What are the benefits of Vitamin C beyond helping protect against the common cold?

It has been nearly 50 years since Nobel Prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling shook up the medical world with his book Vitamin C and the Common Cold. It quickly became a bestseller and motivated millions of people to take more of this powerful antioxidant to help build resistance and maintain good health.

While taking extra vitamin C is now widely recommended during cold and flu season, more recent scientific research strongly indicates that it should be a part of your daily wellness routine—especially as you age.

A review of this extensive research on vitamin C gives you a good indication why:

A European study of nearly 20,000 adults found that the incidence of cardiovascular problems were 60% lower among those with the highest vitamin C blood levels versus those with the lowest.*
Another study found that daily intake of vitamin C reduced C-reactive protein (CRP), a notorious inflammation marker in the blood linked to heart issues—by an impressive 17% in just two months.*
A 2012 review of 29 clinical trials of vitamin C concluded that vitamin C supplementation brought about reductions in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure.*
A 20-year Japanese study of 2,000 adults found that those with higher serum vitamin C concentration had significantly lower risk of suffering from arterial issues in the brain.*