The generally accepted recommendation that as little as 10 mg vitamin C per day can be enough to prevent scurvy dates back to a very old study conducted in 1944. This study tested the symptoms of vitamin C deprivation to find out the minimum necessary amount, as resources were scarce during the war. Participants were given a daily dose of 0.10 or 70 mg of vitamin C for 9 months, then their depleted vitamin C stores were restocked. As vitamin C has a vital role in collagen synthesis, during the studies and following the restocking experimental injuries were inflicted on participants in order to observe how vitamin C deficiency affects the healing of wounds. Due to clear ethical considerations, nowadays no such experiments are conducted.  

A pair of researchers re-examined this old study and subjected the results to modern statistical analysis. Their interesting findings show that the necessary daily intake of vitamin C currently prescribed is merely the necessary minimum that everybody should take.  

The study shows that those whose vitamin C intake was merely 10 mg per day after the study, had 42% weaker scars that those whose intake was 80 mg per day. It follows that the collagen synthesis of the first group was severely blocked by their vitamin C deficiency.  

Another important finding w is that the collagen synthesis of vitamin C deficient tissues could not be restored in 6.5 months with a daily amount of 65 mg of vitamin C (50% more than the amount recommended by WHO).  

Several factors can increase vitamin C needs, such as smoking, environmental toxins, infections and other diseases with severe inflammation. (2) As it’s hard to avoid all these factors, it’s recommended to ingest more vitamin C than the necessary prescribed amount, as it has no negative effects but multiple benefits, such as collagen synthesis.