Infusion Spotlight: High-dose Vitamin C

Contents: Vitamin C, double dose

In previous weeks, we’ve discussed vitamin C quite a bit. By now, you know that it is a very versatile vitamin with the potential to enhance bone and connective tissue strength, prevent oxidative damage from free radicals, and boost your immune system function. Why, though, would you want to get it through an IV? Most of you are probably well aware that vitamin C is readily available in common foods like oranges, berries, lemons, and limes. It is also abundant in many vegetables and other produce in addition to fortified foods like cereal that we eat daily.

The answer lies in a fundamental principal of pharmacology called bioavailability. It’s an exceptionally complex concept, and a full lesson on bioavailability is something you’ll have to consult your local pharmacy school for. For our purposes, it’s good enough to say that bioavailability is a description of how much of a medicine (or vitamin) actually is usable by your body. When you ingest a medication, most of the time, much of it gets lost before getting into your bloodstream in an active form that has an effect on your body. Whether it gets metabolized in your liver, converted into inactive forms, or simply stays in your gut, a substantial portion of the medication you take orally is often lost.

In the case of vitamin C, it absorbs readily (that is, it is highly bioavailable) until you’ve taken up about 300mg, which is a little above a recommended daily allowance. After that amount, absorption drops off dramatically, and you have to consume much higher doses of vitamin C to keep increasing the vitamin c concentrations in your bloodstream. For example, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) quotes a study that indicates that taking a whopping dose of 3 grams of vitamin C every 4 hours (18000mg or about 90 times the recommended daily allowance!) only increases blood concentrations of vitamin C by roughly 3 times as much as they would be if you only took the 200mg recommended daily.

When given intravenously, the bioavailability of most medicines is essentially 100%, regardless of the dose. In other words, the entire dose of IV medicine is in your bloodstream and ready to do its job. When you get your dose of vitamin C, it will be immediately available to start eliminating free radicals, supplementing collagen and bone formation, decreasing and performing all the other functions we’ve discussed previously.

The same concept can be applied to all of our other infusions. Why wait for your ibuprofen to kick in when you can get near-instant relief and hydration from our Revive or Migraine Relief packages? Get extra B12 to boost your metabolism and fat burn with our Metabolism and Recovery or Anti-aging infusions. The list goes on. Simply put, IV medications, vitamins, and fluids are the best way to improve your health immediately. If you need a boost, we can help. Book us today.

Be well,

Alex Tripp