Debunking the Myths of Synthetic versus Whole Food Vitamin C

Question: Is whole food vitamin C superior to natural because it is part of a tyrosinase complex?

Short Answer: Vitamin C is nearly ubiquitously distributed in plant tissues, and is never bound to any enzyme as a structural complex. Vitamin C promotes absorption of iron from plant foods, inhibits copper absorption, and de-loads copper from ceruloplasmin, which may play a role in distributing copper to tissues. Vitamin C is not capable of destroying ceruloplasmin. These functions follow directly from vitamin C as an electron donor and there is no evidence whatsoever that whole food vitamin C behaves differently in these respects than synthetic vitamin C. However, daily needs in most contexts are 2-400 milligrams of vitamin C per day, which is below the dose shown to potentially cause problems with copper. Getting this from whole foods or whole food supplements is better than using synthetic vitamin C because it avoids GMO corn and Chinese synthetics and provides a host of other beneficial constituents alongside the vitamin C.

This is a clip from a live Q&A session open to CMJ Masterpass members. In addition to this episode, you can access two other free samples using this link:

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In that batch of free episodes you will also find the answer to this question:

• Is Hair Mineral Testing Useful?

•  What's the Deal With Seed Oils?

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This snippet is from the June 16, 2023 AMA. The full recording and transcript is reserved for Masterpass members. Here is a preview of what’s included:

• Butyrate for Hashimoto’s? What else?

• What in the comprehensive nutritional screening is helping to interpret lactate/pyruvate and ketone ratios?

• Is the solution to a respiratory chain disorder to take Niagen?

• If I have high manganese on an HTMA, do I need to detox?

• Should CFS patients target reducing their serum BH4?

• What to do about low alkaline phosphatase?

• If my glucose spikes above 140, should I eat fiber and take ACV before the meal, eat cinnamon with the meal, chew slowly, and move for ten minutes after my meals?

• Difficulty getting Quest to do the lactate/pyruvate ratio correctly.

• Is 38 milligrams of niacinamide enough to rule out niacin deficiency as a cause of low NAD+?

• How does optimizing body composition help optimize energy metabolism? Can impaired energy metabolism make someone fatter?

• Is monounsaturated fat the best fat?

• Manganese followup.

• Do you need to stop taking biotin before a biotin test?

• What in "a bunch of supplements" flip the lactate/pyruvate ratio from high to low?

• NAD infusions, yay or nay?

• Why do I feel better after a warm shower, even better than after sunshine?

• Should I cut back on vitamin A if I have toxicity symptoms but cutting back makes me get sick?

• Do home blood drop tests have to be pricked at the finger?

• Is it true that my boyfriend was just born a night owl?

• How much eating out is too much?

• When measuring ketones, lactate, and glucose at home to optimize energy metabolism, what time of day should we take the measurements?

Here’s a link to the full AMA: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/recording-and-transcript-of-the-june-a55

Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.