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.

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