Does immune system depend on the connection 
between vitamin C and glucose?

Vitamin C is naturally produced by most living beings, except humans, chimpanzees and guinea pig. For example, dogs and cats body produce vitamin C from food being metabolized into glucose. People should instead consider regular use of vitamin C in foods consumed or risk serious health problems. There is a very close relationship between blood glucose and vitamin C, relationship that is particularly important at the level of immunity and cellular health.

Most plants and animals are able to synthesize vitamin C directly. This is possible through a chain of biochemical transformations depend on the actions of four essential enzymes that convert glucose into vitamin C. In mammals, glucose is extracted from deposits of sugar (glycogen) and the transformation of vitamin C is produced in the liver.

The reason people are unable to synthesize vitamin C alone is because they lack an enzyme critical to the last stage of transformation - L-gunolactona oxidase. Also, people need considerable amounts of vitamin C to build collagen tissue and to improve immunity. When low levels of vitamin C in the body, it reuses vitamin C oxidized deposits. Reoxidativ cycle continues as long as there is enough enzyme glutathione.

In the 70s Dr. John Ely discovered the theory of antagonism glucose-ascorbate. Glucose and vitamin C have a close chemical structure. This theory says that elevated levels of blood glucose and even restrict acts against vitamin C to penetrate into cells to be assimilated. Both glucose and vitamin C are dependent on insulin - hormone secreted by the pancreas - and signals from it to penetrate into cells.

GLUT-1 receptor

There is an important receptor called GLUT-1 (engl. Glucose Transporter 1 - glucose transporter no. 1) which is activated automatically in response to the signal from insulin to glucose and vitamin C access within cells. The high affinity receptor in the GLUT-1, which translates into: the more the amount of glucose in the blood is higher, the less vitamin C is allowed in cells.

White blood cells contain the highest amount of vitamin C (about 20 times the normal amount of a cell) and need up to 50 times more vitamin C to function at normal parameters to ensure processes and oxidative stress Oxidative when common pathogenic substance.

Elevated levels of blood sugar decreases phagocytic ability

When white blood cells - leukocytes - meet pathogens - bacteria and viruses - have to ingest - a process called phagocytosis - to neutralize them. Facogitic index measures how effective is a white blood cell in destroying viruses, bacteria and cancer cells. Increased glucose level decreases this index. In real data, an index of 120 sugar Phagocytic index value decreases by 75%!

Glucose with vitamin C act together in chain formation hexodic monophosphate - HMP - whose outcome is dinucleotide phosphate nicotinamide adenine (NADPH) - a particularly useful coenzyme anabolic processes such as lipid synthesis and nucleic acids - with pentoses (sugars 5 carbon molecules). NADPH white cells need to produce superoxide in order to destroy pathogens. Vitamin C not only in the production of NADPH but also regulates the amount so white blood cells do not produce too much oxidative stress in order to protect the body.

Vitamin C is a chemical activator of this pathway, while glucose acts as an inhibitor. In the same context of chain reactions ribose and deoxyribose HMP occur constitutes the raw material for the production of genetic material RNA / DNA in the newly created white blood cells. When the immune system is attacked, must be able to quickly produce new cells defense white. If blood sugar is too high, the formation of white blood cells is obviously slowed.

In his book "Intelligent Nutrition", doctor Emil Radulescu also speaks of reducing the fighting strength of lymphocytes when our blood sugar is above 100 mg/dl. It says that if a leukocyte normally destroy 14 bacteria, when blood sugar is elevated a leukocyte can only destroy 1 bacteria, thus reducing the ability to fight by 90%.

So given the fact that almost all foods contain sugar trade in various forms, one glass of carbonated juice (10 tablespoons sugar in 250 ml), or two slices of cake, the same amount, can immediately get you unable to defend. And if we consider that this numbing of the immune system takes about 5 hours after the 10 teaspoons of sugar, one can imagine, about how we defend our time and how long we are exposed to hazards. We all wonder why kids today are so sick? Perhaps now we have an answer!

Personal Comments

Taking into consideration the foregoing facts in the material above and if we think that glucose does not really lack in our diets today, we must ask the question...how much vitamin C is in our daily food? And to this question, we must answer considering that Vitamin C is sensitive to high temperatures (cooking will destroy, heating) and is soluble in water, (you have to ingest every day).

Source: http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james52.htm

http://viataverdeviu.ro/sistemul-imunitar-depinde-de-legatura-dintre-vitamina-c-si-glucoza/

Reversing Diabetes Type II, Glucose-Ascorbate Antagonism, and their Impact on Reversing Heart Disease

Medical doctors often call to ask, "If Linus Pauling was correct that a chronic vitamin C deficiency causes cardiovascular disease, why then do patients respond so well after we put them on Omega-3 fish oils?" There was no definitive answer to this question until I read and understood the writing of Mr. Thomas Smith (HealingMatters.com). Mr. Smith was a Type II diabetic who cured himself in three months. 

All Nutrients Enter Cells Through Cell Membranes.

Thomas Smith wrote that his cure was the result of his personal independent research of the history and science of diabetes. Smith began reviewing the scientific literature after conventional medicine failed him. His investigations led him to the conclusion that man-made, highly processed trans fatty acids (e.g. hydrogenated oils) are the root cause of the most common form of diabetes. Smith cites research showing that these toxins in the diet disturb cellular membranes. Cells begin to have trouble absorbing nutrients, particularly the sugar glucose, which remain in the blood. The most noticeable symptoms of this condition are elevated blood and urine sugar levels. Patients are diagnosed Non-Insulin Dependent (Type II) diabetes. (Note: The disease condition is sometimes called Syndrome X. Conventional medicine claims that the cause is unknown and medical doctors do not accept Smith’s etiology.) 

Even more astonishing, Smith asserts that the damage to cell membrane caused by a poor diet can be repaired and the diabetic syndrome cured. He recommends eliminating all processed fats and oils. The protocol calls for supplementing high-dose Omega-3 fatty acids. As blood sugar levels begin to decline, healthful natural fats and oils are slowly added to the diet. 

Smith writes that after he adopted this protocol his blood sugar dropped from 385 mg/dl to 85 mg/dl in 103 days. He claims that such reversals are possible in Type II diabetics because the body is continuously repairing cell membranes by using the fats and oils available in the diet. However, he says that the speed of recovery is related to the length of the illness (i.e., the number of damaged cell membranes). Some Type II diabetics may require up to one year for dramatic reductions in blood sugar. 

Vitamin C Competes with Glucose For Insulin Pumps

Diabetics are probably not absorbing other nutrients from the blood as well. Vitamin C is structurally similar to glucose and the vitamin has a short half-life in the blood stream. It should concern medical professionals that vitamin C and glucose molecules share the same insulin-mediated tunneling mechanism into cells through the membrane. 

In the 1970s, Emeritus Professor John T. A. Ely, University of Washington, proposed his Glucose-Ascorbate Antagonism (GAA) theory that predicts high glucose levels hinder vitamin C entry into cells. Animals which make their own vitamin C use dietary glucose as the raw material and the ascorbate and glucose molecules are similar. The similarity extends past molecular structure to the way they are attracted to, and enter, cells. Both molecules require help from the pancreatic hormone insulin before they can penetrate cell membranes using special "pumps." The name for the process that propels glucose and Vitamin C (the reduced form) through cell membranes is Insulin-mediated uptake. 

Ely studied the insulin-mediated uptake of glucose and vitamin C using white blood cells. White blood cells have more insulin pumps and they may contain 20 times the amount of vitamin C as ordinary cells. Dr. Ely explains that both glucose and vitamin C molecules compete, but all things are not equal. The evolutionary "fight-or-flight" response favors glucose entry into cells at the expense of vitamin C. Because of this antagonism between sugar and Vitamin C, Ely recommends a low-carbohydrate, low-processed sugar diet. 

Professor Ely told this author that he had advised Linus Pauling of the GAA theory and its prediction that Vitamin C would be less effective fighting colds in those who did not restrict their sugar intake. Recently, Ely and associates conducted a study on the common cold to test the GAA theory. Sugar and refined carbohydrates were restricted in the subjects. According to Dr. Ely, the remarkable (soon to be published) results showed an overwhelming preventive and curative property of vitamin C against the common cold in subjects with reduced sugar intake. (Presumably these subjects did not suffer the cellular membrane malfunction commonly diagnosed as Diabetes Type II). 

The Diabetic Double Whammy

Combining these ideas, we postulate that cells that can’t absorb glucose are not absorbing vitamin C either. As blood glucose levels rise, the GAA theory predicts that vitamin C uptake is greatly diminished throughout the body, even in cells with undamaged insulin pumps. Our conjecture is that the serious health consequences of prolonged Type II diabetes, e.g. blindness, wounds that won't heal, limb amputation, etc., are the result of the lack of vitamin C inside cells.

We may now more intelligently answer the question as to why heart patients do well on high-dose Omega-3 oil supplementation. Healthful omega-3 fatty acids, such as those found in flax seed and fish oils, promote healthy cell membranes allowing more nutrients to pass into cells. Theoretically, there would be more benefit from Omega-3 supplementation after the primary cause of membrane damage, trans fatty acids, are eliminated from the diet. As cell membranes become permeable, sugar molecules leave the blood stream lowering blood sugar, making vitamin C more bioavailable. Finally, we postulate that the cellular membrane problem hindering the uptake of glucose in diabetics also hinders their cells from obtaining vitamin C. 

Heart patients, whose condition improves on Omega-3 oils, will improve even more as they eliminate processed foods, and follow Linus Pauling’s recommendation to increase their vitamin C dosage to individual bowel tolerance. 

Source: http://www.internetwks.com/owen/gaa.html