Question

What herbs/supplements does vitamin C interact with and WHY? How could you change someone's diet to reduce the likelihood of these reactions? PUT INTO OWN WORDS AND BE THOROUGH.

Answer 1

Vitamin C contains ascorbic acid and it interacts with many drugs.

1. Aluminum (Antacids) interacts with Vitamin C - Aluminum is generally used in almost all antacids. The absorption level of Aluminium in the body can increase if Vitamin C is present in the body. High-dosages of Vitamin C works as a chelating agent with aluminium and causes aluminum toxicity. To avoid the mishap take Vitamin C 2 - 4 hours before antacids.

2. Chemotherapy - As an antioxidant, vitamin C may interfere with the effects of some drugs taken for chemotherapy. Animal studies have shown that high-dose vitamin C treatment blocks tumor growth in certain models of pancreatic, liver, prostate, and ovarian cancers, and sarcoma. However, studies are still going on and it is still not clear whether it is useful or harmful to consume Vitamin C with chemotherapy drugs.

3. Warfarin (Coumadin) supplements - Warfarin (Coumadin) is used to slow blood clotting. Large amounts of vitamin C might decrease the effectiveness of warfarin (Coumadin). Decreasing the effectiveness of warfarin (Coumadin) might increase the risk of clotting. The exact reason of this behaviour is still unknown, however amount of Vitamin C should not be exceeded from the permissible amount to reduce this risk.

Here it should be noted that normal consumption of Vitamin is not causing any problem but high dosages can. To consuming Vitamin C as per doctor's advice is good for health.