Not even a lime in his beer - goodnews - college student develops scurvy - Brief Article

Better Nutrition, May, 2003

A junk food diet of sodas, cookies, sweets and chocolate--with no fruits and vegetables--has caused a college student to develop scurvy.

Although he was eating a sufficient number of calories per day, researchers estimated that his vitamin C intake was about 0.1 milligram per day--virtually none compared to the 90 milligrams of recommended daily allowance (RDA) for non-smoking men.

And the RDA figure is generally considered extremely low by many nutritionists, who routinely recommend 10 times this amount for optimum health.

After four days of taking a prescribed multivitamin and vitamin C supplement, the student's symptoms greatly improved. The condition improved further after an additional two weeks of extra vitamin C. The story shows that people really do need to get vitamin C every day because it isn't stored by the body.

The case was described at the January 22, 2003 annual meeting of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition.