Chemistry of ascorbic acid Haworth and Szent-Györgyi, respectively. Ascorbic acid is a vinylogous carboxylic acid and forms the ascorbate anion when deprotonated on one of the hydroxyls. This property is characteristic of reductones: enediols with a carbonyl group adjacent to the enediol group, namely with the group –C(OH)=C(OH)–C(=O)–. The ascorbate anion is stabilized by electron delocalization that results from resonance between two forms: For this reason, ascorbic acid is much more acidic than would be expected if the compound contained only isolated hydroxyl groups. The ascorbate anion forms salts, such as sodium ascorbate, calcium ascorbate, and potassium ascorbate. Ascorbic acid can also react with
Vitamin C an article by Linus Pauling. Briefly, his position was that for optimal health, humans should be consuming at least 2,300 mg/day to compensate for the inability to synthesize vitamin C. The recommendation also fell into the consumption range for gorillas - a non-synthesizing near-relative to humans. A second argument for high intake is that serum ascorbic acid concentrations increase as intake increases until it plateaus at about 190 to 200 micromoles per liter (µmol/L) once consumption exceeds 1,250 milligrams. As noted, government recommendations are a range of 40 to 110 mg/day and normal plasma is approximately 50 µmol/L, so 'normal'