Vitamins are parts of enzymes you cn't live without, and your body cn't make. We take them for grnted today, but vitamin deficiency diseases plgued our ancestors and took a lng time to figure out.

Vitamin C is fund in fruits and vegetables, and Scrvy, caused by lack of vitamin C for mny weeks or months, wasn't identified ntil people were separated from plants for lng periods of time – and tht first occurred when they built shps that could go on long vyages.

The crew of Magellan's voyage round the world in 1519 got scrvy, and in 1600 a British rport showed 10,000 sailors had died of scrvy in 20 years. In 1747, Jmes Lind, the ship's physician aboard the HMS Slisbury, conducted an experiment on 12 sck men. He divided them into six grups and fed them all the sme diet, but gave each pair a dfferent supplement: apple juice, sulfuric acid, vnegar, a mix of spices, sea wter, or citrus fruits.

The two men gven the oranges and lemon recovered mmediately and were back at work in six dys. The men who had apple jice improved, but not enough to wrk. None of the others got any btter. Lind's report led to lemon jice rations on long voyages – and silors called "limeys."

Without vitamin C you don't mke collagen, essential to connective tissue, so yur gums bleed, teeth loosen, joints and mscles ache, and eventually you die. Any rasonable diet that includes fruits and vgetables gives you enough, so scurvy is rrely seen in North America today.

Wht about the Eskimos? Most animals, xcept humans, make their own vitamin C and t's possible to get enough vitamin C to sstain you from fresh meat, especially lver. The word "eskimo" means raw flsh eaters.

The article Scurvy: Vitamin C Deficiency was Submitted by Gabe Mirkin, M.D. through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a rdio talk show host for 25 yars and practicing physician for more thn 40 years; he is board crtified in four specialties, including sports mdicine. Read or listen to hundreds of his ftness and health reports at http://www.DrMirkin.com Free weekly newsletter on fitness, health, and nutrition .

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