I'm not sure the causation goes in that direction. Couldn't it also be that those who take damage from stress feel that stress is bad for them, and those who aren't affected by stress negatively feel that it's good for them? To throw a silly example... Vampires believe that sun is harmful, humans believe a bit of sun is good for them. But believing won't make a difference for the vampire.
Some people may deal with stress (as Sapolsky describes), so the effects of cortisol are not pronounced.
Those that cannot deal with the stressors, are those most affected and they are those that will admit they are stressed.
It is an issue of people tending to admit something, in a qualitative study.
1) People who say they don't stress 2) People who say they stress but don't believe it's harmful 3) People who say they stress and believe it's harmful
I find the (3) group is the one actually stressing, feeling all the anxiety etc.
The (2) group just talks about feeling stressed, but they just mean that they had lots of responsibilities etc, they didn't suffer actual stress (the mental issues associated with it) like the (3) group.
Stress has unique biochemical pattern that can be measured.
By the power of thinking. That is, by considering the provided data, and coming up with what looks to be more plausible.
Sure, it might be wrong.
But without that ability, even the best data are useless, because data are nothing without the interpretation part.
>Stress has unique biochemical pattern that can be measured.
That's irrelevant, though, in this case, because they didn't measure those. As the grandparent quotes: "They started asking people, “how much stress have you experienced in the last year?" -- so it's based on self-reporting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-gulonolactone_oxidase#Animal...
> There were number of successful attempts to activate lost enzymatic function in different animal species
This is not trival change however given the amount of time that passed and that some level of adaptation to loss ocured. It would however probably be milestone in human achievements.
Even if GULO is activated it might not be enough: The process of evolution does not necessarily result in the normal provision of optimum molecular concentrations:
http://www.cellmedsoc.org/research_archive/NHC/studien_pdf/o...
Found a paper on primate micronutrient patterns too:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1095643303...
Anyway, there is no such thing as 'natural vitamin C'. Its just vitamin C. I take several grams of ascorbic acid (AA) powder either pure or mixed with sodium bicarbonate (natrium ascorbate). AA is the same thing that my liver would produce if GULO gene wasn't disfunctional, something that back in time maybe made sense in evolutional context but now most certainly doesn't as context changed dramatically.
What people actually descibe unknowingly when talking about 'natural vitamin C' is plant based molecular complex of myriad of substances (form of low dose multivitamin) and that is entirelly different topic.
I wonder how much of it actually boils down to chronically high cortisol levels. People that perceive stress as harmfull are more prone to its damage and we know that positive thoughts and meditation can negate that effect to some degree or even produce benefits.
Knowing that effect exists is one thing, but how do we protect ourselves ?
In chronic making of cortisol adrenal gland becomes deficient in Vitamin C which is used in the process [1]. This has direct effect on immunity (all animals produce more vitmin C in stresfull times to protect from it). Chronic insufficiency will not lead to scurvy (you only need tiny amount of C to prevent that) but will produce ill health particularly combined with smoking and bad eating habits which is typical for lower socioeconomic class (talking about it, blacks, the most affected, are regularly deficient in vitamin D too, another potent immunity booster).
The effect is multifactorial from that point - for example Vitamin C insufficiency changes cholesterol transformation to bile acids which leads to high cholesterol levels [2] which can provide some explanation for cardiovascular events.
Insufficiency is the level that will not result in terminal disease but in suboptimal health and shorter lifespan (i.e. RDA sux) because body will start to utilize triage [3].
Hence, I suggest everybody to forget about 60mg bullshit and use couple of grams of Vitamin C as few daily doses to protect from John Henryism effect. Afterall, that is what our closest relatives who have the same disfunctinal GULO gene - primates - do: they eat grams of C in the wild.
[1] http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/86/1/145.long
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4685043
[3] http://www.bruceames.org/Triage.pdf