Posted by Larry Hoover on June 1, 2003, at 20:23:11
In reply to Re: Larry, Zinc/Selenium/Vitamin C questions, posted by Caleb462 on June 1, 2003, at 18:23:42
> > I've occasionally seen it marketed as no-flush niacin, rather than being labelled as niacinamide. No-flush niacin might also be inositol nicotinate, so you have to check the ingredients.
>
> Yeah, well actually the only niacin I could find was inositol nicotinate (although I thought it was hex-something or other??), labeled as "no-flush niacin".I had a brain fart. Inositol hexanicotinate is the proper name.
> > I'd say a minimum target ought to be 2 grams per day, for all psychiatric populations. Mental illness is stressful, and stress whacks vitamin C, hard. Vitamin C helps protect against stress, so you get a vicious circle if you get behind on your C. I think you get the best effect if you shoot for 2 grams a day, and have brief periods of higher intake. Your body won't become dependent on the higher dose, yet you still get the enhancements.
> >
>
> I see... okay. Well... I have no idea if this is true or not, but I have read/heard that cigarette smoke destroys Vitamin C. I'm a smoker (I'd like to stop, but adding nicotine withdrawl into my already fragile mental/emotional state is not an option right now), does this mean I may need even MORE vitamin C than 2 grams?2 grams should cover everything.
> And one more thing... since I've begun taking supplements, well... my B-complex in particular, my urine has become brightly colored. Obviously this reflects urinary loss of vitamins. Is this a natural and unavoidable thing? I always take them with a meal, so as to assure maximal absorption, but is there something else I need to be doing?
>
> Thanks again.The bright coloration of the urine is from B-2 (riboflavin). You're not doing anything wrong, and it's quite natural.
Here's how it works. Your body is separated into different tissues, sometimes called compartments. The main separations between the compartments are membranes, e.g. the blood-brain barrier. When you ingest the vitamins, they're really outside the body still, even when they're in the gut, because you're really organized like a tube. The vitamins cross a membrane (the gut lining), and pass into the blood, what you might think of as the transport compartment. All the other compartments, like bone, skin, skeletal muscle, the central nervous system, and so on, derive their raw materials by being exposed to what the blood carries past their membranes. So, for an organ or tissue to get a nutrient, it has to be in the blood, at a concentration that will promote uptake across the membrane separating it from the blood. Your kidneys are no different. When they're exposed to the same substances in high concentrations, they take it across their membranes, and pass it out of the body in the urine. It's the same large increase in concentration that lets you feed your various organs and tissues in their various compartments that lets your kidneys prove your blood had good stuff in it by passing it into the urine. Some would argue that vitamin pills just make expensive urine, but before that can happen, all your other tissues are getting a crack at the good stuff. That's what you want, a flood of good stuff in the blood, so you can feed your tissues before the kidneys remove what's left over.
That's why you need some intake of water-soluble vitamins every day. You don't store the excess, you excrete it in urine. Until you ingest some more, your body has to do without.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:230511
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030530/msgs/230663.html