Her Majesty's Life Preserver : SuperFoodsRx

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Her Majesty's Life Preserver

Table of Contents

1.	Overview
2.	Her Majesty's Life Preserver
3.	The Power of Flavonoids
4.	Oranges and Cancer
5.	Citrus and Stroke
6.	Shopping Tips

The story of how limes and the vitamin C they contained saved Her Majesty’s sailors is familiar to many people. It’s an interesting tale of the power of food and the importance of getting a wide range of health-promoting nutrients in your diet. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, sailors were routinely lost on long sea voyages, dying of scurvy. Countless sailors died despite the belief they were getting enough to eat. The Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama lost nearly half his men to scurvy in the 14905 as he took his first trip around the Cape of Good Hope. It wasn’t until the mid-1700’s that James Lind, a British naval surgeon, discovered that a daily ration of citrus in lemons, limes, or oranges preserved the sailors’ health. Thus the life of the British sailor, or “limey,” was saved.

This would be quaint old news were it not for the fact that 20 to 30 percent of America’s adults have marginal blood levels of vitamin C and 16 percent are reportedly deficient in the vitamin. Humans (and guinea pigs) can’t manufacture vitamin C in their bodies. It’s water soluble and not retained in the body, so we need a constant replenishment from dietary sources to maintain adequate cellular and blood levels. Alarmingly, a high percentage of children consume minimal amounts of vitamin C. The recommended daily allowance (RDA) for Americans is 90 milligrams a day for adult males and 75 milligrams a day for adult females.

It’s fairly shocking that, given today’s abundance of food, so many of us are deficient in a vitamin that’s crucial to good health. While we might not be seeing cases of scurvy, we’re certainly seeing epidemics of heart disease, hypertension, and cancer. The vitamin C in citrus, along with the other valuable nutrients, can play a major role in reducing these high levels of chronic disease.

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