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Australia has been hit by the worst influenza season e'er recorded.

More than than 135,000 cases of the flu, with four agile strains, have been recorded so far in 2017, although the true figure is probable much higher as many cases go unreported.

One of the well-nigh common remedies for illness is vitamin C. While it's known as a powerful antioxidant and metabolism booster, there is no concrete research telling u.s. how much we need to restore ourselves to health.

"Vitamin C has been linked to immunity, the immune organization [and] vitamin C has been linked to the common cold," Ronda Greaves, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Biochemistry at RMIT University, told HuffPost Australia.

Vitamin C has been linked to immunity and the common cold.

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Vitamin C has been linked to immunity and the mutual cold.

"Vitamin C is a vitamin, and a vitamin means information technology's a food ... that is essential to our nutrition that we tin can't produce ourselves.

"We demand vitamin C, end of story ... we tin can't produce it, and so we take to have information technology. How much we demand to take is still up for debate when people are sick," Greaves said.

"At that place's been studies looking at megadoses of vitamin C with the mutual cold, just people sometimes look at what that dose is and not at what is really in the trunk."

The problem with determining how much vitamin C people need to recover from sickness comes down to the unstable nature of the vitamin, which ultimately makes it hard to measure out.

"It's difficult considering vitamin C is not stable," Greaves said. "Then when you accept it [vitamin C] out -- by actually cartoon the blood -- the vitamin C volition actually just disappear if y'all just get out it sitting at room temperature.

"Considering of the difficulties of the stability of vitamin C itself, I think there are a lot of confounders in studies and that is really why nosotros don't know as much as we probably could."

Researchers don't know how much vitamin C a person needs to recover from illness.

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Researchers don't know how much vitamin C a person needs to recover from disease.

What researchers practise know however, is how much vitamin C we need to maintain desirable wellness levels.

The National Wellness And Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has published recommended daily intake proposition, which details the daily amount of vitamin C needed to stay healthy and not develop scurvy, a disease resulting from a vitamin C deficiency.

The NHMRC recommends a daily intake of thirty mg of ascorbic acid -- vitamin C in its reduced course -- for healthy women and 40 mg for healthy men.

Vitamin C is well known for its ability to regenerate tissues and help in the absorption of elements like iron. It's also a powerful antioxidant and helps the trunk in forming and maintaining things like blood vessels and peel and because nosotros tin't produce it, nosotros demand to go it from our food.

Greaves says that citrus fruits are the mode to go.

Lemons are one of the best sources of vitamin C.

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Lemons are one of the best sources of vitamin C.

"Oranges, lemons, limes, the citrus fruits [are proficient], but lemons are actually the best source."

Other natural sources include red capsicum, kale, broccoli, strawberries and Brussels sprouts. While this is still a developing research surface area, the good news is, there are no known side affects of having a trivial extra vitamin C if you are in the mood.

"Information technology is a h2o-loving vitamin, it likes to exist in the water and information technology is hands excreted in the urine, so I think any excess merely goes out."

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