This page covers Vitamin C IV Therapy including its benefits. IV League specializes in high-dose Vitamin C IV Therapy.
A nutrient called vitamin C is present in foods including oranges, grapefruit, kiwis, peppers, and broccoli as well as nutritional supplements. As an antioxidant, vitamin C works to stop the harm that free radicals do to cells.
It also collaborates with enzymes to play a crucial part in collagen production. Ascorbate or L-ascorbic acid are other names for vitamin C.
Vitamin C (VitC), also known as ascorbic acid or ascorbate, is an essential water-soluble vitamin that plays an important role in human physiology. The majority of its physiological activities are dependent on its capacity to work as an antioxidant or as a cofactor for a wide range of enzymatic reactions, which helps to stabilize the tertiary structure of collagen, produce norepinephrine, and absorb iron.
New information demonstrates that VitC is also a cofactor for hydroxylases of the family of Fe-containing 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenases that control gene transcription and cell signaling pathways. These hydroxylases are newly defined. Additionally, VitC is highly concentrated in immune cells, highlighting its crucial role in a number of immune system functions.
Importantly, whereas the majority of vertebrate species can synthesis ascorbic acid, humans are unable to do so and must consequently consume vitamin C orally. Higher vitamin C status has been associated to reduce blood pressure (BP), with every 50 mol/l rise in vitamin C plasma levels lowering BP by 2-4 mmHg.
Due to increased availability of fruits, vegetables, and vitamin supplements, scurvy-related disabilities and fatalities are now uncommon. Vitamin C is a common dietary supplement. The manufacture of collagen, L-carnitine, and a few neurotransmitters depends on vitamin C, which also plays a role in protein metabolism.
Collagen is a crucial component of connective tissue, which is crucial for the healing of wounds. Alpha-tocopherol and other physiologically significant antioxidants, such as vitamin C, have been demonstrated to be replenished by vitamin C in the body (vitamin E).
Research is currently being done to determine whether vitamin C, by inhibiting the harmful effects of free radicals through its antioxidant activity, can help prevent or postpone the onset of specific malignancies, cardiovascular disease, and other diseases where oxidative stress is a causal factor.
Vitamin C performs significant roles in immunological function and enhances the absorption of nonheme iron, the type of iron found in plant-based meals, in addition to its biosynthetic and antioxidant effects.
Scurvy is caused by a lack of vitamin C and is characterized by exhaustion or laziness, extensive connective tissue deterioration, and capillary fragility.
Benefits of High Dose Vitamin C IV Therapy
Some people look to a vitamin C flush when they want rapid detoxification or to recover quickly from an illness.
People who recommend a vitamin C flush as a detox method claim that it:
- boosts the body’s vitamin C stores
- determines how much vitamin C the body needs every day
- leaves the body feeling refreshed and energized
Vitamin C is believed to:
- have anti-aging properties
- boost the immune system
- help the body absorb minerals
- protect the body from chemical toxins
- help the body ward off infection
Vitamin C plays an important role in the maintenance of collagen throughout your body.
The main structural protein in your connective tissue is collagen. In actuality, collagen makes up around one-third of the total protein in the body. Consider the following: heart valves, blood veins, tendons, skin, bones, teeth, cartilage, and more. Your heart’s health is especially dependent on collagen.
An excellent strategy to keep your collagen healthy and help avoid cardiovascular disease is to take vitamin C intravenously.
Studies demonstrate that using vitamin C in addition to conventional chemotherapy can help treat a variety of cancers, including:
Reducing toxicity levels in your body
You may be able to tolerate larger chemotherapy doses if you take vitamin C. It accomplishes this by lowering your body’s toxin levels. While protecting chemotherapy medications from the rest of your body, vitamin C enables chemotherapy to kill cancer cells.
Fighting off cancer cells
Beyond merely defending your health, vitamin C can also aid in the battle against cancer. Good for your immune system is vitamin C. High doses of vitamin C given intravenously will only target cancer cells, protecting healthy tissue from damage.
Antihistamine Effects
It has been demonstrated that vitamin C reduces bronchial reactivity and has a broad antihistaminic effect. Asthma sufferers are among those who experience airway blockage due in part to free radicals. It is well known that vitamin C acts as a “radical scavenger” while being safe for the body.
Those who commonly struggle with allergies and asthma can greatly benefit from increasing their Vitamin C intake through IV therapy.
Antioxidant Effects
Your body’s natural chemical processes include oxidation. Stress, alcohol usage, and smoking are just a few examples of factors that might disrupt this process and result in the formation of highly unstable and harmful chemicals. These “free radical” chemicals can damage your DNA and cause conditions like cancer and cholesterol buildup on your blood vessels.
According to research, vitamin C functions well as an antioxidant. High quantities of vitamin C can help inhibit this chemical process from taking place as well as the development of free radicals in the body, which can harm cells.
Immune Support
Our immune system’s capacity to combat bacterial, viral, and even fungal infections is enhanced by vitamin C.
Remember that taking vitamin C orally has a limited absorption rate. Your digestive system will certainly experience issues with higher doses. IV treatment enables the body to get higher vitamin levels without experiencing negative side effects.
History of High Dose Vitamin C IV
One of the most significant contributions to bettering human nutrition was the identification and isolation of vitamin C. Scurvy, a severe vitamin C deficiency condition marked by weakness, drowsiness, and easy bleeding during the 16th century, when access to fresh fruits and vegetables was scarce, was particularly difficult for sailors on lengthy trips. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, scurvy really killed more seafarers than all conflicts, natural disasters, and other illnesses put together.
James Lind, a Scottish naval physician, didn’t prove orange and lemon consumption could treat and prevent scurvy until 1747. The nature of the healing component found in citrus fruits, today known as vitamin C, was discovered by scientists over two additional centuries later.
When Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, a Hungarian biochemist, discovered and identified a 6-carbon carbohydrate, hexuronic acid, as the anti-scurvy component in 1932, the quest for this elusive molecule came to an end. In allusion to its anti-scorbutic qualities, Szent-Gyorgyi nicknamed it shortly after. For his discoveries, he later won the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.
Mechanisms of Action for High Dose Vitamin C IV Therapy
In humans, an external source of ascorbic acid is necessary for the posttranslational production of 4-hydroxyproline in -Xaa-Pro-Gly sequences in collagens and other proteins, which is necessary for collagen synthesis and tissue repair. In the body, ascorbic acid undergoes reversible oxidation to dehydroascorbic acid. These two vitamin types are thought to be crucial in oxidation-reduction processes. The vitamin contributes to the metabolism of tyrosine, the transformation of folic acid into folinic acid, the synthesis of lipids and proteins, the metabolism of iron, the resistance to infections, and the respiration of cells.
At least one particular dose-dependent, active transporter controls the intestinal absorption of vitamin C. Vitamin C is taken in by cells via a second unique transport protein. According to in vitro research, oxidized vitamin C, also known as dehydroascorbic acid, enters cells by some facilitated glucose transporters before being internally reduced to ascorbic acid. Dehydroascorbic acid uptake’s physiological significance and contribution to the total vitamin C economy are unknown.
Vitamin C taken orally causes the body to precisely regulate tissue and plasma amounts. With modest daily intakes of 30-180 mg of vitamin C, around 70%–90% of it is absorbed. However, at doses greater than 1 g/day, ascorbic acid absorption drops to less than 50% and is eliminated in the urine unmetabolized. Pharmacokinetic studies have shown that oral ascorbic acid doses of 1.25 g/day result in mean peak plasma vitamin C concentrations of 135 micromol/L, which are nearly two times greater than those obtained by ingesting 200–300 mg/day of ascorbic acid from foods high in vitamin C. Even doses as high as 3 g of ascorbic acid taken every 4 hours would only result in peak plasma concentrations of 220 micromol/L, according to pharmacokinetic models.
Vitamin C levels in the body as a whole range from 300 mg (at a level close to scurvy) to roughly 2 g. The largest amounts of vitamin C (millimolar concentrations) are found in leukocytes (white blood cells), eyes, adrenal glands, pituitary glands, and the brain. Extracellular fluids like plasma, red blood cells, and saliva have relatively low quantities of vitamin C (micromolar values).
How is High Dose Vitamin C IV Therapy used to treat Illnesses?
- The use of high dose vitamin C as an adjuvant pro-oxidative agent, primarily in chemo- and radiation, has been the subject of numerous investigations in recent years.
- Patients with non-small cell lung cancer or glioblastoma multiforme received normal therapy in addition to IV vitamin C in two pilot studies. In comparison to the control groups, those who got normal therapy together with IV vitamin C survived longer overall and experienced fewer adverse effects.
- White blood cell loss, weight loss, ascites buildup, hepatotoxicity, reticulocytosis, lipid peroxidation, and cardiomyopathy brought on by chemotherapy are often reduced with vitamin C treatment.
- Numerous epidemiological studies have found evidence linking a high consumption of fruits and vegetables to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. Due to the fact that oxidative damage, notably the oxidative alteration of low-density lipoproteins, is a major contributor to cardiovascular disease, this link may be partially explained by the antioxidant content of these meals. Vitamin C has been demonstrated to promote endothelium-dependent nitric oxide generation and vasodilation, decrease vascular smooth-muscle cell death, and diminish monocyte adhesion to the endothelium in addition to its antioxidant effects. This avoids plaque instability in atherosclerosis.
- Cataracts and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) are two of the main factors in vision loss in older people. Both illnesses may have oxidative stress as a contributing factor in their etiology. As a result, scientists have proposed that vitamin C and other antioxidants may contribute to the onset and/or management of many disorders.
Intravenous IV High Dose Vitamin C vs Oral Supplementation
When taken orally, intestinal absorption, tissue accumulation, renal reabsorption and excretion, and possibly even the rate of use, all work in concert to carefully regulate the content of vitamin C in human plasma. However, the strict constraints are avoided when ascorbate is given intravenously or intraperitoneally, making it simple to reach pharmacologic millimolar plasma concentrations of vitamin C. More recently, it has been discovered that vitamin C taken orally has distinct effects than vitamin C administered intravenously. This has sparked a resurgence in interest in vitamin C’s potential as a cancer treatment. The use of vitamin C-rich supplements is also rather widespread, increasing the amount of vitamin C consumed in total from foods and drinks. According to NHANES statistics from 1999–2000, 35% of adults take multivitamin supplements, which frequently include vitamin C, and 12% of individuals take a separate vitamin C supplement. Approximately 29% of youngsters take a vitamin C-containing dietary supplement, according to NHANES data from 1999 to 2002.
Molecular Formula of IV High Dose Vitamin C:
The molecular formula of IV High Dose Vitamin C is C6H8O6 and its molecular weight is 176.1241. Its IUPAC name is (2R)-2-[(1S)-1,2-dihydroxyethyl]-3,4-dihydroxy-2H-furan-5-one.
