Can You Get Scurvy If You Eat Nothing but Ramen?
Everyone seems to know someone who knows someone who got scurvy in college. They say there was a guy who hadn’t eaten anything but ramen for a month. Or pizza, according to one Lifehacker employee report. Or porridge, as one long-standing Scottish legend has it .
I have doubts about these stories. Our employee, who was asked about who ate pizza and suffered from scurvy, was not sure if the time period was one or six months. What about student symptoms? “Blindfold and wooden leg.” Okay, buddy.
But the legends of scurvy live on, so let’s see if it is possible to eat so badly that you cause scurvy, and how long it takes.
What is scurvy?
Scurvy, best known as the archaic disease of long-distance seafarers, is caused by vitamin C deficiency. Citrus fruits such as lemons and oranges are rich in vitamin C, but they are also found in many other foods, including the freshest fruits and vegetables.
When sailors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries embarked on many months of voyages, they often ate salted meat and a variety of crackers called hardtuck . It’s a diet with almost no vitamin C. An experiment in 1747 showed that citrus fruits could cure the condition, but the medical establishment, which believed in four humors, felt it was too far-fetched to believe in the magical life-giving substance hidden in fruits. The mystery was not fully revealed until the 1930s .
This vitamin is so important because we need it for the proper formation of connective tissue. Collagen is a connective tissue protein that holds our body together; it is found in skin, muscles, blood vessels, organs – almost everywhere. Without vitamin C, the body can make collagen, but cannot bind the collagen strands together. The body starts to fall apart.
This could mean tooth loss, but it sounds more like a cartoon than a good clinical description of the symptoms. At first, a person with scurvy feels tired and sickly. They later develop other symptoms, including swollen gums and a rash that results from bleeding under the skin. They may develop open sores, and yes, they may lose their teeth.
How long does it take for scurvy to develop?
Historically, we have only encountered scurvy when people have gone without fresh food for months or years: for example, in cities under siege. Could a month of eating pizza or ramen do the same?
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health studied almost this exact question when they had “healthy young women” on a diet full of nutritionally with the exception of vitamin C for a month. They could choose their food from a special menu if they did not. ” Don’t eat more than 5 milligrams of the vitamin a day – one packet of hamburger ketchup will work, but seven is over the limit.
After 28 days, most women had significantly reduced blood levels of vitamin C, according to the researchers . However, they had no symptoms of scurvy. (The researchers just wanted to measure how much vitamin C the body needs; they stopped before actually infecting anyone with scurvy.)
Thus, one month of terrible eating habits will not help, although two or three months may.
Ramen does not contain much vitamin C. Top Ramen’s chicken flavor contains zero percent DV of vitamin C. (However, a cup of O Noodles with spicy lime shrimp flavor contains about 4 milligrams per cup.) Risk of scurvy: High.
However, I still have my doubts about the pizza story. Tomato sauce contains vitamin C – maybe not much, but your descent to scurvy will be more gradual. A very large slice of Domino’s contains almost five milligrams of vitamin C , and if you only live on Domino’s, you will most likely have a few slices a day.
How much should I worry?
“Given our current diet, in which 60 percent of what we eat, is subjected to a high processing, it may be easier to catch scurvy, caused by a deficiency of vitamin C than you can imagine”, – says Rachel Poednik , assistant professor of nutrition at Simmons College.
You probably won’t recognize the first symptoms because they tend to be tired and irritable. From an emaciated college student eating course , nothing but ramen will be a little tired and irritable.
“Personally, I am very worried about the rise in scurvy (and other nutritional deficiencies),” says Poednik, “due to the increase in eating disorders we are seeing, not to mention these diets that exclude entire food groups.” now there is a diet of carnivores .
If you are jealous that polar bears can only eat meat and you cannot, it is because they produce vitamin C on their own and do not need to add it to their diet. We and some other animals like guinea pigs are not so lucky . So if you’re only going to be eating ramen, at least buy a supply of vitamin pills.