Aaron Hartman, MDFunctional Medicine Specialist | Clinical Researcher

Plagues of Our Past: Vitamin C & D Deficiency

13 Dec 2024 · 1 min

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Short spoken segment by Aaron Hartman, MD describing two historical 'plagues' in America: vitamin D deficiency and vitamin C deficiency. He explains vitamin C deficiency was common in 18th-century eastern U.S., worsened by lack of fresh produce, and could accelerate during illnesses; he also gives a personal anecdote about high-dose vitamin C use during a pandemic infection. The segment contrasts pockets of populations (e.g., German farmers consuming sauerkraut) who avoided deficiency.

Chapters

The plagues of our past that have killed millions of Americans. Let's learn from these. The first is vitamin D deficiency, and the second is vitamin C deficiency. It was very commonplace in America, particularly in the eastern coast back in the mid 18. It was actually considered healthy and good for your gut, your general health, not to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. Now there were pockets of people, typically from actually German background, who had their own little farms. They'd grow stuff and ferment stuff and do cabbage, which, you know, sauerkraut, which we now know is rich in vitamin C. Little pockets that didn't get these. But it was super common to have low level vitamin C deficiency. If you have that and get an illness, get a flu, get a pneumonia, all of a sudden that becomes accelerated. I actually personally experienced this when I had the pandemic infection and I actually was taking 7 or 8,000 milligrams of vitamin C a day. Now my body was just sucking up and sucking up, and it wasn't until a week or two later that I actually started getting a little bit of diarrhea from it because my body didn't need it anymore. But vitamin C deficiency was huge. I.