Vitamin C the safe bet against bone loss
A new study adds more evidence that a natural alternative is the way to go in the fight against bone loss. Many studies have shown that vitamin C and calcium help boost bone mineral density, but the early studies on vitamin C focused mainly on foods loaded with the vitamin.
A new study out of Tufts University went a step further and focused on people just taking vitamin C supplements. In other words, they isolated the vitamin so we could learn if it was the vitamin itself protecting your bones, or some other mystery ingredient in fruits and vegetables.
The result? It's the vitamin.
The study looked at people with a mean age of 75 who consumed vitamin C ranging from none to 520 milligrams a day. People who supplemented with vitamin C had healthier bones as a result – it was particularly effective at limiting bone loss.
There were a couple wild cards in the research. For example, smokers benefited less. It's just another of the many ways in which smoking undermines your health.
You might not have seen this research on vitamin C in the mainstream media. Vitamin C doesn't have a PR or marketing department to send out press releases and call reporters on the phone, like Big Pharma does. But if you want to keep your bones strong as you age, it's still news worth noting.
