The Supplements You Need for Vigorous Health

By Michelle Kruse

Scurvy, the disease caused by severe vitamin C deficiency, was a common and often fatal disease among the European sailors who lived on salted meats and biscuits during long sea voyages during the 15th to 18th centuries. Dr. James Lind, a Scottish surgeon in the British Royal Navy, proved in 1753 that lime juice, rich in vitamin C, miraculously banished all of the symptoms of scurvy including anemia, fatal bleeding spells, bone pain, and weakness; and quickly restored these sick young men to vigorous health. In contrast, the common practice today of ingesting daily mega-doses of vitamin C by a person with a normal baseline vitamin C level has not been proven to provide any health benefit. As a rule, supplementing a deficient level of an essential nutrient into the normal range will markedly improve the afflicted person’s health and well-being; whereas using a nutritional supplement to drive an already normal level to an unusually high range usually results in no benefit and sometimes even causes harm.