Mineral Vitamin

Mineral ascorbates

Mineral ascorbates are salts of ascorbic acid (aka vitamin C). They are powders manufactured by reacting ascorbic acid with mineral carbonates in aqueous solutions, venting the carbon dioxide, drying the reaction product, and then milling the dried product to the desired particle size.

The choice of the mineral carbonates can be calcium carbonate, potassium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, magnesium carbonate, or many other mineral forms. Ascorbates are highly reactive antioxidants used as food preservatives.

Ascorbate salts may be better tolerated than the corresponding weakly acidic ascorbic acid.

Examples of mineral ascorbates are:

• Sodium ascorbate (E301)
• Calcium ascorbate (E302)
• Potassium ascorbate (E303)
• Magnesium ascorbate

A study found ascorbates (as magnesium or calcium ascorbate) to be a very effective chelator of aluminium, especially when the aluminium was bound to brain cell DNA. Taking higher doses of ascorbate with magnesium citramate increased the removal of aluminium.

Ascorbic acid is a sugar acid with antioxidant properties. Its appearance is white to light-yellow crystals or powder, and it is water-soluble. One form of ascorbic acid is commonly known as vitamin C. The name is derived from a- (meaning no) and scorbuticus (scurvy), the disease caused by a deficiency of vitamin C. In 1937 the Nobel Prize for chemistry was awarded to Walter Haworth for his work in determining the structure of ascorbic acid (shared with Paul Karrer, who received his award for work on vitamins), and the prize for Physiology or Medicine that year went to Albert Szent-Györgyi for his studies of the biological functions of L-ascorbic acid. At the time of its discovery in the 1920s, it was called hexuronic acid by some researchers.