Why The Ionisation Of Vitamin C Matters In Our Dietary Consumption Patterns.
Then again, what even is ionisation?
We know of Vitamin C as that nutrient that is particularly beneficial for supporting the functions of our immune system, especially with regards to antioxidant defense or protection against foreign invaders.
Now, Vitamin C is chemically known as ascorbic acid. Acids are able to dissociate into its negatively charged constituent salt ion and release a positively charged hydrogen ion in the process.
This hydrogen ion is acidic and will contribute to reducing the overall pH of the system — that’s how acidity is quantified in phyiscal chemistry.
Ascorbic acid, therefore, is able to dissociate into ascorbate ions. However, ascorbic acid is considered to be a weak acid — it doesn’t really dissociate very well on its own.
It needs some help from a strongly alkaline substance such as sodium hydroxide, which aids its dissociation into ascorbate — in this case, we’re looking at the formation of sodium ascorbate.
We need to understand that the transport of Vitamin C in the body is heavily dependent on whether it’s unionised ascorbic acid or ionised sodium ascorbate.
When we ingest our food, the food goes down into the stomach for digestion and then to the intestinal lumen for further digestion and absorption. The epithelial cells that line the lumen contain various receptors that can take in the various nutrients and transport them across the intestinal walls for the nutrients to enter the blood.
In the case of Vitamin C, transport across the intestinal lumen into the blood is regulated by the sodium-dependent Vitamin C transporters (SVCTs). As we can tell by its name, an SVCT transports both sodium and ascorbate together.
Both sodium (positively charged) and ascorbate (negatively charged) have to be transported together because electroneutrality has to be maintained, which is also known in other areas as the Donnan equilibrium.
Of course, modern science has learnt how to exploit the Donnan equilibrium in areas such as water treatment, but we can’t apply those engineering techniques to our own body just yet.
As a result, we would have to settled for the conclusion that ionised ascorbates are better absorbed into the blood than un-ionised ascorbic acid based on the principle of Donnan equilibrium. Any other unabsorbed stuff simply gets eliminated from the body.
That’s how a simple physical chemistry concept such as dissociation can have such profound biochemical ramifications within our body itself!
However, given that approximately 15% of US adults are vitamin C deficient, any additional Vitamin C for them would be more beneficial — provided it doesn’t get first neutralised by all the reactive oxygen species that an ultraprocessed food diet can bring about.
But otherwise, if supplementation were necessary, ascorbates would be better than ascorbic acid. Just because of those SVCT transporters.
For a good source of ascorbate supplementation, do feel free to check out this link below:
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