair loss
- Abnormal menstrual cycle
- Weight loss
- Muscle pain
- Fatigue
- Seizures
- Bone fractures
- Bleeding from the nose (Epistaxis)
- Headache
- Drying of mucous membranes
- Altered mental status
- Affect joint pain relief process
The reason behind these complications is the overload of Vitamin C, which starts to build up in the body and negatively affects your body.
How can an overdose of Vitamin C worsen Osteoarthritis?
Well, it may sound contradictory, but Vitamin C indeed has a significant role in supporting bone health, but exceeding the amount can also worsen and affect the joint pain relief process.
Research conducted on guinea pigs shows that higher doses of Vitamin C for a prolonged time may worsen the Osteoarthritis of the knee.
Osteoarthritis is a common form of arthritis that breaks down joint cartilage. The joint cartilage is like the cushioning tissue, which helps bones move against each other without causing friction.
The eight-month research aimed to compare the effects of low, medium, or high doses of Vitamin C on guinea pigs. Like humans, guinea pigs are also unable to produce Vitamin C by themselves, and their Osteoarthritis of the knees is just like human’s cartilage damaging disease.
In this research, the high dose of Vitamin C was five times higher than the medium dose (30 milligrams). And the low dose was less than 3 milligrams.
The research results show that the high-dose Vitamin C group suffered most from cartilage damage. Also, the group has the highest levels of Vitamin C in the blood (as ascorbic acid), which results in the most severe damage. In comparison, the group with a low dose of Vitamin C weighed less than the group who received high and medium doses.
However, the differences in the weight of medium and high dose groups did not account for the disease severity because, throughout the study, they had similar weights.
Takeaway!
Taking an adequate amount of Vitamin C is necessary for the body’s better performance, while exceeding the amount can lead to severe complications. But how to balance the right amount of Vitamin C?
It’s best to depend on vegetables and fruits for Vitamin C instead of supplements. Veggies and fruits contain the right amount of Vitamin C, while some supplements have more Vitamin C than the recommended allowance, worsening joint pain.
If you also suffer from joint pains and want to get joint pain relief naturally? Choose naturally made tablets and drops for inflammatory arthritis pain.