Vitamin C For Kidney Function
The recommended dietary allowance for vitamin C is 90 milligrams (mg) for adult men and 75 mg for adult women. When you consume excess vitamin C, your kidneys process the nutrient and help your body excrete it through urine. Too much vitamin C can cause a buildup of oxalate in your body if you have chronic kidney disease.
Dialysis can also deplete your blood of vitamin C. Research from 2012 found that people on dialysis can help increase their iron absorption by taking a low-dose vitamin C supplement of 60 to 100 mg.
Vitamin C And Kidney Cancer
Vitamin C intake may play a role in the risk of renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer among adults. A 2015 meta-analysis showed that people with a higher vitamin C intake had a lower risk of kidney cancer, but more research is needed.
Researchers have been exploring the potential of using high doses of vitamin C to treat cancer for decades. However, high levels of vitamin C are not recommended for people with kidney cancer, as it could do more damage. Kidney stones happen when waste accumulates and clumps together in your kidneys, causing pain and difficulty urinating.
More than half a million people seek emergency care for kidney stones every year, according to the National Kidney Foundation. Generally speaking, the vitamin C people get from food isn’t likely to be high enough to lead to kidney stones. A 2013 study on 23,355 men found that those who took vitamin C supplements experienced double the rate of kidney stones.
To help minimize the risk of kidney stones, the National Institutes of Health recommends that adults consume no more than 2,000 mg of vitamin C per day. It can be hard to assess our vitamin C levels because the nutrient is found all over the body.
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If you have chronic kidney disease or kidney failure, here’s what you need to know.
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This can be remedied in some instances with administration of supplemental vitamin C, either intravenously or orally. The safety of this therapy needs careful study so as to determine vitamin C dosage that is effective and also avoids complications of oxalosi.