  Evidence from skeletal remains and pictorial records for the past several
millennia established that humans have had a very inadequate ascorbic acid
intake and commonly exhibited signs of frank scurvy, as well as the invisible
signs of subclinical scurvy (absence of AA in scorbutic urine is universal).
They suffered scurvy's mortality, being a major cause of death especially in
times of stress due to dietary fluctuations, climate, migrations, voyages,
battles, etc. Rapid aging and death by acute scurvy, and infectious and
degenerative diseases related to chronic scurvy added to the toll. In this era,
the loss of function and changes in appearance that we see in humans in the
second 50 years of life are theoretically simple to avoid. However, this is
very rare because there is almost no one who does not eat the refined diet of
the affluent societies. We present here an overview of a vast array of evidence
on the connections between aging and scurvy.
