Vitamin C: The missing link

(Our Vitamin C Plus and Masquelier OPC stand tall as the best of their kind. Click on the link to read more about our products).

A popular blogger writes that vitamin C’s acts as a hormone “regenerator” and heart-disease cure, crediting vitamin C’s powerful electron-donor properties that yield untold benefits. We mention this because you may have seen the blog and think: Wow, this guy knows what’s talking about!

He does until he doesn’t.

We have been “on” to the “electron” donation aspect of health and disease for decades. We’ve stressed it since our inception 1985, almost to obsession.

We studied the works of Dr. William F. Koch (Ph.D., DO) who carried on Dr.  Otto Warburg’s effort, interviewed a few of Dr. Koch’s colleagues, pouring over his original hand-written research and notes. We interviewed Manfred Von Ardenne in East Germany (before the wall fell) to learn about the role of oxygenation and electron transport in health, resulting in a special report, explaining his “exercise” of breathing oxygen with mild exercise which restored health. This exercise is widely used but no one credits our effort.

We launched cell-enhancing, electron donating products such as coenzyme Q10 in 1989, carnitines and glutathione, all which assist in the electron transport system long before these supplements were “known” to health advocates.

We stressed these benefits fiercely in our beginning because if the electron transport system fails, health is impaired and disease develops. We expose environmental threats that impair electron transport and the oxidative system. We strive to know the how and why of damage to help restore and ultimately, to realize optimal health.

Free radicals are created by environmental toxicity.  From automobile exhaust to electromagnetic frequency radiation, free radicals are created or exacerbated by toxicity. Our ability to handle our “toxic burden” is a measure of how well we live. How we detoxify and, how healthy our electron transport system remains critically important.

Oxygen plays a key role in health. We breathe about 550 liters per day, as 20 percent of the air we breathe. Our blood should be almost fully saturated with oxygen (low readings are indicative of ill-health). When oxygen and hydrogen are combined in the body, water is made. The adult body is 60% water (H2O). ATP (Adenosine triphosphate) is an energy-carrying molecule that fuels cellular functions and is also facilitated by oxygen and hydrogen.  

Electron transport is an aspect to vitamin C that we have highlighted in numerous writings because we believe it addresses the “missing link” in vitamin C supplementation.

The blogger missed the most important factor in his essay on vitamin C: OPCs, discovered and perfected by Dr. Jacques Masquelier. OPC stands for oligomeric proanthocyanidin. We proudly stand alone as the only company that refused to sell vitamin C without OPCs, and we criticized the use of “bioflavonoids” with vitamin C because they are at best worthless and at worse, possibly dangerous.  

We also laboriously explained and clarified for decades that OPCs are NOT “bioflavonoids” and that Dr. Masquelier tirelessly proved this point again in numerous studies.

The blogger in question, and virtually every other marketer of a vitamin C product, misses the critical distinction that Dr. Masquelier discovered in 1948. OPCs have electron donating properties that have their own vascular-protective properties, they also help recycle vitamin C, and protect the destruction of collagen. As you know, collagen keeps our bodies intact.

Albert Szent Gyorgyi’s brilliant discovery of vitamin C was made with a paprika extract, native to Hungary (his origin). Scientists later synthesized isolated ascorbic acid and used them in studies but failed to reproduce the benefits of the original vitamin C.

Bloggers do not tell you that Szent-Gyorgyi developed Citrin, an extract made from citrin fruits which he thought was a vitamin he named vitamin P (after the protective effect Citrin sometimes had on the permeability of capillaries). Szent-Gyorgyi was unable to isolate and chemically define vitamin P, failing to achieve consistent results.

If you can’t reproduce results, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, how many degrees you have or if you’re a Nobel Prize winner. You failed.

In 1950, the international Vitamin Committee finally decided to completely abandon the term vitamin P. Bioflavonoids were considered useless and regrettably, Szent-Gyorgyi missed an opportunity by only focusing on bioflavonoids, instead of adopting the work of Dr. Jacques Masquelier.

The kicker is that Dr. Masquelier made the point that his OPCs may indeed be the missing vitamin P factor that Albert Szent-Gyorgyi never discovered. Masquelier isolated OPCs, chemically identifying them, and demonstrating consistently that they have powerful vitamin P effect.

If Masquelier was correct about finding the missing vitamin P, he deserves posthumous praise but even if he was wrong (we don’t believe he was), his OPCs absolutely are the most known, compatible compound that deserves to be with vitamin C.

Show us another compound that comes remotely close to giving vitamin C that extra spark, extending its life in the body, that exists in nature; that has a track record that Dr. Masquelier developed—and we’ll listen.

The blogger and others suggest that because Szent-Gyorgyi originally used a paprika extract which contained vitamin C to prove its benefits that a “food-source” might be better. The bloggers missed the critical fact that Szent-Gyorgyi failed to duplicate results, and that “bioflavonoids” were cast aside as early as 1950. Yet virtually every commentator and self-professed health “expert” misses this fact in their quest to push their product or narrative.

Seriously, if a Nobel Prize winner couldn’t isolate a food source upon discovery of vitamin C, how could some vitamin peddler in 2025 who can’t tell a straightforward story completely (and correctly), improve upon the failures that eluded Szent-Gyorgyi? It’s laughable on its face.  Ignoring Masquelier’s contribution is akin to blogging malpractice.  

Some bloggers promote ascorbic acid and others knock it. It’s difficult to argue with more than a thousand studies that extol its benefits but as we’ve learned, vitamin C does not perform perfectly as an isolated ingredient. This is nothing new. Szent-Gyorgyi realized this quickly after his discovery and again, his attempt to make a Citrin compound also failed.

Double talk and misinformation about the “source” of ascorbic acid permeate blogs and “health information.” Our source is made in Scotland and is made from non-GMO plant material. It is safe. It is as pure ascorbic acid as can be. We avoid Chinese sources using GMO-plant materials which may have significant amounts of unknown compounds.

We embrace superior sources of ascorbic acid, vitamins, minerals and compounds made in lab-settings. We do so, though, with discernment and discretion: The compound must be as clean as possible and have a relation to a natural process. You can’t get all nutrition from a daily diet; let alone key ingredients that facilitate detoxification and help systems and function of the body under attack.   

Coenzyme Q10, for instance, is a miraculous supplement that is made by fermentation. In nature, the highest concentration is in in cow-hearts. Let’s say you want additional coenzyme Q10, you have two choices: Take a “lab” made supplement or eat cow-hearts, every day.

We choose a superior source of coenzyme Q10, made in the United States (owned by a Japanese company) that has produced for decades, has a very pure method of manufacture. There are lesser-cost coenzyme Q10 sources from China that we reject because they are not as pure as ours and have no comparable track-record of use in studies. Most supplements have these cheap sources, even well-known “doctor” owned/promoted brands whose prices are outrageously higher than ours.

What separates Carotec from every other company in the marketplace: We only source top quality ingredients for products developed from a deep understanding of the subject.

We have been openly critical of some “lab-made” ingredients such as methylene blue, which, astonishingly, is being promoted even by some “whole-food” minded advocates who rip many good ingredients.  Go figure.

So, when someone says, “a food source of vitamin C is better than ascorbic acid,” you should realize that it may or may not have critically important OPCs (which make vitamin C more effective). Are OPCs identifiable in this “food source”? Has the “food” source been used in any studies showing efficacy? If not, be highly skeptical of the claim. We are unaware of any “food-supplement” of vitamin C identifying OPC as part of their ingredient, let alone, demonstrating that their supplement has efficacy in studies. Or, identifying any other constituent which rates even in the same ballpark as OPC.

We’ve offered clean food sources of vitamin C (from kiwi and Camu berry) over the years, because some customers said they really wanted these products but, inevitably these same people would ask: “why is there so little vitamin C in the product?” Because it is in food, matrix, vitamin C is in a lower amount, along with other synergists.; and, the price ws higher (per milligram of vitamin C). In our 40 years, both attempts to introduce food based vitamin C failed because our customers saw no benefits and returned to our Vitamin C Plus, a combination of the very best ascorbic acid, with Masquelier OPCs.

Telling people to take ascorbic with “bioflavonoids” is woefully misinformed. Some bioflavonoids are harmful. Your best hope is that they will do nothing biologically. The majority of the “vitamin C plus flavonoid” market is still rife with these products, even though Szent-Gyorgyi gave up on the idea.

This is why we never sold ascorbic acid as an isolated ingredient because we knew it needed “something” to help it work better. It takes many kilos of grape seeds to make 1 kilo of OPCs as Masquelier’s Original OPC, using precision chemistry and extraction, not easily duplicated. It is a natural ingredient, made to pharmaceutical quality standards and has a track-record, as a natural “drug” in France. You could eat grape seeds—a heck of lot of them—and assuming these seeds have OPCs, you’ll benefit for certain.  

Dr. Linuis Pauling, an orthomolecular minded health advocate, recommended up to 18 grams of ascorbic acid be taking daily, throughout the day, because in the words of Dr. Masquelier “In a way Pauling was right about his high dose of vitamin C. Not knowing about OPCs, he had no other options. But I am convinced that if Linus Pauling had known OPCs, he would not have prescribed 18 grams of vitamin C, but a small amount of vitamin c and a small amount of OPCs. Most certainly I feel I would have been able to convince him.”

Dr. Masquelier proved that his OPCs “extend” vitamin C in the body in a study using guinea pigs because guinea pigs are among the four mammals (aside from humans) that do not produce vitamin C in the body. Humans must get vitamin C from food or drink or die from miserable scurvy. Masquelier’s guinea pig studies demonstrated that when present, his OPCs gave vitamin C up to 10 times more biological power.

The first guinea pig study involved 5 sets of guinea pigs. Lot 1 was given 20 mg of vitamin C per kilo of body weight (this was the control group). Lot 2 was not given any vitamin C and perished in 5 weeks. Lot 3 was given 5 mg of vitamin C per kilogram of body weight and perished in 5 weeks.  Lot 4 was given 10 mg of vitamin C per kilogram of body weight and lasted 14 weeks. Lot 5 was given only 5 mg of vitamin C per kilogram of body weight but also received 20 mg of OPCs per kilogram of body weight.

The results were that Lot 5 which received only 5 mg of vitamin C but also 20 mg of OPC lived the same as Lot 1, which received 20 mg of vitamin C per kilo of body weight. The conclusion was that OPCs extended the life of vitamin C—remember, the group that received only 5 mg of vitamin C per kilo of body weight perished as fast as the group that received no vitamin C at all. Subsequent guinea pig studies showed as much as 10 times the extension of benefit of vitamin C when OPCs are present.

Masquelier’s story is replete with examples of the efficacy of OPCs and it’s difficult to talk about OPCs without talking about vitamin C (and vice-versa). Vitamin C is required for making collagen, which is the “connective glue” that holds us together. Our blood vessel system (veins, arteries and capillaries) require collagen to maintain their elasticity. OPCs do not make collagen but support the maintenance of it.

Masquelier reasoned that because Szent-Gyorgyi’s own experiments did not quantify OPCs, his inconsistent results occurred because depriving his lab-animals of bioflavonoids did not necessarily exclude OPCs which is why his results were skewed: His Citrin worked sometimes and he couldn’t figure out why.

The “missing factor”, Masquelier reasoned, is OPCs were likely in some batches which disturbed the results. When the establishment concluded that bioflavonoids were useless, they were correct, but as we explain, the condemnation of bioflavonoids was incomplete because “something” worked. We agree with Masquelier that it was his OPCs that is the “something”: The true Vitamin P.

OPCs protect the vascular system very well because they have tremendous electron-donating potential, on their own, as well as being a natural synergist to vitamin C. One of many dramatic studies involved an experiment to test how strong OPCs would protect the vascular system against a toxic assault (destroying the vascular system, called 3’aminopropionitril fumarate. This substance causes serious changes in vascular walls, visible to the naked eye. Laboratory animals were pre-treated with OPCs were nearly fully protected against the assault, like those not exposed (the control group). This study was done in 1984, among, so many proving Masquelier’s point, over and over again, that OPCs have powerful protective properties that cannot be found in quercetin, rutin, or other “bioflavonoids.”  

Masquelier’s story is replete with examples of the efficacy of OPCs and it’s difficult to talk about OPCs without talking about vitamin C (and vice-versa). Vitamin C is required for making collagen, which is the “connective glue” that holds us together. Our blood vessel system (veins, arteries and capillaries) require collagen to maintain their elasticity.

OPCs have a triple collagen supporting effect: they promote collage production by helping vitamin C; they inhibit collagen destruction with the collagenase enzymes, and they protect collagen against the onslaught of free radicals. 

We make it easy by offering Masquelier® OPCs in two products.

Masquelier® Original OPCs has 300 mg of Masquelier’s OPC per capsule.

Vitamin C Plus which has 100 mg of Masquelier’s Original OPC and Masquelier’s Pine Bark (in a proprietary blend) with 500 mg of Scottish Made Vitamin C. Our combination is well tested with our customer base that loves it.

Our Vitamin C Plus fulfills nature and orthomolecular ambitions better than any other vitamin C product on the market, bar none. And, if want additional OPCs in meaningful amounts, we have that, too. If you can, take both.

Masquelier’s OPCs have a tremendous body of research that do not exist with regular “grape seed” or “pine bark” extracts. This is why we only offer 100 percent Masquelier OPCs in our products in high, clinically powered doses for maximum effect.