SNSD, GD&TOP, Super Junior, and more akan tampil di “Incheon Korean Music Wave 2011″
Posted on 30 Juni 2011 by frhnyulistioni
bertabur Bintang grup K-pop Artists akan berpartisipasi dalam “wave Incheon Korea Musik 2011″ konser yang akan datang, dijadwalkan pada 13 Agustus pukul 6:00 sore waktu setempat. Tiket dan informasi tempat belum dikonfirmasi. Meskipun konser akan berlangsung di Incheon, Korea, sedang yang dipasarkan terutama terhadap fans Jepang para artis hadir dalam harapan bahwa mereka akan melakukan perjalanan untuk melihat bintang favorit mereka. Kementerian Kebudayaan, Olahraga, dan Pariwisata sponsor konser tahun lalu, yang juga disiarkan di episode khusus Music Core.
Lineup tahun ini – SNSD, Wonder Girls, Kara, 4minute, Super Junior, B2ST, SHINee, 2AM, 2PM, GD & TOP, SG Wannabe, MBLAQ, dan CNBLUE – mencakup banyak bintang-bintang besar musik pop Korea. Banyak fans setia mereka di seluruh Asia, dan yang lainnya telah merilis single atau album untuk pasar Jepang (CNBLUE dengan debutnya di Jepang sebelum merilis mini album Korea pertama mereka di 2010).
Rabu, 29 Juni 2011
History of South Korea
For the history of Korea before its division, see History of Korea.History of Korea
This article is part of a series
Prehistory
Jeulmun period
Mumun period
Gojoseon 2333–108 BCE
Jin
Proto–Three Kingdoms 300–57 BCE
Buyeo, Goguryeo, Okjeo, Dongye
Samhan (Ma, Byeon, Jin)
Three Kingdoms 57 BCE–668
Goguryeo 37 BCE–668
Baekje 18 BCE–660
Silla 57 BCE–935
Gaya 42–562
North and South States 698–926
Unified Silla 668–935
Balhae 698–926
Later Three Kingdoms 892–936
Taebong, Hubaekje, Silla
Goryeo Dynasty 918–1392
Joseon Dynasty 1392–1897
Korean Empire 1897–1910
Japanese rule 1910–1945
Provisional Gov't 1919–1948
Division of Korea 1945–present
North, South Korea 1948–present
By topic
Timeline
List of monarchs
Linguistic history
Science and technology history
Art history
Military history
Naval history
Korea Portal
v · d · e
The History of South Korea formally begins with the establishment of South Korea on 15 August 1948, although Syngman Rhee had declared the establishment in Seoul on August 13th.
In the aftermath of the Japanese occupation of Korea which ended with Japan's defeat in World War II in 1945, Korea was divided at the 38th parallel north in accordance with a United Nations arrangement, to be administered by the Soviet Union in the north and the United States in the south. The Soviets and Americans were unable to agree on the implementation of Joint Trusteeship over Korea. This led in 1948 to the establishment of two separate governments, each claiming to be the legitimate government of all of Korea. Eventually, following the Korean War, the two separate governments stabilized into the existing political entities of North and South Korea.
South Korea's subsequent history is marked by alternating periods of democratic and autocratic rule. Civilian governments are conventionally numbered from the First Republic of Syngman Rhee to the contemporary Sixth Republic. The First Republic, arguably democratic at its inception, became increasingly autocratic until its collapse in 1960. The Second Republic was strongly democratic, but was overthrown in less than a year and replaced by an autocratic military regime. The Third, Fourth, and Fifth Republics were nominally democratic, but are widely regarded as the continuation of military rule[citation needed]. With the Sixth Republic, the country has gradually stabilized into a liberal democracy.
Since its inception, South Korea has seen substantial development in education, economy, and culture. Since the 1960s, the country has developed from one of Asia's poorest to one of the world's wealthiest nations. Education, particularly at the tertiary level, has expanded dramatically. It is said to be one of the "Four Tigers" of rising Asian states along with Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong.[1][2]Contents [hide]
1 U.S. Military administration
2 First Republic
3 Second Republic
4 Military rule
5 Third Republic
6 Fourth Republic
7 Fifth Republic
8 Sixth Republic
9 See also
10 Notes
11 References
12 External links
[edit]
U.S. Military administration
Main article: United States Army Military Government in Korea
Yeo Woon-Hyung (far right) at the US-Soviet Joint Commission in 1947
After Japan's surrender to the Allied Powers, division at the 38th parallel marked the beginning of Soviet and U.S. trusteeship over the North and South, respectively. This division was meant to be temporary and was first intended to return a unified Korea back to its people until the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and Republic of China could arrange a trusteeship administration. In February 1945, the issue of trusteeship for Korea was discussed at the Yalta Conference.[3][4][5] U.S. forces landed at Incheon on September 8, 1945 and established a military government shortly thereafter.[6] They were commanded by Lt. General John R. Hodge, who then took charge of the government.[7] Faced with mounting popular discontent, in October 1945 Hodge established the Korean Advisory Council. A year later, an interim legislature and interim government were established, headed by Kim Kyu-shik and Syngman Rhee respectively. However, these interim bodies lacked any independent authority or de jure sovereignty, which was still held by the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea based in China, but U.S. leaders chose to ignore its legitimacy, partly due to the belief that it was communist-aligned.[8][9]
The country in this period was plagued by political and economic chaos, which arose from a variety of causes. The aftereffects of the Japanese exploitation were still felt in the country, as in the North.[10] In addition, the U.S. military was largely unprepared for the challenge of administering the country, arriving with no knowledge of the language, culture or political situation.[8] Thus, many of their policies had unintended destabilizing effects. Waves of refugees from North Korea and returnees from abroad also helped to keep the country in turmoil.[11]
In December 1945, a conference convened in Moscow to discuss the future of Korea.[12] A 5-year trusteeship was discussed, and a US-Soviet joint commission was established. The commission met intermittently in Seoul but deadlocked over the issue of establishing a national government. In September 1947, with no solution in sight, the United States submitted the Korean question to the UN General Assembly.[3][4]
The resolution from the UN General Assembly called for a UN-supervised general election in Korea, but with the North rejecting this proposition, a general election for a Constitutional Assembly was held in the South only, in May 1948. A constitution was adopted, setting forth a presidential form of government and specifying a four-year term for the presidency. According to the provisions of the Constitution, an indirect presidential election was held in July. Syngman Rhee, as head of the new assembly, assumed the presidency and proclaimed the Republic of Korea (South Korea) on August 15, 1948.[13][14][15]
[edit]
First Republic
Main article: First Republic of South Korea
Crossing the 38th parallel. United Nations forces withdraw from Pyongyang, 1950.
General Douglas MacArthur and Syngman Rhee, Korea's first President, warmly greet one another upon the General's arrival at Gimpo Air Force Base
On August 15, 1948, the Republic of Korea was formally established, with Syngman Rhee as the first president. With the establishment of Rhee's government, de jure sovereignty also passed into the new government. On September 9, 1948, a communist regime, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), was proclaimed under Kim Il Sung.[13][14][15] However, on December 12, 1948, by its resolution 195 in the Third General Assembly, the United Nations recognized the Republic of Korea as the sole legal government of Korea.[16]
In 1946, the North implemented land reforms by confiscating private property, Japanese and pro-Japanese owned facilities and factories, and placed them under state ownership.[13] Demand for land reform in the South grew strong; the land reform act was enacted in June 1949 whereby Koreans with large landholdings were obliged to divest most of their land. Approximately 40 percent of total farm households became small landowners.[17] However, because preemptive rights were given to people who had ties with landowners before liberation, many pro-Japanese groups obtained or retained properties.[13]
The country now divided, the relationship between the two Koreas turned more antagonistic as time passed. The Soviet forces having withdrawn in 1948, North Korea pressured the South to expel the United States forces but Rhee sought to align his government strongly with America, and against both North Korea and Japan.[18] Although some talks towards normalization of relations with Japan took place, they achieved little.[19] Meanwhile, the government took in vast sums of American aid, in amounts sometimes near the total size of the national budget.[20] The nationalist government also continued many of the practices of the U.S. military government. This included the brutal repression of leftist activity. In 1948, the Rhee government repressed military uprisings in Jeju, Suncheon and Yeosu.[14][21]
The main policy of the First Republic on North Korea was anti-communism and "unification by expanding northward". The South's military was neither sufficiently equipped nor prepared, but the Rhee administration was determined to reunify Korea by military force with aid from the United States. However, in the second parliamentary elections held on May 30, 1950, the majority of seats went to independents, confirming the lack of support and the fragile state of the nation.[14][22][23]
On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces invaded South Korea. Led by the U.S., a 16-member coalition undertook the first collective action under the United Nations Command (UNC).[24][25][26] Oscillating battle lines inflicted a high number of civilian casualties and wrought immense destruction. With the People's Republic of China's entry on behalf of North Korea in 1951, the fighting came to a stalemate close to the original line of demarcation. Armistice negotiations, initiated in July 1951, finally concluded on July 27, 1953 [27] at Panmunjeom, now in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Following the armistice, the South Korean government returned to Seoul on the symbolic date of August 15, 1953.[24][28]
After the armistice, South Korea experienced political turmoil under years of autocratic leadership of Syngman Rhee, which was ended by student revolt in 1960. Throughout his rule, Rhee sought to take additional steps to cement his control of government. These began in 1952, when the government was still based in Busan due to the ongoing war. In May of that year, Rhee pushed through constitutional amendments which made the presidency a directly-elected position. To do this, he declared martial law, arrested opposing members of parliament, demonstrators, and anti-government groups. Rhee was subsequently elected by a wide margin.[29][30][31]
Rhee regained control of parliament in the 1954 elections, and thereupon fraudulently pushed through an amendment to exempt himself from the eight-year term limit, and was once again re-elected in 1956.[32] Soon after, Rhee's administration arrested members of the opposing party and executed the leader after accusing him of being a North Korean spy.[31][33]
The administration became increasingly repressive while dominating the political arena and in 1958, sought to amend the National Security Law to tighten government control over all levels of administration, including the local units.[30] These measures caused much outrage among the people, but despite the society's resentment, Rhee's administration rigged the March 15, 1960 presidential elections and won by a landslide.[34]
On that election day, protests by students and citizens against the irregularities of the election burst out in the city of Masan. Initially these protests were quelled with force by local police, but when the body of a student was found floating in the harbor of Masan,[34][35] the whole nation was enraged and protests spread nationwide. On April 19, students from various universities and schools rallied and marched in protest in the Seoul streets, in what would be called the April Revolution. The government declared martial law, called in the army, and suppressed the crowds with open fire.[34][36][37] Subsequent protests throughout the country shook the government, and after an escalated protest with university professors taking to the streets on April 25, Rhee handed in his formal resignation on April 26.[34][36]
[edit]
Second Republic
Main article: Second Republic of South Korea
After the student revolution, power was briefly held by an interim administration under the foreign minister Heo Jeong.[38] A new parliamentary election was held on July 29, 1960. The Democratic Party, which had been in the opposition during the First Republic, easily gained power and the Second Republic was established. The revised constitution dictated the Second Republic to take the form of a parliamentary cabinet system where the President took only a nominal role. This was the first and the only instance South Korea turned to a parliamentary cabinet system instead of a presidential system.[39] The assembly elected Yun Bo-seon as President and Chang Myon as the prime minister and head of government in August, 1960.[34][36][40][41]
The Second Republic saw the proliferation of political activity which had been repressed under the Rhee regime. Much of this activity was from leftist and student groups, which had been instrumental in the overthrow of the First Republic. Union membership and activity grew rapidly during the later months of 1960, including the Teachers' Union, Journalists' Union, and the Federation of Korean Trade Union.[34][36][42] Around 2,000 demonstrations were held during the eight months of the Second Republic.[43]
Under pressure from the left, the Chang government carried out a series of purges of military and police officials who had been involved in anti-democratic activities or corruption. A Special Law to this effect was passed on October 31, 1960.[44][45] 40,000 people were placed under investigation; of these, more than 2,200 government officials and 4,000 police officers were purged.[44] In addition, the government considered reducing the size of the army by 100,000, although this plan was shelved.[46]
In economic terms as well, the government was faced with mounting instability. The government formulated a five-year economic development plan, although it was unable to act on it prior to being overthrown.[36][47] The Second Republic saw the hwan lose half of its value against the dollar between fall 1960 and spring 1961.[48]
Although the government had been established with support of the people, it had failed to implement effective reforms which brought about endless social unrest, political turmoil and ultimately, the 5.16 coup d'état.
[edit]
Military rule
Main article: Supreme Council for National Reconstruction
The military coup d'état ("5.16 coup d'état") led by Major General Park Chung-hee on May 16, 1961, put an effective end to the Second Republic. Park was one of a group of military leaders who had been pushing for the de-politicization of the military. Dissatisfied with the cleanup measures undertaken by the Second Republic and convinced that the current disoriented state would collapse into communism, they chose to take matters into their own hands.[49][50][51]
The National Assembly was dissolved and military officers replaced the civilian officials. In May 1961, the junta declared "Pledges of the Revolution": anticommunism was to be the nation's main policy; friendly relations would be strengthened with allies of the free world, notably the United States; all corruption and government misdeed would be disposed and "fresh and clean morality" would be introduced; the reconstruction of a self-reliant economy would be priority; the nation's ability would be nurtured to fight against communism and achieve reunification; and that government would be returned to a democratic civilian government within two years.[49][50][51][52]
As a means to check the opposition, the military authority created the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) in June 1961, with Kim Jong-pil, a relative of Park, as its first director.[50][52][53] In December 1962, a referendum was held on returning to a presidential system of rule, which was allegedly passed with a 78% majority.[54] Park and the other military leaders pledged not to run for office in the next elections. However, Park became presidential candidate of the new Democratic Republican Party (DRP), which consisted of mainly KCIA officials, ran for president and won the election of 1963 by a narrow margin.[49][51][52][54]
[edit]
Third Republic
Main article: Third Republic of South Korea
Park Chung-hee in 1964
Park's administration started the Third Republic by announcing the Five Year Economic development Plan, an export-oriented industrialization policy. Top priority was placed on the growth of a self-reliant economy and modernization; "Development First, Unification Later" became the slogan of the times and the economy grew rapidly with vast improvement in industrial structure, especially in the basic and heavy chemical industries.[55][56] Capital was needed for such development, so the Park regime used the influx of foreign aid from Japan and the United States to provide loans to export businesses, with preferential treatment in obtaining low-interest bank loans and tax benefits. Cooperating with the government, these businesses would later become the chaebol.[50][55][57]
Relations with Japan were normalized by the Korea-Japan treaty ratified in June 1965.[58][59] This treaty brought Japanese funds in the form of loans and compensation for the damages suffered during the colonial era without an official apology from the Japanese government, sparking much protest across the nation.[50][55]
The government also kept close ties with the United States, and continued to receive large amounts of aid. A status of forces agreement was concluded in 1966, clarifying the legal situation of the US forces stationed there.[60][61] Soon thereafter, Korea joined the Vietnam War, eventually sending a total of 300,000 soldiers to fight alongside US and South Vietnamese troops.[50][56][62]
Economic and technological growth during this period improved the standard for living, which expanded opportunities for education. Workers with higher education were absorbed by the rapidly growing industrial and commercial sectors, and urban population surged.[63] Construction of the Gyeongbu Expressway was completed and linked Seoul to the nation's southeastern region and the port cities of Incheon and Busan. Despite the immense economic growth, however, the standard of living for city laborers and farmers was still low. Laborers were working with low wages to increase the price competitiveness for the export-oriented economy plan, and farmers were in near poverty as the government controlled prices.[55][64] As the rural economy steadily lost ground and caused dissent among the farmers, however, the government decided to implement measures to increase farm productivity and income by instituting the Saemauel Movement ("New Village Movement") in 1971. The movement's goal was to improve the quality of rural life, modernize both rural and urban societies and narrow the income gap between them.[63][65]
Park ran again in the election of 1967, taking 51.4% of the vote.[54] At the time the presidency was constitutionally limited to two terms, but a constitutional amendment was forced through the National Assembly in 1969 to allow him to seek a third term.[55][66][67] Major protests and demonstrations against the constitutional amendment broke out, with large support gaining for the opposition leader Kim Dae-jung, but Park was again re-elected in the 1971 presidential election.[68]
Parliamentary elections followed shortly after the presidential election where the opposition party garnered most of the seats, giving them the power to pass constitutional amendments. Park, feeling threatened, declared a state of national emergency on December 6, 1971.[55] In the midst of this domestic insecurity, the Nixon Doctrine had eased tensions among the world superpowers on the international scene, which caused a dilemma for Park, who had justified his regime based on the state policy of anti-communism.[55] In a sudden gesture, the government proclaimed a joint communiqué for reunification with North Korea on July 4, 1972, and held Red Cross talks in Seoul and Pyongyang. However, there was no change in government policy regarding reunification, and on October 17, 1972, Park declared martial law, dissolving the National Assembly and suspending the constitution.[65][69]
[edit]
Fourth Republic
Main article: Fourth Republic of South Korea
The Fourth Republic began with the adoption of the Yusin Constitution on November 21, 1972. This new constitution gave Park effective control over the parliament and the possibility of permanent presidency. The president would be elected through indirect election by an elected body, and the term of presidency was extended to six years with no restrictions on reappointment. The legislature and judiciary were controlled by the government, and educational guidelines was under direct surveillance as well. Textbooks supporting the ideology of the military government were authorized by the government, diminishing the responsibilities of the Ministry of Education.[65]
Despite social and political unrest, the economy continued to flourish under the authoritarian rule with the export-based industrialization policy. The first two five-year economic development plans were successful, and the 3rd and 4th five-year plans focused on expanding the heavy and chemical industries, raising the capability for steel production and oil refining. However, large conglomerate chaebols were continuously receiving preferential treatment and soon came to dominate the domestic market. As most of the development had come from foreign capital, most of the profit went back to repaying the loans and interest.[57][65]
Students and activists for democracy continued their demonstrations and protests for the abolition of the Yushin system and in the face of continuing popular unrest, Park's administration promulgated emergency decrees in 1974 and 1975, which led to the jailing of hundreds of dissidents. The protests grew larger and stronger, with politicians, intellectuals, religious leaders, laborers and farmers all joining in the movement for democracy. In 1978, Park was elected to another term by indirect election, which was met with more demonstrations and protests. The government retaliated by removing the opposition leader Kim Young-sam from the assembly and suppressing the activists with violent means. In 1979, mass anti-government demonstrations occurred nationwide, in the midst of this political turmoil, Park Chung-hee was assassinated by the director of the KCIA, Kim Jae-kyu, thus bringing the 18-year rule of military regime to an end.[65][69][70]
[edit]
Fifth Republic
Main article: Fifth Republic of South Korea
Mangwol-dong cemetery, burial grounds of the victims of the Gwangju Democratization Movement
Seoul Arts Center at night
After the assassination of Park Chung-hee, prime minister Choi Kyu-hah took the president's role only to be usurped 6 days later by Major General Chun Doo-hwan's 1979 Coup d'état of December Twelfth.[65] In May of the following year, a vocal civil society composed primarily of university students and labor unions led strong protests against authoritarian rule all over the country. Chun Doo-hwan declared martial law on May 17, 1980, and protests escalated. Political opponents Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-pil were arrested, and Kim Young-sam was confined to house arrest.[71]
On May 18, 1980, a confrontation broke out in the city of Gwangju between protesting students of Chonnam National University and the armed forces dispatched by the Martial Law Command. The incident turned into a citywide protest that lasted nine days until May 27 and resulted in the Gwangju Massacre. Immediate estimates of the civilian death toll ranged from a few dozen to 2000, with a later full investigation by the civilian government finding nearly 200 deaths and 850 injured.[72][73][74] In June 1980, Chun ordered the National Assembly to be dissolved. He subsequently created the National Defense Emergency Policy Committee, and installed himself as a member. On 17 July, he resigned his position of KCIA Director, and then held only the position of committee member. In September 1980, President Choi Kyu-ha was forced to resign from president to give way to the new military leader, Chun Doo-hwan.
In September of that year, Chun was elected president by indirect election and inaugurated in March of the following year, officially starting the 5th Republic. A new Constitution was established with notable changes; maintaining the presidential system but limiting to a single 7 year term, strengthening the authority of the National Assembly, and conferring the responsibilities of appointing judiciary to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. However, the system of indirect election of president stayed and many military persons were appointed to highly ranked government positions, keeping the remnants of the Yushin era.[74][75]
The government promised a new era of economic growth and democratic justice. Tight monetary laws and low interest rates contributed to price stability and helped boom the economy with notable growth in the electronics, semi-conductor, and automobile industries. The country opened up to foreign investments and GDP rose as Korean exports increased. The rapid economic growth, however, widened the gap between the rich and the poor, the urban and rural regions, and also inter-regional conflicts. These dissensions, added to the hard-line measures taken against opposition against the government, gave rise to intense rural and student movement, which had continued since the beginning of the republic.[71][75]
In foreign policy, ties with Japan were strengthened by state visits by both Chun to Japan and Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro to Korea. U.S. President Ronald Reagan also paid a visit, and relations with the Soviet Union and China improved.[76] The relationship with North Korea was strained at the beginning, when in 1983 a terrorist bomb attack in Burma killed 17 high-ranking officials attending memorial ceremonies and North Korea was alleged to be behind the attacks. However, in 1980 North Korea had submitted a "one nation, two system" reunification proposal which was met with a suggestion from the South to meet and prepare a unification constitution and government through a referendum. The humanitarian issue of reuniting separated families was dealt with first, and in September 1985, families from both sides of the border made cross visits to Seoul and Pyongyang in a historic event.[71][75]
The government made many efforts for cultural development: the National Museum of Korea, Seoul Arts Center, National Museum of Contemporary Art were all constructed during this time. The 1986 Asian Games were held successfully, and the bid for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul was successful as well.[71]
Despite the economic growth and results in diplomacy, the government, having gained power by coup d'etat, was essentially a military regime.[75] Public support and trust was low when the promises for democratic justice never materialized. In the 1985 National Assembly elections, opposition parties together won more votes than the government party, clearly indicating that the public wanted a change.[77] Many started to sympathize with the protesting students. The Gwangju Massacre was never forgotten and in January 1987, when a protesting Seoul National University student died under police interrogation, public fury was immense. In April 1987, President Chun made a declaration in an attempt to overpower the opposition that measures would be taken to protect the current constitution at the end of his term, instead of contemplating constitutional reform that would call for direct election of the president. This announcement consolidated the people, with more than a million students and citizens participating in anti-government protests all over the nation in June 1987 in the June Democracy Movement.[75][78][79]
On June 29, 1987, the government's presidential nominee Roh Tae-woo succumbed to the demands and announced the Declaration of Political Reforms which called for the holding of direct presidential elections and restoration of civil rights. In October 1987 a revised Constitution was approved by national referendum and direct elections for a new president were carried out in December, bringing the 5th Republic to a close.[78][80]
[edit]
Sixth Republic
Main article: Sixth Republic of South Korea
World Heritage site Bulguksa Temple
Olympic Park - Seoul, South Korea
Sea of supporters in Seoul during the 2002 FIFA World Cup
President George W. Bush and Laura Bush welcome South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and his wife, Kim Yoon-ok to the Presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland in 2008.
The Sixth Republic began in 1987 and remains the current republic of South Korea (2011).[81] It started with the election of Roh Tae-woo as president for the 13th presidential term in the first direct presidential election in 16 years. Although Roh was from a military background and one of the leaders of Chun's coup d'etat, the inability of the opposition leaders Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam to agree on a unified candidacy led to his being elected.[82][83]
Roh was officially inaugurated in February 1988. The government set out to eliminate past vestiges of authoritarian rule, by revising laws and decrees to fit democratic provisions. Freedom of press was expanded, university autonomy recognised, and restrictions on overseas travels were lifted.[84] However, the growth of the economy had slowed down compared to the 80s, with strong labor unions and higher wages reducing the competitiveness of Korean products on the international market, resulting in stagnant exports, while commodity prices kept on rising.
Shortly after Roh's inauguration, the Seoul Olympics took place, raising South Korea's international recognition and also greatly influencing foreign policy. Roh's government announced the official unification plan, Nordpolitik, established diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union, China, and countries in East Europe.[82]
A historic event was held in 1990 when North Korea accepted the proposal for exchange between the two Koreas, resulting in high-level talks, cultural and sports exchange. In 1991, a joint communique on denuclearization agreed upon, and the two Koreas simultaneously became members of the UN .[82][85]
When Roh's tenure was over, Kim Young-sam was elected president in the 1992 elections. He was the country's first civilian president in 30 years and he promised to build a "New Korea".[86] The government set out to correct the mistakes of the previous administrations. Local government elections were held in 1995, and parliamentary elections in 1996. Adhering to popular demand, former presidents Chun and Roh were both indicted on charges linked to bribery, illegal funds, and in the case of Chun, responsibility for the incident in Gwangju. They were tried and sentenced to prison in December, 1996.[86][87]
Relations with the North improved and a summit meeting was planned, but was postponed indefinitely with the death of Kim Il Sung. Tensions varied between the two Koreas thereafter, with cycle of small military skirmishes and apologies. The government also carried out substantial financial and economical reforms, joined the OECD in 1996, but met crisis with political and financial scandals. The country also faced various catastrophes at the time; train collision and ship sinking in 1993, Seoul's Seongsu Bridge and Sampoong Department Store collapsing in 1994. These incidents, which claimed many lives, were a blow to the civilian government.[86]
In 1997, the nation suffered a severe financial crisis and the government had to approach the International Monetary Fund for relief funds. This was the limit to what the nation could bear and led to the opposition leader Kim Dae-jung winning the presidency in the same year.[86]
Kim Dae-jung was officially inaugurated in February, 1998. South Korea had maintained its commitment to democratize its political processes and this was the first transfer of the government between parties by peaceful means. Kim's government faced the daunting task of overcoming the economic crisis, but with the joint efforts of the government's aggressive pursuit of foreign investment, industry's cooperation and the citizen's gold-collecting campaign,[88] the country was able to come out of the crisis in a relatively short period of time.[89][90]
Industrial reconstruction of the big conglomerate chaebols were pursued, a national pension system was established in 1998, educational reforms were carried out, government support for the IT field was increased, and notable cultural properties were registered as UNESCO Cultural Heritage sites.[90] The 2002 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted with Japan, brought upon a new culture where millions of supporters gather to cheer in public places.[91]
In diplomacy, Kim Dae-jung pursued the "Sunshine Policy", a series of efforts to reconcile with North Korea.[92] This culminated in reunions of the separated families of the Korean War, and the summit talk with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. For these efforts, Kim Dae-jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.[93] However, as North Korea did not cooperate for a peaceful coexistence, and with the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 changing the US's view on North Korea, the efficacy of the Sunshine Policy was brought into question. With the added allegations of corruption, support waned in the later years of the administration.[89][90][94]
Roh Moo-hyun was elected to the presidency in December 2002 by direct election. His victory came with much support from the younger generation and civic groups who had hopes of a participatory democracy, and Roh's administration consequently launched with the motto of "participation government". Unlike the previous governments, the administration decided to take a long-term view and execute market-based reforms at a gradual pace.[95] This approach did not please the public, however, and by the end of 2003, approval ratings were falling.[96]
The Roh administration succeeded in overcoming regionalism in South Korean politics, diluting the collusive ties between politics and business, empowering the civil society, settling the Korea-United States FTA issue, continuing summit talks with North Korea, and launching the high-speed train system, KTX. But despite a boom in the stock market, youth unemployment rates were high, real estate prices skyrocketed and the economy lagged.[97]
In March 2004, the National Assembly voted to impeach Roh on charges of breach of election laws and corruption. This motion rallied his supporters and affected the outcome of the parliamentary election held in April, with the ruling party becoming the majority. Roh was reinstated in May by the Constitutional Court, who had overturned the verdict. However, the ruling party then lost its majority in by-elections in 2005, as discontinued reform plans, continual labor unrest, Roh's personal feuds with the media, diplomatic friction with the United States and Japan, caused criticism of the government's incompetence of political, socioeconomical issues and foreign affairs.[96][98][99]
Roh Moo-hyun and his family members were investigated for bribery and corruption in April 2009. Roh denied the charges,[100] but subsequently committed suicide by jumping into a ravine on May 23, 2009.[98][101]
Roh's successor, Lee Myung-bak, was inaugurated in February, 2008. Stating "creative pragmatism" as a guiding principle, Lee's administration set out to revitalize the flagging economy, re-energize diplomatic ties, stabilize social welfare, and meet the challenges of globalization.[102][103] In April 2008, the ruling party secured a majority the National Assembly elections.[104] Also that month, summit talks with the United States helped ease the tension between the two countries caused by the previous administrations' policy towards North Korea, and the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement was discussed. Lee agreed to lift the ban on US beef imports, which caused massive protests and demonstrations in the months that followed, as paranoia of potential mad cow disease gripped the country. The demonstrations turned into a field of political conflict, and was appeased when the government released a statement regarding details of the beef imports.[105]
Many issues plagued the government in the beginning of the administration: controversies regarding appointment of high-ranking government officials, rampant political conflicts, accusations of oppression of media[106] and strained diplomatic relationships with North Korea and Japan. The economy turned for worse as the global recession hit the country; the worst economic crisis since 1997.[107] The Lee administration tackled these issues by actively issuing statements, timely reshuffling the cabinet, and implementing administrative and industrial reforms.[108]
After regulatory and economic reforms,[109] the economy has bounced back, with the country's economy marking growth and apparently recovering from the global recession.[110][111][112] The administration has also pursued to improve diplomatic relations with active summit talks: the United States; Korea-China-Japan Summits; and the ASEAN-ROK Commemorative Summit to strengthen ties with other Asian countries.[113] The 2010 G20 summit was held in Seoul, where issues regarding the global economic crisis were discussed.[114]
This article is part of a series
Prehistory
Jeulmun period
Mumun period
Gojoseon 2333–108 BCE
Jin
Proto–Three Kingdoms 300–57 BCE
Buyeo, Goguryeo, Okjeo, Dongye
Samhan (Ma, Byeon, Jin)
Three Kingdoms 57 BCE–668
Goguryeo 37 BCE–668
Baekje 18 BCE–660
Silla 57 BCE–935
Gaya 42–562
North and South States 698–926
Unified Silla 668–935
Balhae 698–926
Later Three Kingdoms 892–936
Taebong, Hubaekje, Silla
Goryeo Dynasty 918–1392
Joseon Dynasty 1392–1897
Korean Empire 1897–1910
Japanese rule 1910–1945
Provisional Gov't 1919–1948
Division of Korea 1945–present
North, South Korea 1948–present
By topic
Timeline
List of monarchs
Linguistic history
Science and technology history
Art history
Military history
Naval history
Korea Portal
v · d · e
The History of South Korea formally begins with the establishment of South Korea on 15 August 1948, although Syngman Rhee had declared the establishment in Seoul on August 13th.
In the aftermath of the Japanese occupation of Korea which ended with Japan's defeat in World War II in 1945, Korea was divided at the 38th parallel north in accordance with a United Nations arrangement, to be administered by the Soviet Union in the north and the United States in the south. The Soviets and Americans were unable to agree on the implementation of Joint Trusteeship over Korea. This led in 1948 to the establishment of two separate governments, each claiming to be the legitimate government of all of Korea. Eventually, following the Korean War, the two separate governments stabilized into the existing political entities of North and South Korea.
South Korea's subsequent history is marked by alternating periods of democratic and autocratic rule. Civilian governments are conventionally numbered from the First Republic of Syngman Rhee to the contemporary Sixth Republic. The First Republic, arguably democratic at its inception, became increasingly autocratic until its collapse in 1960. The Second Republic was strongly democratic, but was overthrown in less than a year and replaced by an autocratic military regime. The Third, Fourth, and Fifth Republics were nominally democratic, but are widely regarded as the continuation of military rule[citation needed]. With the Sixth Republic, the country has gradually stabilized into a liberal democracy.
Since its inception, South Korea has seen substantial development in education, economy, and culture. Since the 1960s, the country has developed from one of Asia's poorest to one of the world's wealthiest nations. Education, particularly at the tertiary level, has expanded dramatically. It is said to be one of the "Four Tigers" of rising Asian states along with Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong.[1][2]Contents [hide]
1 U.S. Military administration
2 First Republic
3 Second Republic
4 Military rule
5 Third Republic
6 Fourth Republic
7 Fifth Republic
8 Sixth Republic
9 See also
10 Notes
11 References
12 External links
[edit]
U.S. Military administration
Main article: United States Army Military Government in Korea
Yeo Woon-Hyung (far right) at the US-Soviet Joint Commission in 1947
After Japan's surrender to the Allied Powers, division at the 38th parallel marked the beginning of Soviet and U.S. trusteeship over the North and South, respectively. This division was meant to be temporary and was first intended to return a unified Korea back to its people until the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and Republic of China could arrange a trusteeship administration. In February 1945, the issue of trusteeship for Korea was discussed at the Yalta Conference.[3][4][5] U.S. forces landed at Incheon on September 8, 1945 and established a military government shortly thereafter.[6] They were commanded by Lt. General John R. Hodge, who then took charge of the government.[7] Faced with mounting popular discontent, in October 1945 Hodge established the Korean Advisory Council. A year later, an interim legislature and interim government were established, headed by Kim Kyu-shik and Syngman Rhee respectively. However, these interim bodies lacked any independent authority or de jure sovereignty, which was still held by the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea based in China, but U.S. leaders chose to ignore its legitimacy, partly due to the belief that it was communist-aligned.[8][9]
The country in this period was plagued by political and economic chaos, which arose from a variety of causes. The aftereffects of the Japanese exploitation were still felt in the country, as in the North.[10] In addition, the U.S. military was largely unprepared for the challenge of administering the country, arriving with no knowledge of the language, culture or political situation.[8] Thus, many of their policies had unintended destabilizing effects. Waves of refugees from North Korea and returnees from abroad also helped to keep the country in turmoil.[11]
In December 1945, a conference convened in Moscow to discuss the future of Korea.[12] A 5-year trusteeship was discussed, and a US-Soviet joint commission was established. The commission met intermittently in Seoul but deadlocked over the issue of establishing a national government. In September 1947, with no solution in sight, the United States submitted the Korean question to the UN General Assembly.[3][4]
The resolution from the UN General Assembly called for a UN-supervised general election in Korea, but with the North rejecting this proposition, a general election for a Constitutional Assembly was held in the South only, in May 1948. A constitution was adopted, setting forth a presidential form of government and specifying a four-year term for the presidency. According to the provisions of the Constitution, an indirect presidential election was held in July. Syngman Rhee, as head of the new assembly, assumed the presidency and proclaimed the Republic of Korea (South Korea) on August 15, 1948.[13][14][15]
[edit]
First Republic
Main article: First Republic of South Korea
Crossing the 38th parallel. United Nations forces withdraw from Pyongyang, 1950.
General Douglas MacArthur and Syngman Rhee, Korea's first President, warmly greet one another upon the General's arrival at Gimpo Air Force Base
On August 15, 1948, the Republic of Korea was formally established, with Syngman Rhee as the first president. With the establishment of Rhee's government, de jure sovereignty also passed into the new government. On September 9, 1948, a communist regime, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), was proclaimed under Kim Il Sung.[13][14][15] However, on December 12, 1948, by its resolution 195 in the Third General Assembly, the United Nations recognized the Republic of Korea as the sole legal government of Korea.[16]
In 1946, the North implemented land reforms by confiscating private property, Japanese and pro-Japanese owned facilities and factories, and placed them under state ownership.[13] Demand for land reform in the South grew strong; the land reform act was enacted in June 1949 whereby Koreans with large landholdings were obliged to divest most of their land. Approximately 40 percent of total farm households became small landowners.[17] However, because preemptive rights were given to people who had ties with landowners before liberation, many pro-Japanese groups obtained or retained properties.[13]
The country now divided, the relationship between the two Koreas turned more antagonistic as time passed. The Soviet forces having withdrawn in 1948, North Korea pressured the South to expel the United States forces but Rhee sought to align his government strongly with America, and against both North Korea and Japan.[18] Although some talks towards normalization of relations with Japan took place, they achieved little.[19] Meanwhile, the government took in vast sums of American aid, in amounts sometimes near the total size of the national budget.[20] The nationalist government also continued many of the practices of the U.S. military government. This included the brutal repression of leftist activity. In 1948, the Rhee government repressed military uprisings in Jeju, Suncheon and Yeosu.[14][21]
The main policy of the First Republic on North Korea was anti-communism and "unification by expanding northward". The South's military was neither sufficiently equipped nor prepared, but the Rhee administration was determined to reunify Korea by military force with aid from the United States. However, in the second parliamentary elections held on May 30, 1950, the majority of seats went to independents, confirming the lack of support and the fragile state of the nation.[14][22][23]
On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces invaded South Korea. Led by the U.S., a 16-member coalition undertook the first collective action under the United Nations Command (UNC).[24][25][26] Oscillating battle lines inflicted a high number of civilian casualties and wrought immense destruction. With the People's Republic of China's entry on behalf of North Korea in 1951, the fighting came to a stalemate close to the original line of demarcation. Armistice negotiations, initiated in July 1951, finally concluded on July 27, 1953 [27] at Panmunjeom, now in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Following the armistice, the South Korean government returned to Seoul on the symbolic date of August 15, 1953.[24][28]
After the armistice, South Korea experienced political turmoil under years of autocratic leadership of Syngman Rhee, which was ended by student revolt in 1960. Throughout his rule, Rhee sought to take additional steps to cement his control of government. These began in 1952, when the government was still based in Busan due to the ongoing war. In May of that year, Rhee pushed through constitutional amendments which made the presidency a directly-elected position. To do this, he declared martial law, arrested opposing members of parliament, demonstrators, and anti-government groups. Rhee was subsequently elected by a wide margin.[29][30][31]
Rhee regained control of parliament in the 1954 elections, and thereupon fraudulently pushed through an amendment to exempt himself from the eight-year term limit, and was once again re-elected in 1956.[32] Soon after, Rhee's administration arrested members of the opposing party and executed the leader after accusing him of being a North Korean spy.[31][33]
The administration became increasingly repressive while dominating the political arena and in 1958, sought to amend the National Security Law to tighten government control over all levels of administration, including the local units.[30] These measures caused much outrage among the people, but despite the society's resentment, Rhee's administration rigged the March 15, 1960 presidential elections and won by a landslide.[34]
On that election day, protests by students and citizens against the irregularities of the election burst out in the city of Masan. Initially these protests were quelled with force by local police, but when the body of a student was found floating in the harbor of Masan,[34][35] the whole nation was enraged and protests spread nationwide. On April 19, students from various universities and schools rallied and marched in protest in the Seoul streets, in what would be called the April Revolution. The government declared martial law, called in the army, and suppressed the crowds with open fire.[34][36][37] Subsequent protests throughout the country shook the government, and after an escalated protest with university professors taking to the streets on April 25, Rhee handed in his formal resignation on April 26.[34][36]
[edit]
Second Republic
Main article: Second Republic of South Korea
After the student revolution, power was briefly held by an interim administration under the foreign minister Heo Jeong.[38] A new parliamentary election was held on July 29, 1960. The Democratic Party, which had been in the opposition during the First Republic, easily gained power and the Second Republic was established. The revised constitution dictated the Second Republic to take the form of a parliamentary cabinet system where the President took only a nominal role. This was the first and the only instance South Korea turned to a parliamentary cabinet system instead of a presidential system.[39] The assembly elected Yun Bo-seon as President and Chang Myon as the prime minister and head of government in August, 1960.[34][36][40][41]
The Second Republic saw the proliferation of political activity which had been repressed under the Rhee regime. Much of this activity was from leftist and student groups, which had been instrumental in the overthrow of the First Republic. Union membership and activity grew rapidly during the later months of 1960, including the Teachers' Union, Journalists' Union, and the Federation of Korean Trade Union.[34][36][42] Around 2,000 demonstrations were held during the eight months of the Second Republic.[43]
Under pressure from the left, the Chang government carried out a series of purges of military and police officials who had been involved in anti-democratic activities or corruption. A Special Law to this effect was passed on October 31, 1960.[44][45] 40,000 people were placed under investigation; of these, more than 2,200 government officials and 4,000 police officers were purged.[44] In addition, the government considered reducing the size of the army by 100,000, although this plan was shelved.[46]
In economic terms as well, the government was faced with mounting instability. The government formulated a five-year economic development plan, although it was unable to act on it prior to being overthrown.[36][47] The Second Republic saw the hwan lose half of its value against the dollar between fall 1960 and spring 1961.[48]
Although the government had been established with support of the people, it had failed to implement effective reforms which brought about endless social unrest, political turmoil and ultimately, the 5.16 coup d'état.
[edit]
Military rule
Main article: Supreme Council for National Reconstruction
The military coup d'état ("5.16 coup d'état") led by Major General Park Chung-hee on May 16, 1961, put an effective end to the Second Republic. Park was one of a group of military leaders who had been pushing for the de-politicization of the military. Dissatisfied with the cleanup measures undertaken by the Second Republic and convinced that the current disoriented state would collapse into communism, they chose to take matters into their own hands.[49][50][51]
The National Assembly was dissolved and military officers replaced the civilian officials. In May 1961, the junta declared "Pledges of the Revolution": anticommunism was to be the nation's main policy; friendly relations would be strengthened with allies of the free world, notably the United States; all corruption and government misdeed would be disposed and "fresh and clean morality" would be introduced; the reconstruction of a self-reliant economy would be priority; the nation's ability would be nurtured to fight against communism and achieve reunification; and that government would be returned to a democratic civilian government within two years.[49][50][51][52]
As a means to check the opposition, the military authority created the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) in June 1961, with Kim Jong-pil, a relative of Park, as its first director.[50][52][53] In December 1962, a referendum was held on returning to a presidential system of rule, which was allegedly passed with a 78% majority.[54] Park and the other military leaders pledged not to run for office in the next elections. However, Park became presidential candidate of the new Democratic Republican Party (DRP), which consisted of mainly KCIA officials, ran for president and won the election of 1963 by a narrow margin.[49][51][52][54]
[edit]
Third Republic
Main article: Third Republic of South Korea
Park Chung-hee in 1964
Park's administration started the Third Republic by announcing the Five Year Economic development Plan, an export-oriented industrialization policy. Top priority was placed on the growth of a self-reliant economy and modernization; "Development First, Unification Later" became the slogan of the times and the economy grew rapidly with vast improvement in industrial structure, especially in the basic and heavy chemical industries.[55][56] Capital was needed for such development, so the Park regime used the influx of foreign aid from Japan and the United States to provide loans to export businesses, with preferential treatment in obtaining low-interest bank loans and tax benefits. Cooperating with the government, these businesses would later become the chaebol.[50][55][57]
Relations with Japan were normalized by the Korea-Japan treaty ratified in June 1965.[58][59] This treaty brought Japanese funds in the form of loans and compensation for the damages suffered during the colonial era without an official apology from the Japanese government, sparking much protest across the nation.[50][55]
The government also kept close ties with the United States, and continued to receive large amounts of aid. A status of forces agreement was concluded in 1966, clarifying the legal situation of the US forces stationed there.[60][61] Soon thereafter, Korea joined the Vietnam War, eventually sending a total of 300,000 soldiers to fight alongside US and South Vietnamese troops.[50][56][62]
Economic and technological growth during this period improved the standard for living, which expanded opportunities for education. Workers with higher education were absorbed by the rapidly growing industrial and commercial sectors, and urban population surged.[63] Construction of the Gyeongbu Expressway was completed and linked Seoul to the nation's southeastern region and the port cities of Incheon and Busan. Despite the immense economic growth, however, the standard of living for city laborers and farmers was still low. Laborers were working with low wages to increase the price competitiveness for the export-oriented economy plan, and farmers were in near poverty as the government controlled prices.[55][64] As the rural economy steadily lost ground and caused dissent among the farmers, however, the government decided to implement measures to increase farm productivity and income by instituting the Saemauel Movement ("New Village Movement") in 1971. The movement's goal was to improve the quality of rural life, modernize both rural and urban societies and narrow the income gap between them.[63][65]
Park ran again in the election of 1967, taking 51.4% of the vote.[54] At the time the presidency was constitutionally limited to two terms, but a constitutional amendment was forced through the National Assembly in 1969 to allow him to seek a third term.[55][66][67] Major protests and demonstrations against the constitutional amendment broke out, with large support gaining for the opposition leader Kim Dae-jung, but Park was again re-elected in the 1971 presidential election.[68]
Parliamentary elections followed shortly after the presidential election where the opposition party garnered most of the seats, giving them the power to pass constitutional amendments. Park, feeling threatened, declared a state of national emergency on December 6, 1971.[55] In the midst of this domestic insecurity, the Nixon Doctrine had eased tensions among the world superpowers on the international scene, which caused a dilemma for Park, who had justified his regime based on the state policy of anti-communism.[55] In a sudden gesture, the government proclaimed a joint communiqué for reunification with North Korea on July 4, 1972, and held Red Cross talks in Seoul and Pyongyang. However, there was no change in government policy regarding reunification, and on October 17, 1972, Park declared martial law, dissolving the National Assembly and suspending the constitution.[65][69]
[edit]
Fourth Republic
Main article: Fourth Republic of South Korea
The Fourth Republic began with the adoption of the Yusin Constitution on November 21, 1972. This new constitution gave Park effective control over the parliament and the possibility of permanent presidency. The president would be elected through indirect election by an elected body, and the term of presidency was extended to six years with no restrictions on reappointment. The legislature and judiciary were controlled by the government, and educational guidelines was under direct surveillance as well. Textbooks supporting the ideology of the military government were authorized by the government, diminishing the responsibilities of the Ministry of Education.[65]
Despite social and political unrest, the economy continued to flourish under the authoritarian rule with the export-based industrialization policy. The first two five-year economic development plans were successful, and the 3rd and 4th five-year plans focused on expanding the heavy and chemical industries, raising the capability for steel production and oil refining. However, large conglomerate chaebols were continuously receiving preferential treatment and soon came to dominate the domestic market. As most of the development had come from foreign capital, most of the profit went back to repaying the loans and interest.[57][65]
Students and activists for democracy continued their demonstrations and protests for the abolition of the Yushin system and in the face of continuing popular unrest, Park's administration promulgated emergency decrees in 1974 and 1975, which led to the jailing of hundreds of dissidents. The protests grew larger and stronger, with politicians, intellectuals, religious leaders, laborers and farmers all joining in the movement for democracy. In 1978, Park was elected to another term by indirect election, which was met with more demonstrations and protests. The government retaliated by removing the opposition leader Kim Young-sam from the assembly and suppressing the activists with violent means. In 1979, mass anti-government demonstrations occurred nationwide, in the midst of this political turmoil, Park Chung-hee was assassinated by the director of the KCIA, Kim Jae-kyu, thus bringing the 18-year rule of military regime to an end.[65][69][70]
[edit]
Fifth Republic
Main article: Fifth Republic of South Korea
Mangwol-dong cemetery, burial grounds of the victims of the Gwangju Democratization Movement
Seoul Arts Center at night
After the assassination of Park Chung-hee, prime minister Choi Kyu-hah took the president's role only to be usurped 6 days later by Major General Chun Doo-hwan's 1979 Coup d'état of December Twelfth.[65] In May of the following year, a vocal civil society composed primarily of university students and labor unions led strong protests against authoritarian rule all over the country. Chun Doo-hwan declared martial law on May 17, 1980, and protests escalated. Political opponents Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-pil were arrested, and Kim Young-sam was confined to house arrest.[71]
On May 18, 1980, a confrontation broke out in the city of Gwangju between protesting students of Chonnam National University and the armed forces dispatched by the Martial Law Command. The incident turned into a citywide protest that lasted nine days until May 27 and resulted in the Gwangju Massacre. Immediate estimates of the civilian death toll ranged from a few dozen to 2000, with a later full investigation by the civilian government finding nearly 200 deaths and 850 injured.[72][73][74] In June 1980, Chun ordered the National Assembly to be dissolved. He subsequently created the National Defense Emergency Policy Committee, and installed himself as a member. On 17 July, he resigned his position of KCIA Director, and then held only the position of committee member. In September 1980, President Choi Kyu-ha was forced to resign from president to give way to the new military leader, Chun Doo-hwan.
In September of that year, Chun was elected president by indirect election and inaugurated in March of the following year, officially starting the 5th Republic. A new Constitution was established with notable changes; maintaining the presidential system but limiting to a single 7 year term, strengthening the authority of the National Assembly, and conferring the responsibilities of appointing judiciary to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. However, the system of indirect election of president stayed and many military persons were appointed to highly ranked government positions, keeping the remnants of the Yushin era.[74][75]
The government promised a new era of economic growth and democratic justice. Tight monetary laws and low interest rates contributed to price stability and helped boom the economy with notable growth in the electronics, semi-conductor, and automobile industries. The country opened up to foreign investments and GDP rose as Korean exports increased. The rapid economic growth, however, widened the gap between the rich and the poor, the urban and rural regions, and also inter-regional conflicts. These dissensions, added to the hard-line measures taken against opposition against the government, gave rise to intense rural and student movement, which had continued since the beginning of the republic.[71][75]
In foreign policy, ties with Japan were strengthened by state visits by both Chun to Japan and Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro to Korea. U.S. President Ronald Reagan also paid a visit, and relations with the Soviet Union and China improved.[76] The relationship with North Korea was strained at the beginning, when in 1983 a terrorist bomb attack in Burma killed 17 high-ranking officials attending memorial ceremonies and North Korea was alleged to be behind the attacks. However, in 1980 North Korea had submitted a "one nation, two system" reunification proposal which was met with a suggestion from the South to meet and prepare a unification constitution and government through a referendum. The humanitarian issue of reuniting separated families was dealt with first, and in September 1985, families from both sides of the border made cross visits to Seoul and Pyongyang in a historic event.[71][75]
The government made many efforts for cultural development: the National Museum of Korea, Seoul Arts Center, National Museum of Contemporary Art were all constructed during this time. The 1986 Asian Games were held successfully, and the bid for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul was successful as well.[71]
Despite the economic growth and results in diplomacy, the government, having gained power by coup d'etat, was essentially a military regime.[75] Public support and trust was low when the promises for democratic justice never materialized. In the 1985 National Assembly elections, opposition parties together won more votes than the government party, clearly indicating that the public wanted a change.[77] Many started to sympathize with the protesting students. The Gwangju Massacre was never forgotten and in January 1987, when a protesting Seoul National University student died under police interrogation, public fury was immense. In April 1987, President Chun made a declaration in an attempt to overpower the opposition that measures would be taken to protect the current constitution at the end of his term, instead of contemplating constitutional reform that would call for direct election of the president. This announcement consolidated the people, with more than a million students and citizens participating in anti-government protests all over the nation in June 1987 in the June Democracy Movement.[75][78][79]
On June 29, 1987, the government's presidential nominee Roh Tae-woo succumbed to the demands and announced the Declaration of Political Reforms which called for the holding of direct presidential elections and restoration of civil rights. In October 1987 a revised Constitution was approved by national referendum and direct elections for a new president were carried out in December, bringing the 5th Republic to a close.[78][80]
[edit]
Sixth Republic
Main article: Sixth Republic of South Korea
World Heritage site Bulguksa Temple
Olympic Park - Seoul, South Korea
Sea of supporters in Seoul during the 2002 FIFA World Cup
President George W. Bush and Laura Bush welcome South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and his wife, Kim Yoon-ok to the Presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland in 2008.
The Sixth Republic began in 1987 and remains the current republic of South Korea (2011).[81] It started with the election of Roh Tae-woo as president for the 13th presidential term in the first direct presidential election in 16 years. Although Roh was from a military background and one of the leaders of Chun's coup d'etat, the inability of the opposition leaders Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam to agree on a unified candidacy led to his being elected.[82][83]
Roh was officially inaugurated in February 1988. The government set out to eliminate past vestiges of authoritarian rule, by revising laws and decrees to fit democratic provisions. Freedom of press was expanded, university autonomy recognised, and restrictions on overseas travels were lifted.[84] However, the growth of the economy had slowed down compared to the 80s, with strong labor unions and higher wages reducing the competitiveness of Korean products on the international market, resulting in stagnant exports, while commodity prices kept on rising.
Shortly after Roh's inauguration, the Seoul Olympics took place, raising South Korea's international recognition and also greatly influencing foreign policy. Roh's government announced the official unification plan, Nordpolitik, established diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union, China, and countries in East Europe.[82]
A historic event was held in 1990 when North Korea accepted the proposal for exchange between the two Koreas, resulting in high-level talks, cultural and sports exchange. In 1991, a joint communique on denuclearization agreed upon, and the two Koreas simultaneously became members of the UN .[82][85]
When Roh's tenure was over, Kim Young-sam was elected president in the 1992 elections. He was the country's first civilian president in 30 years and he promised to build a "New Korea".[86] The government set out to correct the mistakes of the previous administrations. Local government elections were held in 1995, and parliamentary elections in 1996. Adhering to popular demand, former presidents Chun and Roh were both indicted on charges linked to bribery, illegal funds, and in the case of Chun, responsibility for the incident in Gwangju. They were tried and sentenced to prison in December, 1996.[86][87]
Relations with the North improved and a summit meeting was planned, but was postponed indefinitely with the death of Kim Il Sung. Tensions varied between the two Koreas thereafter, with cycle of small military skirmishes and apologies. The government also carried out substantial financial and economical reforms, joined the OECD in 1996, but met crisis with political and financial scandals. The country also faced various catastrophes at the time; train collision and ship sinking in 1993, Seoul's Seongsu Bridge and Sampoong Department Store collapsing in 1994. These incidents, which claimed many lives, were a blow to the civilian government.[86]
In 1997, the nation suffered a severe financial crisis and the government had to approach the International Monetary Fund for relief funds. This was the limit to what the nation could bear and led to the opposition leader Kim Dae-jung winning the presidency in the same year.[86]
Kim Dae-jung was officially inaugurated in February, 1998. South Korea had maintained its commitment to democratize its political processes and this was the first transfer of the government between parties by peaceful means. Kim's government faced the daunting task of overcoming the economic crisis, but with the joint efforts of the government's aggressive pursuit of foreign investment, industry's cooperation and the citizen's gold-collecting campaign,[88] the country was able to come out of the crisis in a relatively short period of time.[89][90]
Industrial reconstruction of the big conglomerate chaebols were pursued, a national pension system was established in 1998, educational reforms were carried out, government support for the IT field was increased, and notable cultural properties were registered as UNESCO Cultural Heritage sites.[90] The 2002 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted with Japan, brought upon a new culture where millions of supporters gather to cheer in public places.[91]
In diplomacy, Kim Dae-jung pursued the "Sunshine Policy", a series of efforts to reconcile with North Korea.[92] This culminated in reunions of the separated families of the Korean War, and the summit talk with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. For these efforts, Kim Dae-jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.[93] However, as North Korea did not cooperate for a peaceful coexistence, and with the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 changing the US's view on North Korea, the efficacy of the Sunshine Policy was brought into question. With the added allegations of corruption, support waned in the later years of the administration.[89][90][94]
Roh Moo-hyun was elected to the presidency in December 2002 by direct election. His victory came with much support from the younger generation and civic groups who had hopes of a participatory democracy, and Roh's administration consequently launched with the motto of "participation government". Unlike the previous governments, the administration decided to take a long-term view and execute market-based reforms at a gradual pace.[95] This approach did not please the public, however, and by the end of 2003, approval ratings were falling.[96]
The Roh administration succeeded in overcoming regionalism in South Korean politics, diluting the collusive ties between politics and business, empowering the civil society, settling the Korea-United States FTA issue, continuing summit talks with North Korea, and launching the high-speed train system, KTX. But despite a boom in the stock market, youth unemployment rates were high, real estate prices skyrocketed and the economy lagged.[97]
In March 2004, the National Assembly voted to impeach Roh on charges of breach of election laws and corruption. This motion rallied his supporters and affected the outcome of the parliamentary election held in April, with the ruling party becoming the majority. Roh was reinstated in May by the Constitutional Court, who had overturned the verdict. However, the ruling party then lost its majority in by-elections in 2005, as discontinued reform plans, continual labor unrest, Roh's personal feuds with the media, diplomatic friction with the United States and Japan, caused criticism of the government's incompetence of political, socioeconomical issues and foreign affairs.[96][98][99]
Roh Moo-hyun and his family members were investigated for bribery and corruption in April 2009. Roh denied the charges,[100] but subsequently committed suicide by jumping into a ravine on May 23, 2009.[98][101]
Roh's successor, Lee Myung-bak, was inaugurated in February, 2008. Stating "creative pragmatism" as a guiding principle, Lee's administration set out to revitalize the flagging economy, re-energize diplomatic ties, stabilize social welfare, and meet the challenges of globalization.[102][103] In April 2008, the ruling party secured a majority the National Assembly elections.[104] Also that month, summit talks with the United States helped ease the tension between the two countries caused by the previous administrations' policy towards North Korea, and the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement was discussed. Lee agreed to lift the ban on US beef imports, which caused massive protests and demonstrations in the months that followed, as paranoia of potential mad cow disease gripped the country. The demonstrations turned into a field of political conflict, and was appeased when the government released a statement regarding details of the beef imports.[105]
Many issues plagued the government in the beginning of the administration: controversies regarding appointment of high-ranking government officials, rampant political conflicts, accusations of oppression of media[106] and strained diplomatic relationships with North Korea and Japan. The economy turned for worse as the global recession hit the country; the worst economic crisis since 1997.[107] The Lee administration tackled these issues by actively issuing statements, timely reshuffling the cabinet, and implementing administrative and industrial reforms.[108]
After regulatory and economic reforms,[109] the economy has bounced back, with the country's economy marking growth and apparently recovering from the global recession.[110][111][112] The administration has also pursued to improve diplomatic relations with active summit talks: the United States; Korea-China-Japan Summits; and the ASEAN-ROK Commemorative Summit to strengthen ties with other Asian countries.[113] The 2010 G20 summit was held in Seoul, where issues regarding the global economic crisis were discussed.[114]
Kimchi
KIMCHI 2011 bagian dua
Korean Idols Music Concert Hosted in Indonesia 2011 bagian dua
Tayang: 7-Jun-2011 17:16 WIB
KIMCHI (Korean Idols Music Concert Hosted in Indonesia) 2011 untuk memuaskan sebagian hasrat para fans K-POP di Indonesia. Konser ‘keroyokkan’ ini, diisi oleh 4 group Korea mulai dari yang terbaru hingga yang teranyar, dan 1 penyanyi solo yang juga merupakan salah satu personel group di Korea.
Pengisi acara berikutnya mungkin terasa spesial, karena dia merupakan satu-satunya penyanyi solo yang tampil pada konser kali ini, sehingga membuat MC menahan Girl’s Day di panggung untuk memperkenalkan pengisi acara berikutnya. Atau mungkin karena kepribadiannya dan termasuk kru yang turut datang bersamanya yang begitu ramah menyapa penggemar (beberapa member forum lautanindonesia.com mengaku disapa oleh kru yang datang bersamanya dan dengan antusias memperkenalkan diri sebagai manajernya) sehingga membuat sebagian besar penonton meneriakkan namanya :
PARK JUNG MIN
Berusaha mempertahankan gelar Sexy Charisma, walau dia tidak sedang bernyanyi bersama grupnya SS501, Park Jung Min menggebrak dengan opening yang paling dramatis malam itu. Saat alunan biola di single Not Alone melantun, seorang penari pun memperlihatkan keahliannya ‘mencampur’ tari kontemporer dengan seni bela diri. Sayangnya entah mengapa, Park Jung Min memilih untuk melantunkan singlenya kali ini dengan lipsync.
Memakai kostum panggung jaket berbahan lace berwarna emas , kemeja hitam dan dasi merah, Park Jung Min membawakan lagu keduanya Do You Know yang bernada balad setelah menukarkan micnya dan menyanyikan lagu tersebut secara langsung.
Mungkin karena faktor jam terbang dibanding pengisi acara sebelumnya, atau mungkin juga faktor dia adalah penyanyi solo, atau mungkin juga karena faktor kepribadiannya yang tulus, namun Park Jung Min sangat tahu bagaimana memanjakan penonton. Setiap geraknya dipanggung, dilakukan dengan tulus, pun saat dia menari. Setiap gerak dalam koreonya tampaknya sudah cukup menyatu dengan kepribadiannya, membuat geraknya yang smooth semakin enak untuk dilihat dan penonton melupakan nada-nada yang terkadang off pitch.
Tak lupa menjembatani kendala bahasa dengan mengucapkan “Aku cinta kalian” dari atas panggung, Park termasuk pengisi acara yang memang sudah mempersiapkan untuk memanjakan para penonton dengan celetukkan-celetukkan berbahasa Indonesia. Apalagi suaranya dikala berbicara berkesan empuk nan berat, lebih indah dibanding dia bernyanyi. Sehingga walau banyak diantara penonton yang tak mengerti ucapan Park Jung Min, namun mata mereka tak lepas sambil melemparkan senyum seakan mengerti setiap kata yang diucapkan.
Momen paling ajaib malam itu yang diciptakan Park Jung Min mungkin dikala ia menyanyikan lagu Everyday Is Christmas. Sebagian penonton seakan merasakan ‘kehangatan’ yang ditawarkan oleh suara Park dikala musim dingin melanda, karena Park mungkin menganggap semua penonton yang hadir malam itu adalah pacarnya. Dan ia tak ragu sedikit pun menghampiri penonton untuk sekedar tersenyum, bersalaman, atau pun mengambil souvenir.
Sayangnya lagu terakhir bertempo upbeat berjudul Go Go, yang konon pertama kalinya didengarkan di Indonesia, kembali dibawakan lipsync. Seorang penari wanita berdress merah pun menemani Park menari. Sayangna, nuansa seksi yang dibawakan oleh wanita tersebut, terasa hambar karena rambutnya hanya dikuncir. Mungkinkah dia lupa membawa pengeriting rambut?
SUPER JUNIOR
Penampilan yang paling ditunggu oleh penonton malam itu pastinya Super Junior, karena sebagian besar penonton yang datang adalah E.L.F (Everlasting Friends, sebutan untuk penggemar Super Junior, harap jangan tertukar dengan merk makeup Eyes Lips Face) yang terlihat berusaha menjadikan Istora Senayan lautan biru (dan pemandangan tersebut terlihat di tribun 2).
Penampilan mereka diawali dengan video permintaan maaf dari salah satu anggota, Choi Siwon, tidak bisa hadir karena jadwal konser malam itu berbenturan dengan syuting serial yang paling mengglobalisasi (pemain Korea, bermain di serial Taiwan yang ceritanya diangkat dari komik Jepang berjudul Skip Beat). Untungnya, sesama pemain serial tersebut yang juga anggota Super Junior, Donghae, tetap bisa tampil malam itu.
Menggebrak penonton dengan lagu Bonamana yang dibawakan playback , membuat seluruh istora yang isinya sebagian besar perempuan, berteriak kencang. Namun jangan salah, seorang pria yang berdiri sebelah sayapun ikut berteriak dengan membahana.
Mungkin Super Junior, yang secara umur sudah tidak junior lagi, bukanlah penari terbaik dibanding idol Korea lain. Tapi mereka dapat memadukan kepribadian mereka yang unik setiap personilnya, dengan koreo mereka. Perfomance mereka ini yang membuat Super Junior sangat dicintai dan menjadikan mereka idol papan atas.
Alasan lainnya mereka sangat dicintai? Lee Teuk, sang leader. Kepribadiannya yang ramah dan sopan namun pecicilan, memporak-porandakkan panggung dan membuat penonton menjerit karena kelakuannya. Tak percaya? Pada lagu kedua, No Other, di tengah bridge, Lee Teuk berteriak “Assalamualikum” yang hampir membuat Istora Senayan berguncang. Belum lagi celetukan nakal lainnya seperti “Aku suka Indonesia gadis”
Memperkenalkan 2 anggota lainnya yang tidak ikut menyanyi kedua lagu sebelumnya, Zhoumin dan Henry, para penonton sudah bisa menebak yang akan tampil. Super Junior M, subunit yang fokus untuk menembus pasar musik Cina. Sayangnya, di dua lagu yang Super Junior M sajikan berjudul Perfection dan Super Girl, mereka bawakan dengan lipsync. Apalagi dengan kekurangan soundsystem malam itu, suara mereka saat menyanyi menjadi sember.
Untungnya Super Junior T, sub unit yang beraliran Trot, menyanyikan lagu Rokuko dengan live, dan diselingi tingkah polah jenaka menggoda penonton di tiap sudut.
Penampilan mereka pun ditutup dengan single anyar mereka, Sorry Sorry yang seakan ingin menghaturkan permintaan maaf karena konser akan segera berakhir.
Tapi pesona merkea tak berhenti disana. Super Junior kembali mencuri momen di akhir pertunjukkan saat semua pengisi acara keluar dengan klisenya diiringi lagu Heal The World oleh paduan suara anak-anak. Saat hampir semua pengisi acara keluar panggung, Lee Teuk memanggil sebagian anggota Super Junior, dan menhampiri tiap sudut panggung, dan kemudian membungkuk memberi hormat kepada penonton dan mengucapkan terimakasih.
Dengan demikian selesai sudah pertunjukkan malam itu. Penulis masih berasa belum puas. Dari segi pertunjukkan, penulis kecewa karena beberapa lagu dinyanyikan lipsync. Apalagi sound system malam itu terasa banyak kekurangan untuk acara yang yang dihebohkan akan menjadi besar tersebut.
Beberapa penonton juga mengeluhkan dengan kebijakkan kamera yang tidak konsisten. Saat pemeriksaan tas selagi mengantri di pintu masuk, mereka dijelaskan bahwa kamera pocket diperkenankan dibawa kedalam lokasi konser. Namun saat mencoba menangkap momen dengan kamera mereka, justru pihak keamanan mengambil dan menghapus gambar-gambar yang telah diambil. Yang lebih mengecewakan, kebijakkan tidak boleh mengambil gambar tersebut tidak merata disemua kelas. Karena masih banyak penonton yang bebas mengambil gambar di kelas Festival dan VIP.
Banyaknya kursi yang masih kosong juga sempat membuat dahi berdenyit dan alis sedikit terangkat. Mungkin hal ini disebabkan banyaknya calon penonton merasa pembagian kelas tidak adil. Posisi VIP ‘bersebelahan’ dengan Tribun 2 (dengan selisih harga tiket hampir 2 juta). Belum lagi posisi duduk mereka sama-sama miring. Tiket Tribun 2 pun hampir mustahil didapat karena didistribusikan terlebih dahulu kepada fanbase tanpa pengumuman kepada calon penonton lain. Dan memang terbukti, Tribun 2 terisi penuh.
Ironisnya, Tribun 1 hanya terisi sekitar 40% nya saja. Hal ini karena harga tiket Tribun 1, dimana posisi duduk berada di paling belakang. sama dengan harga tiket Festival 1, posisi berdiri paling depan.
Pemandangan kosong pun juga terlihat di bagian VIP karena alasan yang sama diatas, dan juga posisi duduk yang justru miring, dirasa kurang menguntungkan oleh penonton.
Namun yang paling membuat saya kecewa adalah, betapa banyaknya sampah yang berhamburan ‘menyambut’ saya saat akan memasuki venue. Memang, mungkin penonton malam itu belum cukup peduli untuk membuang sampah pada tempatnya. Namun ada baiknya, pihak penyelenggara juga menyiapkan wadah untuk menampung sampah sementara para penonton yang sudah mengantri semenjak siang.
Semoga masukan ini bisa menjadi kritik membangun untuk penyelenggaraan konser berikutnya. Dukung terus Indonesia menjadi negara tujuan artis, artis mana pun itu berasal. (tan-Li)
Korean Idols Music Concert Hosted in Indonesia 2011 bagian dua
Tayang: 7-Jun-2011 17:16 WIB
KIMCHI (Korean Idols Music Concert Hosted in Indonesia) 2011 untuk memuaskan sebagian hasrat para fans K-POP di Indonesia. Konser ‘keroyokkan’ ini, diisi oleh 4 group Korea mulai dari yang terbaru hingga yang teranyar, dan 1 penyanyi solo yang juga merupakan salah satu personel group di Korea.
Pengisi acara berikutnya mungkin terasa spesial, karena dia merupakan satu-satunya penyanyi solo yang tampil pada konser kali ini, sehingga membuat MC menahan Girl’s Day di panggung untuk memperkenalkan pengisi acara berikutnya. Atau mungkin karena kepribadiannya dan termasuk kru yang turut datang bersamanya yang begitu ramah menyapa penggemar (beberapa member forum lautanindonesia.com mengaku disapa oleh kru yang datang bersamanya dan dengan antusias memperkenalkan diri sebagai manajernya) sehingga membuat sebagian besar penonton meneriakkan namanya :
PARK JUNG MIN
Berusaha mempertahankan gelar Sexy Charisma, walau dia tidak sedang bernyanyi bersama grupnya SS501, Park Jung Min menggebrak dengan opening yang paling dramatis malam itu. Saat alunan biola di single Not Alone melantun, seorang penari pun memperlihatkan keahliannya ‘mencampur’ tari kontemporer dengan seni bela diri. Sayangnya entah mengapa, Park Jung Min memilih untuk melantunkan singlenya kali ini dengan lipsync.
Memakai kostum panggung jaket berbahan lace berwarna emas , kemeja hitam dan dasi merah, Park Jung Min membawakan lagu keduanya Do You Know yang bernada balad setelah menukarkan micnya dan menyanyikan lagu tersebut secara langsung.
Mungkin karena faktor jam terbang dibanding pengisi acara sebelumnya, atau mungkin juga faktor dia adalah penyanyi solo, atau mungkin juga karena faktor kepribadiannya yang tulus, namun Park Jung Min sangat tahu bagaimana memanjakan penonton. Setiap geraknya dipanggung, dilakukan dengan tulus, pun saat dia menari. Setiap gerak dalam koreonya tampaknya sudah cukup menyatu dengan kepribadiannya, membuat geraknya yang smooth semakin enak untuk dilihat dan penonton melupakan nada-nada yang terkadang off pitch.
Tak lupa menjembatani kendala bahasa dengan mengucapkan “Aku cinta kalian” dari atas panggung, Park termasuk pengisi acara yang memang sudah mempersiapkan untuk memanjakan para penonton dengan celetukkan-celetukkan berbahasa Indonesia. Apalagi suaranya dikala berbicara berkesan empuk nan berat, lebih indah dibanding dia bernyanyi. Sehingga walau banyak diantara penonton yang tak mengerti ucapan Park Jung Min, namun mata mereka tak lepas sambil melemparkan senyum seakan mengerti setiap kata yang diucapkan.
Momen paling ajaib malam itu yang diciptakan Park Jung Min mungkin dikala ia menyanyikan lagu Everyday Is Christmas. Sebagian penonton seakan merasakan ‘kehangatan’ yang ditawarkan oleh suara Park dikala musim dingin melanda, karena Park mungkin menganggap semua penonton yang hadir malam itu adalah pacarnya. Dan ia tak ragu sedikit pun menghampiri penonton untuk sekedar tersenyum, bersalaman, atau pun mengambil souvenir.
Sayangnya lagu terakhir bertempo upbeat berjudul Go Go, yang konon pertama kalinya didengarkan di Indonesia, kembali dibawakan lipsync. Seorang penari wanita berdress merah pun menemani Park menari. Sayangna, nuansa seksi yang dibawakan oleh wanita tersebut, terasa hambar karena rambutnya hanya dikuncir. Mungkinkah dia lupa membawa pengeriting rambut?
SUPER JUNIOR
Penampilan yang paling ditunggu oleh penonton malam itu pastinya Super Junior, karena sebagian besar penonton yang datang adalah E.L.F (Everlasting Friends, sebutan untuk penggemar Super Junior, harap jangan tertukar dengan merk makeup Eyes Lips Face) yang terlihat berusaha menjadikan Istora Senayan lautan biru (dan pemandangan tersebut terlihat di tribun 2).
Penampilan mereka diawali dengan video permintaan maaf dari salah satu anggota, Choi Siwon, tidak bisa hadir karena jadwal konser malam itu berbenturan dengan syuting serial yang paling mengglobalisasi (pemain Korea, bermain di serial Taiwan yang ceritanya diangkat dari komik Jepang berjudul Skip Beat). Untungnya, sesama pemain serial tersebut yang juga anggota Super Junior, Donghae, tetap bisa tampil malam itu.
Menggebrak penonton dengan lagu Bonamana yang dibawakan playback , membuat seluruh istora yang isinya sebagian besar perempuan, berteriak kencang. Namun jangan salah, seorang pria yang berdiri sebelah sayapun ikut berteriak dengan membahana.
Mungkin Super Junior, yang secara umur sudah tidak junior lagi, bukanlah penari terbaik dibanding idol Korea lain. Tapi mereka dapat memadukan kepribadian mereka yang unik setiap personilnya, dengan koreo mereka. Perfomance mereka ini yang membuat Super Junior sangat dicintai dan menjadikan mereka idol papan atas.
Alasan lainnya mereka sangat dicintai? Lee Teuk, sang leader. Kepribadiannya yang ramah dan sopan namun pecicilan, memporak-porandakkan panggung dan membuat penonton menjerit karena kelakuannya. Tak percaya? Pada lagu kedua, No Other, di tengah bridge, Lee Teuk berteriak “Assalamualikum” yang hampir membuat Istora Senayan berguncang. Belum lagi celetukan nakal lainnya seperti “Aku suka Indonesia gadis”
Memperkenalkan 2 anggota lainnya yang tidak ikut menyanyi kedua lagu sebelumnya, Zhoumin dan Henry, para penonton sudah bisa menebak yang akan tampil. Super Junior M, subunit yang fokus untuk menembus pasar musik Cina. Sayangnya, di dua lagu yang Super Junior M sajikan berjudul Perfection dan Super Girl, mereka bawakan dengan lipsync. Apalagi dengan kekurangan soundsystem malam itu, suara mereka saat menyanyi menjadi sember.
Untungnya Super Junior T, sub unit yang beraliran Trot, menyanyikan lagu Rokuko dengan live, dan diselingi tingkah polah jenaka menggoda penonton di tiap sudut.
Penampilan mereka pun ditutup dengan single anyar mereka, Sorry Sorry yang seakan ingin menghaturkan permintaan maaf karena konser akan segera berakhir.
Tapi pesona merkea tak berhenti disana. Super Junior kembali mencuri momen di akhir pertunjukkan saat semua pengisi acara keluar dengan klisenya diiringi lagu Heal The World oleh paduan suara anak-anak. Saat hampir semua pengisi acara keluar panggung, Lee Teuk memanggil sebagian anggota Super Junior, dan menhampiri tiap sudut panggung, dan kemudian membungkuk memberi hormat kepada penonton dan mengucapkan terimakasih.
Dengan demikian selesai sudah pertunjukkan malam itu. Penulis masih berasa belum puas. Dari segi pertunjukkan, penulis kecewa karena beberapa lagu dinyanyikan lipsync. Apalagi sound system malam itu terasa banyak kekurangan untuk acara yang yang dihebohkan akan menjadi besar tersebut.
Beberapa penonton juga mengeluhkan dengan kebijakkan kamera yang tidak konsisten. Saat pemeriksaan tas selagi mengantri di pintu masuk, mereka dijelaskan bahwa kamera pocket diperkenankan dibawa kedalam lokasi konser. Namun saat mencoba menangkap momen dengan kamera mereka, justru pihak keamanan mengambil dan menghapus gambar-gambar yang telah diambil. Yang lebih mengecewakan, kebijakkan tidak boleh mengambil gambar tersebut tidak merata disemua kelas. Karena masih banyak penonton yang bebas mengambil gambar di kelas Festival dan VIP.
Banyaknya kursi yang masih kosong juga sempat membuat dahi berdenyit dan alis sedikit terangkat. Mungkin hal ini disebabkan banyaknya calon penonton merasa pembagian kelas tidak adil. Posisi VIP ‘bersebelahan’ dengan Tribun 2 (dengan selisih harga tiket hampir 2 juta). Belum lagi posisi duduk mereka sama-sama miring. Tiket Tribun 2 pun hampir mustahil didapat karena didistribusikan terlebih dahulu kepada fanbase tanpa pengumuman kepada calon penonton lain. Dan memang terbukti, Tribun 2 terisi penuh.
Ironisnya, Tribun 1 hanya terisi sekitar 40% nya saja. Hal ini karena harga tiket Tribun 1, dimana posisi duduk berada di paling belakang. sama dengan harga tiket Festival 1, posisi berdiri paling depan.
Pemandangan kosong pun juga terlihat di bagian VIP karena alasan yang sama diatas, dan juga posisi duduk yang justru miring, dirasa kurang menguntungkan oleh penonton.
Namun yang paling membuat saya kecewa adalah, betapa banyaknya sampah yang berhamburan ‘menyambut’ saya saat akan memasuki venue. Memang, mungkin penonton malam itu belum cukup peduli untuk membuang sampah pada tempatnya. Namun ada baiknya, pihak penyelenggara juga menyiapkan wadah untuk menampung sampah sementara para penonton yang sudah mengantri semenjak siang.
Semoga masukan ini bisa menjadi kritik membangun untuk penyelenggaraan konser berikutnya. Dukung terus Indonesia menjadi negara tujuan artis, artis mana pun itu berasal. (tan-Li)
Kamis, 23 Juni 2011
Comment
If you have comment, please write, don't shy, kkkkk, or u have an article, please send to my blog, thanks, gamsahamnida, terima kasih, matur nuwun
Kamis, 16 Juni 2011
Vitamin C
Vitamin C
Not to be confused with Citric acid.
This article is about the nutrient. For the chemical compound, see ascorbic acid. For other uses, see Vitamin C (disambiguation).
Vitamin C
Systematic (IUPAC) name
2-oxo-L-threo-hexono-1,4- lactone-2,3-enediol
or
(R)-3,4-dihydroxy-5-((S)- 1,2-dihydroxyethyl)furan-2(5H)-one
Clinical data
Pregnancy cat. A
Legal status general public availability
Routes oral
Pharmacokinetic data
Bioavailability rapid & complete
Protein binding negligible
Half-life varies according to plasma concentration
Excretion renal
Identifiers
CAS number 50-81-7
ATC code A11G
PubChem CID 5785
DrugBank DB00126
ChemSpider 10189562 Yes
UNII PQ6CK8PD0R Yes
KEGG D00018 Yes
ChEMBL CHEMBL196 Yes
Synonyms L-ascorbic acid
Chemical data
Formula C6H8O6
Mol. mass 176.12 g/mole
SMILES eMolecules & PubChem
InChI[show]
Physical data
Density 1.694 g/cm³
Melt. point 190–192 °C (374–378 °F) decomposes
Boiling point 553 °C (1027 °F)
Yes(what is this?) [2]
ascorbic acid
(reduced form)
dehydroascorbic acid
(oxidized form)
Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid or L-ascorbate is an essential nutrient for humans and certain other animal species. In living organisms ascorbate acts as an antioxidant by protecting the body against oxidative stress.[1] It is also a cofactor in at least eight enzymatic reactions including several collagen synthesis reactions that cause the most severe symptoms of scurvy when they are dysfunctional.[2] In animals these reactions are especially important in wound-healing and in preventing bleeding from capillaries.
Ascorbate (an ion of ascorbic acid) is required for a range of essential metabolic reactions in all animals and plants. It is made internally by almost all organisms although notable mammalian group exceptions are most or all of the order chiroptera (bats), guinea pigs, capybaras, and one of the two major primate suborders, the Anthropoidea (Haplorrhini) (tarsiers, monkeys and apes, including human beings). Ascorbic acid is also not synthesized by some species of birds and fish. All species that do not synthesize ascorbate require it in the diet. Deficiency in this vitamin causes the disease scurvy in humans.[3][4][5] It is also widely used as a food additive.[6]
Scurvy has been known since ancient times. People in many parts of the world assumed it was caused by a lack of fresh plant foods. The British Navy started giving sailors lime juice to prevent scurvy in 1795.[7] Ascorbic acid was finally isolated in 1932 and commercially "synthesized" (this included a fermentation step in bacteria) in 1934. The uses and recommended daily intake of vitamin C are matters of ongoing debate, with RDI ranging from 45 to 95 mg/day.
Contents
[hide]
1 Biological significance
1.1 Biosynthesis in different species
1.2 Vitamin C in evolution
1.3 Absorption, transport, and disposal
1.4 Deficiency
2 History of human understanding
2.1 Discovery
3 Physiological function in mammals
3.1 Collagen, carnitine, and tyrosine synthesis, and microsomal metabolism
3.2 Antioxidant
3.3 Pro-oxidant
3.4 Immune system
3.5 Antihistamine
4 Physiologic function in plants
5 Daily requirements
5.1 Government recommended intakes
6 Therapeutic uses
6.1 Vitamin C megadosage
7 Testing for ascorbate levels in the body
8 Adverse effects
8.1 Common side-effects
8.2 Possible side-effects
8.3 Chance of overdose
9 Natural and synthetic dietary sources
9.1 Plant sources
9.2 Plant sources notes
9.3 Animal sources
9.4 Food preparation
9.5 Vitamin C supplements
9.6 Industrial synthesis
9.7 Food fortification
10 Compendial status
11 In wider culture
12 References
13 External links
[edit] Biological significance
Further information: ascorbic acid
Vitamin C is purely the L-enantiomer of ascorbate; the opposite D-enantiomer has no physiological significance. Both forms are mirror images of the same molecular structure. When L-ascorbate, which is a strong reducing agent, carries out its reducing function, it is converted to its oxidized form, L-dehydroascorbate.[2] L-dehydroascorbate can then be reduced back to the active L-ascorbate form in the body by enzymes and glutathione.[8] During this process semidehydroascorbic acid radical is formed. Ascorbate free radical reacts poorly with oxygen, and thus, will not create a superoxide. Instead two semidehydroascorbate radicals will react and form one ascorbate and one dehydroascorbate. With the help of glutathione, dehydroxyascorbate is converted back to ascorbate.[9] The presence of glutathione is crucial since it spares ascorbate and improves antioxidant capacity of blood.[10] Without it dehydroxyascorbate could not convert back to ascorbate.
L-Ascorbate is a weak sugar acid structurally related to glucose that naturally occurs attached either to a hydrogen ion, forming ascorbic acid, or to a metal ion, forming a mineral ascorbate.
[edit] Biosynthesis in different species
Model of a vitamin C molecule. Black is carbon, red is oxygen, and white is hydrogen
The vast majority of animals and plants are able to synthesize their own vitamin C, through a sequence of four enzyme-driven steps, which convert glucose to vitamin C.[2] The glucose needed to produce ascorbate in the liver (in mammals and perching birds) is extracted from glycogen; ascorbate synthesis is a glycogenolysis-dependent process.[11] In reptiles and birds the biosynthesis is carried out in the kidneys.
Among the animals that have lost the ability to synthesise vitamin C are simians and tarsiers, which together make up one of two major primate suborders, the anthropoidea, also called haplorrhini. This group includes humans. The other more primitive primates (strepsirrhini) have the ability to make vitamin C. Synthesis does not occur in a number of species (perhaps all species) in the small rodent family caviidae that includes guinea pigs and capybaras, but occurs in other rodents (rats and mice do not need vitamin C in their diet, for example). A number of species of passerine birds also do not synthesise, but not all of them, and those that don't are not clearly related; there is a theory that the ability was lost separately a number of times in birds.[12] All tested families of bats, including major insect and fruit-eating bat families, cannot synthesise vitamin C. A trace of GLO was detected in only 1 of 34 bat species tested, across the range of 6 families of bats tested.[13]
These animals all lack the L-gulonolactone oxidase (GULO) enzyme, which is required in the last step of vitamin C synthesis, because they have a differing non-synthesising gene for the enzyme (Pseudogene ΨGULO).[14] A similar non-functional gene however, is present in the genome of the guinea pigs and in primates, including humans.[15][16] Some of these species (including humans) are able to make do with the lower levels available from their diets by recycling oxidised vitamin C.[17]
Most simians consume the vitamin in amounts 10 to 20 times higher than that recommended by governments for humans.[18] This discrepancy constitutes much of the basis of the controversy on current recommended dietary allowances. It is countered by arguments that humans are very good at conserving dietary vitamin C, and are able to maintain blood levels of vitamin C comparable with other simians, on a far smaller dietary intake.
An adult goat, a typical example of a vitamin C-producing animal, will manufacture more than 13,000 mg of vitamin C per day in normal health and the biosynthesis will increase "manyfold under stress".[19] Trauma or injury has also been demonstrated to use up large quantities of vitamin C in humans.[20] Some microorganisms such as the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been shown to be able to synthesize vitamin C from simple sugars.[21][22]
[edit] Vitamin C in evolution
Venturi and Venturi[23][24] suggested that the antioxidant action of ascorbic acid developed first in the plant kingdom when, about 500 million years ago (mya), plants began to adapt to antioxidant-mineral-deficient fresh-waters of estuaries. Some biologists suggested that many vertebrates had developed their metabolic adaptive strategies in estuary environment.[25] In this theory, some 400–300 mya, when living plants and animals first began the move from the sea to rivers and land, environmental iodine deficiency was a challenge to the evolution of terrestrial life.[26] In plants, animals and fishes, the terrestrial diet became deficient in many essential antioxidant marine micronutrients, including iodine, selenium, zinc, copper, manganese, iron, etc. Freshwater algae and terrestrial plants, in replacement of marine antioxidants, slowly optimized the production of other endogenous antioxidants such as ascorbic acid, polyphenols, carotenoids, tocopherols etc., some of which became essential “vitamins” in the diet of terrestrial animals (vitamins C, A, E, etc.).
Ascorbic acid or vitamin C is a common enzymatic cofactor in mammals used in the synthesis of collagen. Ascorbate is a powerful reducing agent capable of rapidly scavenging a number of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Freshwater teleost fishes also require dietary vitamin C in their diet or they will get scurvy. The most widely recognized symptoms of vitamin C deficiency in fishes are scoliosis, lordosis and dark skin coloration. Freshwater salmonids also show impaired collagen formation, internal/fin haemorrhage, spinal curvature and increased mortality. If these fishes are housed in seawater with algae and phytoplankton, then vitamin supplementation seems to be less important, it is presumed because of the availability of other, more ancient, antioxidants in natural marine environment.[27]
Some scientists have suggested that loss of the vitamin C biosynthesis pathway may have played a role in the theory of rapid evolutionary changes, leading to hominids and the emergence of human beings.[28][29][30] However, another theory based on the theory of evolution is that the loss of ability to make vitamin C in simians may have occurred much farther back in evolutionary history than the emergence of humans or even apes, since it evidently occurred rather soon after the appearance of the first primates, yet sometime after the split of early primates into its two major suborders haplorrhini (which cannot make vitamin C) and its sister suborder of non-tarsier prosimians, the strepsirrhini ("wet-nosed" primates), which retained the ability to make vitamin C.[31] According to molecular clock dating, these two suborder primate branches parted ways about 63 to 60 Mya[32] Approximately three to five million years later (58 Mya), only a short time afterward from an evolutionary perspective, the infraorder Tarsiiformes, whose only remaining family is that of the tarsier (Tarsiidae), branched off from the other haplorrhines.[33][34] Since tarsiers also cannot make vitamin C, this implies the mutation had already occurred, and thus must have occurred between these two marker points (63 to 58 Mya).
It has been noted that the loss of the ability to synthesize ascorbate strikingly parallels the inability to break down uric acid, also a characteristic of primates. Uric acid and ascorbate are both strong reducing agents. This has led to the suggestion that, in higher primates, uric acid has taken over some of the functions of ascorbate.[35]
[edit] Absorption, transport, and disposal
Ascorbic acid is absorbed in the body by both active transport and simple diffusion. Sodium-Dependent Active Transport—Sodium-Ascorbate Co-Transporters (SVCTs) and Hexose transporters (GLUTs)—are the two transporters required for absorption. SVCT1 and SVCT2 import the reduced form of ascorbate across plasma membrane.[36] GLUT1 and GLUT3 are the two glucose transporters, and transfer only dehydroascorbic acid form of Vitamin C.[37] Although dehydroascorbic acid is absorbed in higher rate than ascorbate, the amount of dehydroascorbic acid found in plasma and tissues under normal conditions is low, as cells rapidly reduce dehydroascorbic acid to ascorbate.[38][39] Thus, SVCTs appear to be the predominant system for vitamin C transport in the body.
SVCT2 is involved in vitamin C transport in almost every tissue,[36] the notable exception being red blood cells, which lose SVCT proteins during maturation.[40] "SVCT2 knockout" animals genetically engineered to lack this functional gene, die shortly after birth,[41] suggesting that SVCT2-mediated vitamin C transport is necessary for life.
With regular intake the absorption rate varies between 70 to 95%. However, the degree of absorption decreases as intake increases. At high intake (12g), fractional human absorption of ascorbic acid may be as low as 16%; at low intake (<20 mg) the absorption rate can reach up to 98%.[42] Ascorbate concentrations over renal re-absorption threshold pass freely into the urine and are excreted. At high dietary doses (corresponding to several hundred mg/day in humans) ascorbate is accumulated in the body until the plasma levels reach the renal resorption threshold, which is about 1.5 mg/dL in men and 1.3 mg/dL in women. Concentrations in the plasma larger than this value (thought to represent body saturation) are rapidly excreted in the urine with a half-life of about 30 minutes. Concentrations less than this threshold amount are actively retained by the kidneys, and the excretion half-life for the remainder of the vitamin C store in the body thus increases greatly, with the half-life lengthening as the body stores are depleted. This half-life rises until it is as long as 83 days by the onset of the first symptoms of scurvy.[43]
Although the body's maximal store of vitamin C is largely determined by the renal threshold for blood, there are many tissues that maintain vitamin C concentrations far higher than in blood. Biological tissues that accumulate over 100 times the level in blood plasma of vitamin C are the adrenal glands, pituitary, thymus, corpus luteum, and retina.[44] Those with 10 to 50 times the concentration present in blood plasma include the brain, spleen, lung, testicle, lymph nodes, liver, thyroid, small intestinal mucosa, leukocytes, pancreas, kidney and salivary glands.
Ascorbic acid can be oxidized (broken down) in the human body by the enzyme L-ascorbate oxidase. Ascorbate that is not directly excreted in the urine as a result of body saturation or destroyed in other body metabolism is oxidized by this enzyme and removed.
[edit] Deficiency
Main article: Scurvy
Scurvy is an avitaminosis resulting from lack of vitamin C, since without this vitamin, the synthesised collagen is too unstable to perform its function. Scurvy leads to the formation of brown spots on the skin, spongy gums, and bleeding from all mucous membranes. The spots are most abundant on the thighs and legs, and a person with the ailment looks pale, feels depressed, and is partially immobilized. In advanced scurvy there are open, suppurating wounds and loss of teeth and, eventually, death. The human body can store only a certain amount of vitamin C,[45] and so the body stores are depleted if fresh supplies are not consumed. The time frame for onset of symptoms of scurvy in unstressed adults switched to a completely vitamin C free diet, however, may range from one month to more than six months, depending on previous loading of vitamin C (see below).
It has been shown that smokers who have diets poor in vitamin C are at a higher risk of lung-borne diseases than those smokers who have higher concentrations of vitamin C in the blood.[46]
Nobel prize winner Linus Pauling and G. C. Willis have asserted that chronic long term low blood levels of vitamin C ("chronic scurvy") is a cause of atherosclerosis.[47]
Western societies generally consume far more than sufficient Vitamin C to prevent scurvy. In 2004, a Canadian Community health survey reported that Canadians of 19 years and above have intakes of vitamin C from food of 133 mg/d for males and 120 mg/d for females;[48] these are higher than the RDA recommendations.
Notable human dietary studies of experimentally-induced scurvy have been conducted on conscientious objectors during WW II in Britain, and on Iowa state prisoner "volunteers" in the late 1960s. These studies both found that all obvious symptoms of scurvy previously induced by an experimental scorbutic diet with extremely low vitamin C content could be completely reversed by additional vitamin C supplementation of only 10 mg a day. In these experiments, there was no clinical difference noted between men given 70 mg vitamin C per day (which produced blood level of vitamin C of about 0.55 mg/dl, about 1/3 of tissue saturation levels), and those given 10 mg per day. Men in the prison study developed the first signs of scurvy about 4 weeks after starting the vitamin C free diet, whereas in the British study, six to eight months were required, possibly due to the pre-loading of this group with a 70 mg/day supplement for six weeks before the scorbutic diet was fed.[49]
Men in both studies on a diet devoid, or nearly devoid, of vitamin C had blood levels of vitamin C too low to be accurately measured when they developed signs of scurvy, and in the Iowa study, at this time were estimated (by labeled vitamin C dilution) to have a body pool of less than 300 mg, with daily turnover of only 2.5 mg/day, implying a instantaneous half-life of 83 days by this time (elimination constant of 4 months).[50]
Moderately higher blood levels of vitamin C measured in healthy persons have been found to be prospectively correlated with decreased risk of cardiovascular disease and ischaemic heart disease, and an increase life expectancy. The same study found an inverse relationship between blood vitamin C levels and cancer risk in men, but not in women. An increase in blood level of 20 micromol/L of vitamin C (about 0.35 mg/dL, and representing a theoretical additional 50 grams of fruit and vegetables per day) was found epidemiologically to reduce the all-cause risk of mortality, four years after measuring it, by about 20%.[51] However, because this was not an intervention study, causation could not be proven, and vitamin C blood levels acting as a proxy marker for other differences between the groups could not be ruled out. However, the four-year long and prospective nature of the study did rule out proxy effect from any vitamin C lowering effects of immediately terminal illness, or near-end-of-life poor health.
Studies with much higher doses of vitamin C, usually between 200 and 6000 mg/day, for the treatment of infections and wounds have shown inconsistent results.[52] Combinations of antioxidants seem to improve wound healing.[53]
[edit] History of human understanding
Text document with red question mark.svg
This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (January 2011)
James Lind, a British Royal Navy surgeon who, in 1747, identified that a quality in fruit prevented the disease of scurvy in what was the first recorded controlled experiment.
The need to include fresh plant food or raw animal flesh in the diet to prevent disease was known from ancient times. Native people living in marginal areas incorporated this into their medicinal lore. For example, spruce needles were used in temperate zones in infusions, or the leaves from species of drought-resistant trees in desert areas. In 1536, the French explorers Jacques Cartier and Daniel Knezevic, exploring the St. Lawrence River, used the local natives' knowledge to save his men who were dying of scurvy. He boiled the needles of the arbor vitae tree to make a tea that was later shown to contain 50 mg of vitamin C per 100 grams.[54][55]
Throughout history, the benefit of plant food to survive long sea voyages has been occasionally recommended by authorities. John Woodall, the first appointed surgeon to the British East India Company, recommended the preventive and curative use of lemon juice in his book, The Surgeon's Mate, in 1617. The Dutch writer, Johann Bachstrom, in 1734, gave the firm opinion that "scurvy is solely owing to a total abstinence from fresh vegetable food, and greens, which is alone the primary cause of the disease."[56]
Scurvy had long been a principal killer of sailors during the long sea voyages.[57] According to Jonathan Lamb, "In 1499, Vasco da Gama lost 116 of his crew of 170; In 1520, Magellan lost 208 out of 230;...all mainly to scurvy."[58]
While the earliest documented case of scurvy was described by Hippocrates around the year 400 BC, the first attempt to give scientific basis for the cause of this disease was by a ship's surgeon in the British Royal Navy, James Lind. Scurvy was common among those with poor access to fresh fruit and vegetables, such as remote, isolated sailors and soldiers. While at sea in May 1747, Lind provided some crew members with two oranges and one lemon per day, in addition to normal rations, while others continued on cider, vinegar, sulfuric acid or seawater, along with their normal rations. In the history of science, this is considered to be the first occurrence of a controlled experiment comparing results on two populations of a factor applied to one group only with all other factors the same. The results conclusively showed that citrus fruits prevented the disease. Lind published his work in 1753 in his Treatise on the Scurvy.[59]
Citrus fruits were one of the first sources of vitamin C available to ships' surgeons.
Lind's work was slow to be noticed, partly because his Treatise was not published until six years after his study, and also because he recommended a lemon juice extract known as rob.[60] Fresh fruit was very expensive to keep on board, whereas boiling it down to juice allowed easy storage but destroyed the vitamin (especially if boiled in copper kettles).[61] Ship captains concluded wrongly that Lind's other suggestions were ineffective because those juices failed to prevent or cure scurvy.
It was 1795 before the British navy adopted lemons or lime as standard issue at sea. Limes were more popular, as they could be found in British West Indian Colonies, unlike lemons, which were not found in British Dominions, and were therefore more expensive. This practice led to the American use of the nickname "limey" to refer to the British. Captain James Cook had previously demonstrated and proven the principle of the advantages of carrying "Sour krout" on board, by taking his crews to the Hawaiian Islands and beyond without losing any of his men to scurvy.[62] For this otherwise unheard of feat, the British Admiralty awarded him a medal.
The name antiscorbutic was used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as general term for those foods known to prevent scurvy, even though there was no understanding of the reason for this. These foods included but were not limited to: lemons, limes, and oranges; sauerkraut, cabbage, malt, and portable soup.[63]
Even before the antiscorbutic substance was identified, there were indications that it was present in amounts sufficient to prevent scurvy, in nearly all fresh (uncooked and uncured) foods, including raw animal-derived foods. In 1928, the Arctic anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson attempted to prove his theory of how the Eskimos are able to avoid scurvy with almost no plant food in their diet, despite the disease's striking European Arctic explorers living on similar high-cooked-meat diets. Stefansson theorised that the natives get their vitamin C from fresh meat that is minimally cooked. Starting in February 1928, for one year he and a colleague lived on an exclusively minimally-cooked meat diet while under medical supervision; they remained healthy. Later studies done after vitamin C could be quantified in mostly-raw traditional food diets of the Yukon, Inuit, and Métís of the Northern Canada, showed that their daily intake of vitamin C averaged between 52 and 62 mg/day, an amount approximately the dietary reference intake (DRI), even at times of the year when little plant-based food were eaten.[64]
[edit] Discovery
Albert Szent-Györgyi, pictured here in 1948, was awarded the 1937 Nobel Prize in Medicine "for his discoveries in connection with the biological combustion processes, with special reference to vitamin C and the catalysis of fumaric acid".
In 1907, the needed biological-assay model to isolate and identify the antiscorbutic factor was discovered. Axel Holst and Theodor Frølich, two Norwegian physicians studying shipboard beriberi contracted aboard ship's crews in the Norwegian Fishing Fleet, wanted a small test mammal to substitute for the pigeons then used in beriberi research. They fed guinea pigs their test diet of grains and flour, which had earlier produced beriberi in their pigeons, and were surprised when classic scurvy resulted instead. This was a serendipitous choice of model. Until that time, scurvy had not been observed in any organism apart from humans, and had been considered an exclusively human disease. (Pigeons, as seed-eating birds, were also later found to make their own vitamin C.) Holst and Frølich found they could cure the disease in guinea pigs with the addition of various fresh foods and extracts. This discovery of a clean animal experimental model for scurvy, made even before the essential idea of vitamins in foods had even been put forward, has been called the single most important piece of vitamin C research.[65]
In 1912, the Polish American biochemist Casimir Funk, while researching beriberi in pigeons, developed the concept of vitamins to refer to the non-mineral micronutrient that are essential to health. The name is a blend of "vital", due to the vital biochemical role they play, and "amines" because Funk thought that all these materials were chemical amines. Although the "e" was dropped after skepticism that all these compounds were amines, the word vitamin remained as a generic name for them. One of the vitamins was thought to be the anti-scorbutic factor in foods discovered by Holst and Frølich. In 1928, this vitamin was referred to as "water-soluble C," although its chemical structure had still not been determined. [66]
From 1928 to 1932, the Hungarian research team of Albert Szent-Györgyi and Joseph L. Svirbely, and American worker Charles Glen King, first identified the anti-scorbutic factor. Szent-Györgyi had isolated the chemical hexuronic acid from animal adrenal glands at the Mayo clinic, and suspected it to be the antiscorbutic factor, but could not prove it without a biological assay. At the same time, for five years, King's laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh had been trying to isolate the antiscorbutic factor in lemon juice, using the original 1907 model of scorbutic guinea pigs, which developed scurvy when not fed fresh foods, but were cured by lemon juice. They had also considered hexuronic acid, but had been put off the trail when a coworker made the explicit (and mistaken) experimental claim that this substance was not the antiscorbutic substance.
Finally, in late 1931, Szent-Györgyi gave Svirbely, a former worker in King's lab who had recently joined Szent-Györgyi's lab, the last of this hexuronic acid, with the suggestion that it might be the anti-scorbutic factor. By the spring of 1932, King's laboratory had proven this, but published the result without giving Szent-Györgyi credit for it, leading to a bitter dispute over priority claims (in reality it had taken a teamwork effort by both groups, since Szent-Györgyi was unwilling to do the difficult and messy animal studies).
Meanwhile, by 1932, Szent-Györgyi had moved to Hungary and his group had discovered that paprika peppers, a common spice in the Hungarian diet, was a rich source of hexuronic acid, the antiscorbutic factor. With a new and plentiful source of the vitamin, Szent-Györgyi sent a sample to noted British sugar chemist Walter Norman Haworth, who chemically identified it and proved the identification by synthesis in 1933. Haworth and Szent-Györgyi now proposed that the substance be called a-scorbic acid, and chemically L-ascorbic acid, in honor of its activity against scurvy.[67] Ascorbic acid turned out not to be an amine, or even to contain any nitrogen.
In part, in recognition of his accomplishment with vitamin C, Szent-Györgyi was awarded the unshared 1937 Nobel Prize in Medicine.[68] Haworth also shared that year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry, in part for his vitamin C synthetic work.
Between 1933 and 1934, not only Haworth and fellow British chemist (later Sir) Edmund Hirst had synthesized vitamin C, but also, independently, the Polish chemist Tadeus Reichstein, succeeded in synthesizing the vitamin in bulk, making it the first vitamin to be artificially produced. The latter process made possible the cheap mass-production of semi-synthetic vitamin C, which was quickly marketed. Only Haworth was awarded the 1937 Nobel Prize in Chemistry in part for this work, but the Reichstein process, a combined chemical and bacterial fermentation sequence still used today to produce vitamin C, retained Reichstein's name.[69][70] In 1934 Hoffmann–La Roche, which bought the Reichstein process patent, became the first pharmaceutical company to mass produce and market synthetic vitamin C, under the brand name of Redoxon.[71]
In 1957, the American J.J. Burns showed that the reason some mammals are susceptible to scurvy is the inability of their liver to produce the active enzyme L-gulonolactone oxidase, which is the last of the chain of four enzymes that synthesize vitamin C.[72][73] American biochemist Irwin Stone was the first to exploit vitamin C for its food preservative properties. He later developed the theory that humans possess a mutated form of the L-gulonolactone oxidase coding gene.[74]
In 2008, researchers at the University of Montpellier discovered that, in humans and other primates, the red blood cells have evolved a mechanism to more efficiently utilize the vitamin C present in the body by recycling oxidized L-dehydroascorbic acid (DHA) back into ascorbic acid, which can be reused by the body. The mechanism was not found to be present in mammals that synthesize their own vitamin C.[17]
[edit] Physiological function in mammals
In humans, vitamin C is essential to a healthy diet as well as being a highly effective antioxidant, acting to lessen oxidative stress; a substrate for ascorbate peroxidase in plants (APX is plant specific enzyme);[5] and an enzyme cofactor for the biosynthesis of many important biochemicals. Vitamin C acts as an electron donor for important enzymes:[75]
[edit] Collagen, carnitine, and tyrosine synthesis, and microsomal metabolism
Ascorbic acid performs numerous physiological functions in the human body. These functions include the synthesis of collagen, carnitine, and neurotransmitters; the synthesis and catabolism of tyrosine; and the metabolism of microsome.[10] During biosynthesis ascorbate acts as a reducing agent, donating electrons and preventing oxidation to keep iron and copper atoms in their reduced states.
Vitamin C acts as an electron donor for eight different enzymes:[75]
Three enzymes participate in collagen hydroxylation.[76][77][78] These reactions add hydroxyl groups to the amino acids proline or lysine in the collagen molecule via prolyl hydroxylase and lysyl hydroxylase, both requiring vitamin C as a cofactor. Hydroxylation allows the collagen molecule to assume its triple helix structure, and thus vitamin C is essential to the development and maintenance of scar tissue, blood vessels, and cartilage.[45]
Two enzymes are necessary for synthesis of carnitine.[79][80] Carnitine is essential for the transport of fatty acids into mitochondria for ATP generation.
The remaining three enzymes have the following functions in common, but have other functions as well:
dopamine beta hydroxylase participates in the biosynthesis of norepinephrine from dopamine.[81][82]
another enzyme adds amide groups to peptide hormones, greatly increasing their stability.[83][84]
one modulates tyrosine metabolism.[85][86]
[edit] Antioxidant
Ascorbic acid is well known for its antioxidant activity, acting as a reducing agent to reverse oxidation in liquids. When there are more free radicals (reactive oxygen species, ROS) in the human body than antioxidants, the condition is called oxidative stress,[87] and has an impact on cardiovascular disease, hypertension, chronic inflammatory diseases, diabetes[88][89][90][91] as well as on critically ill patients and individuals with severe burns.[87] Individuals experiencing oxidative stress have ascorbate blood levels lower than 45 µmol/L, compared to healthy individual who range between 61.4-80 µmol/L.[92]
It is not yet certain whether vitamin C and antioxidants in general prevent oxidative stress-related diseases and promote health. Clinical studies regarding the effects of vitamin C supplementation on lipoproteins and cholesterol have found that vitamin C supplementation does not improve disease markers in the blood.[93][94] Vitamin C may contribute to decreased risk of cardiovascular disease and strokes through a small reduction in systolic blood pressure,[95] and was also found to both increase ascorbic acid levels and reduce levels of resistin serum,[96] another likely determinant of oxidative stress and cardiovascular risk. However, so far there is no consensus that vitamin C intake has an impact on cardiovascular risks in general, and an array of studies found negative results.[97] Meta-analysis of a large number of studies on antioxidants, including vitamin C supplementation, found no relationship between vitamin C and mortality. Thus vitamin C does not appear to help people live longer.[98]
[edit] Pro-oxidant
Ascorbic acid behaves not only as an antioxidant but also as a pro-oxidant.[87] Ascorbic acid has been shown to reduce transition metals, such as cupric ions (Cu2+), to cuprous (Cu1+), and ferric ions (Fe3+) to ferrous (Fe2+) during conversion from ascorbate to dehydroascorbate in vitro.[99] This reaction can generate superoxide and other ROS. However, in the body, free transition elements are unlikely to be present while iron and copper are bound to diverse proteins[87] and the intravenous use of vitamin C does not appear to increase pro-oxidant activity.[100] Thus, ascorbate as a pro-oxidant is unlikely to convert metals to create ROS in vivo. However, vitamin C supplementation has been associated with increased DNA damage in the lymphocytes of healthy volunteers.[101]
[edit] Immune system
Vitamin C is found in high concentrations in immune cells, and is consumed quickly during infections. It is not certain how vitamin C interacts with the immune system, it has been hypothesized to modulate the activities of phagocytes, the production of cytokines and lymphocytees, and the number of cell adhesion molecules in monocytes.[102]
[edit] Antihistamine
Vitamin C is a natural antihistamine. It both prevents histamine release and increases the detoxification of histamine. A 1992 study found that taking 2 grams vitamin C daily lowered blood histamine levels 38 percent in healthy adults in just one week.[103] It has also been noted that low concentrations of serum vitamin C has been correlated with increased serum histamine levels.[citation needed]
[edit] Physiologic function in plants
Ascorbic acid is associated with chloroplasts and apparently plays a role in ameliorating the oxidative stress of photosynthesis. In addition, it has a number of other roles in cell division and protein modification. Plants appear to be able to make ascorbate by at least one other biochemical route that is different from the major route in animals, although precise details remain unknown.[104]
[edit] Daily requirements
The North American Dietary Reference Intake recommends 90 milligrams per day and no more than 2 grams (2,000 milligrams) per day.[105] Other related species sharing the same inability to produce vitamin C and requiring exogenous vitamin C consume 20 to 80 times this reference intake.[106] There is continuing debate within the scientific community over the best dose schedule (the amount and frequency of intake) of vitamin C for maintaining optimal health in humans.[107] It is generally agreed that a balanced diet without supplementation contains enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy in an average healthy adult, while those who are pregnant, smoke tobacco, or are under stress require slightly more.[105]
High doses (thousands of milligrams) may result in diarrhea in healthy adults, as a result of the osmotic water-retaining effect of the unabsorbed portion in the gastrointestinal tract (similar to cathartic osmotic laxatives). Proponents of orthomolecular medicine[108] claim the onset of diarrhea to be an indication of where the body’s true vitamin C requirement lies, though this has not been clinically verified.
United States vitamin C recommendations[105]
Recommended Dietary Allowance (adult male) 90 mg per day
Recommended Dietary Allowance (adult female) 75 mg per day
Tolerable Upper Intake Level (adult male) 2,000 mg per day
Tolerable Upper Intake Level (adult female) 2,000 mg per day
[edit] Government recommended intakes
Recommendations for vitamin C intake have been set by various national agencies:
40 milligrams per day: the United Kingdom's Food Standards Agency[3]
45 milligrams per day: the World Health Organization[109]
90 mg/day (males) and 75 mg/day (females): Health Canada 2007[110]
60–95 milligrams per day: United States' National Academy of Sciences.[105]
The United States defined Tolerable Upper Intake Level for a 25-year-old male is 2,000 milligrams per day.
[edit] Therapeutic uses
Further information: Vitamin C and the common cold
Vitamin C functions as an antioxidant and is necessary for the treatment and prevention of scurvy, though in nearly all cases dietary intake is adequate to prevent deficiency and supplementation is not necessary.[111][112][113][114][115][116] Though vitamin C has been promoted as useful in the treatment of a variety of conditions, most of these uses are poorly supported by the evidence and sometimes contraindicated.[117][118][119][120] Vitamin C may be useful in lowering serum uric acid levels, resulting in a correspondingly lower incidence of gout.[121] Neither prophylactic nor therapeutic use is supported in the prevention or treatment of pneumonia.[122] People with a the highest levels of ascorbic acid in their blood stream seem to be at a significantly reduced risk of having a stroke and low ascorbic acid has been suggested as a way of identifying those at high risk of stroke. [123]
Vitamin C's effect on the common cold has been extensively researched. It has not been shown effective in prevention or treatment of the common cold, except in limited circumstances (specifically, individuals exercising vigorously in cold environments).[124][125][126] Routine vitamin C supplementation does not reduce the incidence or severity of the common cold in the general population, though it may reduce the duration of illness.[124][127][128]
[edit] Vitamin C megadosage
Main article: Vitamin C megadosage
Several individuals and organizations advocate large doses of vitamin C in excess of 10–100 times RDI in the form of oral or intravenous therapy.[129] Large, randomized clinical trials on the effects of high doses on the general population have never taken place. Arguments for megadosage are based on the diets of closely related apes, the hypothesized diet of prehistoric humans, and that most mammals synthesize vitamin C rather than relying on dietary intake. Linus Pauling spent much of his life advocating for the use of megadose vitamin C and believed the established RDA was sufficient to prevent scurvy, but not necessarily the dosage for optimal health.[130] Megadoses have been promoted for the treatment or prevention of various conditions, including cancer,[131][132][133][134] the common cold,[124] and coronary disease.[135] These uses are not supported by clinical evidence, and in some cases harm may result.[124][131][132][133][134][135]
[edit] Testing for ascorbate levels in the body
Simple tests use dichlorophenolindophenol, a redox indicator, to measure the levels of vitamin C in the urine and in serum or blood plasma. However these reflect recent dietary intake rather than the level of vitamin C in body stores.[2] Reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography is used for determining the storage levels of vitamin C within lymphocytes and tissue. It has been observed that while serum or blood plasma levels follow the circadian rhythm or short term dietary changes, those within tissues themselves are more stable and give a better view of the availability of ascorbate within the organism. However, very few hospital laboratories are adequately equipped and trained to carry out such detailed analyses, and require samples to be analyzed in specialized laboratories.[136][137]
[edit] Adverse effects
[edit] Common side-effects
Relatively large doses of ascorbic acid may cause indigestion, particularly when taken on an empty stomach. However, taking vitamin C in the form of sodium ascorbate and calcium ascorbate may minimize this effect.[138] When taken in large doses, ascorbic acid causes diarrhea in healthy subjects. In one trial in 1936, doses up to 6 grams of ascorbic acid were given to 29 infants, 93 children of preschool and school age, and 20 adults for more than 1400 days. With the higher doses, toxic manifestations were observed in five adults and four infants. The signs and symptoms in adults were nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, flushing of the face, headache, fatigue and disturbed sleep. The main toxic reactions in the infants were skin rashes.[139]
[edit] Possible side-effects
As vitamin C enhances iron absorption,[140] iron poisoning can become an issue to people with rare iron overload disorders, such as haemochromatosis. A genetic condition that results in inadequate levels of the enzyme glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) can cause sufferers to develop hemolytic anemia after ingesting specific oxidizing substances, such as very large dosages of vitamin C.[141]
There is a longstanding belief among the mainstream medical community that vitamin C causes kidney stones, which is based on little science.[142] Although recent studies have found a relationship,[143] a clear link between excess ascorbic acid intake and kidney stone formation has not been generally established.[144] Some case reports exist for a link between patients with oxalate deposits and a history of high-dose vitamin C usage.[145]
In a study conducted on rats, during the first month of pregnancy, high doses of vitamin C may suppress the production of progesterone from the corpus luteum.[146] Progesterone, necessary for the maintenance of a pregnancy, is produced by the corpus luteum for the first few weeks, until the placenta is developed enough to produce its own source. By blocking this function of the corpus luteum, high doses of vitamin C (1000+ mg) are theorized to induce an early miscarriage. In a group of spontaneously aborting women at the end of the first trimester, the mean values of vitamin C were significantly higher in the aborting group. However, the authors do state: 'This could not be interpreted as an evidence of casual association.'[147] However, in a previous study of 79 women with threatened, previous spontaneous, or habitual abortion, Javert and Stander (1943) had 91% success with 33 patients who received vitamin C together with bioflavonoids and vitamin K (only three abortions), whereas all of the 46 patients who did not receive the vitamins aborted.[148]
A study in rats and humans suggested that adding Vitamin C supplements to an exercise training program lowered the expected effect of training on VO2Max. Although the results in humans were not statistically significant, this study is often cited as evidence that high doses of Vitamin C have an adverse effect on exercise performance. In rats, it was shown that the additional Vitamin C resulted in lowered mitochondria production.[149] Since rats are able to produce all of their needed Vitamin C, however, it is questionable whether they offer a relevant model of human physiological processes in this regard.
A cancer-causing mechanism of hexavalent chromium may be triggered by vitamin C.[150]
[edit] Chance of overdose
Vitamin C is water soluble, with dietary excesses not absorbed, and excesses in the blood rapidly excreted in the urine. It exhibits remarkably low toxicity. The LD50 (the dose that will kill 50% of a population) in rats is generally accepted to be 11.9 grams per kilogram of body weight when given by forced gavage (orally). The mechanism of death from such doses (1.2% of body weight, or 1.8 lbs for a 150 lb human) is unknown, but may be more mechanical than chemical.[61] The LD50 in humans remains unknown, given lack of any accidental or intentional poisoning death data. However, as with all substances tested in this way, the rat LD50 is taken as a guide to its toxicity in humans.
[edit] Natural and synthetic dietary sources
Rose hips are a particularly rich source of vitamin C
The richest natural sources are fruits and vegetables, and of those, the Kakadu plum and the camu camu fruit contain the highest concentration of the vitamin. It is also present in some cuts of meat, especially liver. Vitamin C is the most widely taken nutritional supplement and is available in a variety of forms, including tablets, drink mixes, crystals in capsules or naked crystals.
Vitamin C is absorbed by the intestines using a sodium-ion dependent channel. It is transported through the intestine via both glucose-sensitive and glucose-insensitive mechanisms. The presence of large quantities of sugar either in the intestines or in the blood can slow absorption.[151]
[edit] Plant sources
While plants are generally a good source of vitamin C, the amount in foods of plant origin depends on the precise variety of the plant, soil condition, climate where it grew, length of time since it was picked, storage conditions, and method of preparation.[152]
The following table is approximate and shows the relative abundance in different raw plant sources.[153][154][155] As some plants were analyzed fresh while others were dried (thus, artifactually increasing concentration of individual constituents like vitamin C), the data are subject to potential variation and difficulties for comparison. The amount is given in milligrams per 100 grams of fruit or vegetable and is a rounded average from multiple authoritative sources:
Plant source Amount
(mg / 100g)
Kakadu plum 3100
Camu Camu 2800
Rose hip 2000
Acerola 1600
Seabuckthorn 695
Jujube 500
Indian gooseberry 445
Baobab 400
Chili pepper, green 244
Guava (common, raw) 228.3[s 1]
Blackcurrant 200
Red pepper 190
Chili pepper, red 144
Parsley 130
Kiwifruit 90
Broccoli 90
Loganberry 80
Redcurrant 80
Brussels sprouts 80
Wolfberry (Goji) 73 †
Lychee 70
Persimmon (native, raw) 66.0[s 2]
Cloudberry 60
Elderberry 60
† average of 3 sources; dried
Plant source Amount
(mg / 100g)
Papaya 60
Strawberry 60
Orange 50
Kale 41
Lemon 40
Melon, cantaloupe 40
Cauliflower 40
Garlic 31
Grapefruit 30
Raspberry 30
Tangerine 30
Mandarin orange 30
Passion fruit 30
Spinach 30
Cabbage raw green 30
Lime 30
Mango 28
Blackberry 21
Potato 20
Melon, honeydew 20
Cranberry 13
Tomato 10
Blueberry 10
Pineapple 10
Pawpaw 10
Plant source Amount
(mg / 100g)
Grape 10
Apricot 10
Plum 10
Watermelon 10
Banana 9
Carrot 9
Avocado 8
Crabapple 8
Persimmon (Japanese, fresh) 7.5[s 3]
Cherry 7
Peach 7
Apple 6
Asparagus 6
Horned melon 5.3[s 4]
Beetroot 5
Chokecherry 5
Pear 4
Lettuce 4
Cucumber 3
Eggplant 2
Raisin 2
Fig 2
Bilberry 1
Medlar 0.3
[edit] Plant sources notes
United States Department of Agriculture Research Service (2010), USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 23, Nutrient Data Laboratory, retrieved 2011
^ USDA Guava, common, raw
^ USDA Persimmons, native, raw
^ USDA Persimmon, japanese, raw
^ USDA Horned melon
[edit] Animal sources
Goats, like almost all animals, make their own vitamin C. An adult goat, weighing approx. 70 kg, will manufacture more than 13,000 mg of vitamin C per day in normal health, and levels manyfold higher when faced with stress.[156][157]
The overwhelming majority of species of animals and plants synthesise their own vitamin C. Therefore, some animal products can be used as sources of dietary vitamin C.
Vitamin C is most present in the liver and least present in the muscle. Since muscle provides the majority of meat consumed in the western human diet, animal products are not a reliable source of the vitamin. Vitamin C is present in mother's milk but, not present in raw cow's milk.[158] All excess vitamin C is disposed of through the urinary system.
The following table shows the relative abundance of vitamin C in various foods of animal origin, given in milligram of vitamin C per 100 grams of food:
Animal Source Amount
(mg / 100g)
Calf liver (raw) 36
Beef liver (raw) 31
Oysters (raw) 30
Cod roe (fried) 26
Pork liver (raw) 23
Lamb brain (boiled) 17
Chicken liver (fried) 13
Animal Source Amount
(mg / 100g)
Lamb liver (fried) 12
Calf adrenals (raw) 11[159]
Lamb heart (roast) 11
Lamb tongue (stewed) 6
Human milk (fresh) 4
Goat milk (fresh) 2
Camel milk (fresh) 5[160]
Cow milk (fresh) 2
[edit] Food preparation
Vitamin C chemically decomposes under certain conditions, many of which may occur during the cooking of food. Vitamin C concentrations in various food substances decrease with time in proportion to the temperature they are stored at[161] and cooking can reduce the Vitamin C content of vegetables by around 60% possibly partly due to increased enzymatic destruction as it may be more significant at sub-boiling temperatures.[162] Longer cooking times also add to this effect, as will copper food vessels, which catalyse the decomposition.[61]
Another cause of vitamin C being lost from food is leaching, where the water-soluble vitamin dissolves into the cooking water, which is later poured away and not consumed. However, vitamin C does not leach in all vegetables at the same rate; research shows broccoli seems to retain more than any other.[163] Research has also shown that fresh-cut fruits do not lose significant nutrients when stored in the refrigerator for a few days.[164]
[edit] Vitamin C supplements
Vitamin C is widely available in the form of tablets and powders. The Redoxon brand, launched in 1934 by Hoffmann-La Roche, was the first mass-produced synthetic vitamin C.
Vitamin C is the most widely taken dietary supplement.[165] It is available in caplets, tablets, capsules, drink mix packets, in multi-vitamin formulations, in multiple antioxidant formulations, and as crystalline powder. Timed release versions are available, as are formulations containing bioflavonoids such as quercetin, hesperidin, and rutin. Tablet and capsule sizes range from 25 mg to 1500 mg. Vitamin C (as ascorbic acid) crystals are typically available in bottles containing 300 g to 1 kg of powder (a 5 ml teaspoon of vitamin C crystals equals 5,000 mg).
[edit] Industrial synthesis
Vitamin C is produced from glucose by two main routes. The Reichstein process, developed in the 1930s, uses a single pre-fermentation followed by a purely chemical route. The modern two-step fermentation process, originally developed in China in the 1960s, uses additional fermentation to replace part of the later chemical stages. Both processes yield approximately 60% vitamin C from the glucose feed.[166]
Research is underway at the Scottish Crop Research Institute in the interest of creating a strain of yeast that can synthesise vitamin C in a single fermentation step from galactose, a technology expected to reduce manufacturing costs considerably.[21]
World production of synthesised vitamin C is currently estimated at approximately 110,000 tonnes annually. Main producers have been BASF/Takeda, DSM, Merck and the China Pharmaceutical Group Ltd. of the People's Republic of China. By 2008 only the DSM plant in Scotland remained operational outside the strong price competition from China.[167] The world price of vitamin C rose sharply in 2008 partly as a result of rises in basic food prices but also in anticipation of a stoppage of the two Chinese plants, situated at Shijiazhuang near Beijing, as part of a general shutdown of polluting industry in China over the period of the Olympic games.[168] Five Chinese manufacturers met in 2010, among them Northeast Pharmaceutical Group and North China Pharmaceutical Group, and agreed to temporarily stop production in order to maintain prices.[169] In 2011 a case was filed in a US court against 4 Chinese companies that they colluded to limit production and fix prices of vitamin C in the United States. According to the plaintiffs, after the agreement was made, spot prices for vitamin C shot to as high as $7 per kilogram in December 2002 from $2.50 per kilogram in December 2001.The companies do not deny the accusation but say in their defense that the Chinese government compelled them to act in this way.[170]
[edit] Food fortification
In 2005, Health Canada evaluated the effect of fortification of foods with ascorbate in the guidance document, Addition of Vitamins and Minerals to Food.[171] Abscorbate was categorized as a ‘Risk Category A nutrients’, meaning it is a nutrient for which an upper limit for intake is set but allows a wide margin of intake that has a narrow margin of safety but non-serious critical adverse effects. Health Canada recommended a minimum of 3 mg or 5% of RDI for the food to claim to be a source of Vitamin C, and maximum fortification of 12 mg (20% of RDI) to claim "Excellent Source".[171]
Not to be confused with Citric acid.
This article is about the nutrient. For the chemical compound, see ascorbic acid. For other uses, see Vitamin C (disambiguation).
Vitamin C
Systematic (IUPAC) name
2-oxo-L-threo-hexono-1,4- lactone-2,3-enediol
or
(R)-3,4-dihydroxy-5-((S)- 1,2-dihydroxyethyl)furan-2(5H)-one
Clinical data
Pregnancy cat. A
Legal status general public availability
Routes oral
Pharmacokinetic data
Bioavailability rapid & complete
Protein binding negligible
Half-life varies according to plasma concentration
Excretion renal
Identifiers
CAS number 50-81-7
ATC code A11G
PubChem CID 5785
DrugBank DB00126
ChemSpider 10189562 Yes
UNII PQ6CK8PD0R Yes
KEGG D00018 Yes
ChEMBL CHEMBL196 Yes
Synonyms L-ascorbic acid
Chemical data
Formula C6H8O6
Mol. mass 176.12 g/mole
SMILES eMolecules & PubChem
InChI[show]
Physical data
Density 1.694 g/cm³
Melt. point 190–192 °C (374–378 °F) decomposes
Boiling point 553 °C (1027 °F)
Yes(what is this?) [2]
ascorbic acid
(reduced form)
dehydroascorbic acid
(oxidized form)
Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid or L-ascorbate is an essential nutrient for humans and certain other animal species. In living organisms ascorbate acts as an antioxidant by protecting the body against oxidative stress.[1] It is also a cofactor in at least eight enzymatic reactions including several collagen synthesis reactions that cause the most severe symptoms of scurvy when they are dysfunctional.[2] In animals these reactions are especially important in wound-healing and in preventing bleeding from capillaries.
Ascorbate (an ion of ascorbic acid) is required for a range of essential metabolic reactions in all animals and plants. It is made internally by almost all organisms although notable mammalian group exceptions are most or all of the order chiroptera (bats), guinea pigs, capybaras, and one of the two major primate suborders, the Anthropoidea (Haplorrhini) (tarsiers, monkeys and apes, including human beings). Ascorbic acid is also not synthesized by some species of birds and fish. All species that do not synthesize ascorbate require it in the diet. Deficiency in this vitamin causes the disease scurvy in humans.[3][4][5] It is also widely used as a food additive.[6]
Scurvy has been known since ancient times. People in many parts of the world assumed it was caused by a lack of fresh plant foods. The British Navy started giving sailors lime juice to prevent scurvy in 1795.[7] Ascorbic acid was finally isolated in 1932 and commercially "synthesized" (this included a fermentation step in bacteria) in 1934. The uses and recommended daily intake of vitamin C are matters of ongoing debate, with RDI ranging from 45 to 95 mg/day.
Contents
[hide]
1 Biological significance
1.1 Biosynthesis in different species
1.2 Vitamin C in evolution
1.3 Absorption, transport, and disposal
1.4 Deficiency
2 History of human understanding
2.1 Discovery
3 Physiological function in mammals
3.1 Collagen, carnitine, and tyrosine synthesis, and microsomal metabolism
3.2 Antioxidant
3.3 Pro-oxidant
3.4 Immune system
3.5 Antihistamine
4 Physiologic function in plants
5 Daily requirements
5.1 Government recommended intakes
6 Therapeutic uses
6.1 Vitamin C megadosage
7 Testing for ascorbate levels in the body
8 Adverse effects
8.1 Common side-effects
8.2 Possible side-effects
8.3 Chance of overdose
9 Natural and synthetic dietary sources
9.1 Plant sources
9.2 Plant sources notes
9.3 Animal sources
9.4 Food preparation
9.5 Vitamin C supplements
9.6 Industrial synthesis
9.7 Food fortification
10 Compendial status
11 In wider culture
12 References
13 External links
[edit] Biological significance
Further information: ascorbic acid
Vitamin C is purely the L-enantiomer of ascorbate; the opposite D-enantiomer has no physiological significance. Both forms are mirror images of the same molecular structure. When L-ascorbate, which is a strong reducing agent, carries out its reducing function, it is converted to its oxidized form, L-dehydroascorbate.[2] L-dehydroascorbate can then be reduced back to the active L-ascorbate form in the body by enzymes and glutathione.[8] During this process semidehydroascorbic acid radical is formed. Ascorbate free radical reacts poorly with oxygen, and thus, will not create a superoxide. Instead two semidehydroascorbate radicals will react and form one ascorbate and one dehydroascorbate. With the help of glutathione, dehydroxyascorbate is converted back to ascorbate.[9] The presence of glutathione is crucial since it spares ascorbate and improves antioxidant capacity of blood.[10] Without it dehydroxyascorbate could not convert back to ascorbate.
L-Ascorbate is a weak sugar acid structurally related to glucose that naturally occurs attached either to a hydrogen ion, forming ascorbic acid, or to a metal ion, forming a mineral ascorbate.
[edit] Biosynthesis in different species
Model of a vitamin C molecule. Black is carbon, red is oxygen, and white is hydrogen
The vast majority of animals and plants are able to synthesize their own vitamin C, through a sequence of four enzyme-driven steps, which convert glucose to vitamin C.[2] The glucose needed to produce ascorbate in the liver (in mammals and perching birds) is extracted from glycogen; ascorbate synthesis is a glycogenolysis-dependent process.[11] In reptiles and birds the biosynthesis is carried out in the kidneys.
Among the animals that have lost the ability to synthesise vitamin C are simians and tarsiers, which together make up one of two major primate suborders, the anthropoidea, also called haplorrhini. This group includes humans. The other more primitive primates (strepsirrhini) have the ability to make vitamin C. Synthesis does not occur in a number of species (perhaps all species) in the small rodent family caviidae that includes guinea pigs and capybaras, but occurs in other rodents (rats and mice do not need vitamin C in their diet, for example). A number of species of passerine birds also do not synthesise, but not all of them, and those that don't are not clearly related; there is a theory that the ability was lost separately a number of times in birds.[12] All tested families of bats, including major insect and fruit-eating bat families, cannot synthesise vitamin C. A trace of GLO was detected in only 1 of 34 bat species tested, across the range of 6 families of bats tested.[13]
These animals all lack the L-gulonolactone oxidase (GULO) enzyme, which is required in the last step of vitamin C synthesis, because they have a differing non-synthesising gene for the enzyme (Pseudogene ΨGULO).[14] A similar non-functional gene however, is present in the genome of the guinea pigs and in primates, including humans.[15][16] Some of these species (including humans) are able to make do with the lower levels available from their diets by recycling oxidised vitamin C.[17]
Most simians consume the vitamin in amounts 10 to 20 times higher than that recommended by governments for humans.[18] This discrepancy constitutes much of the basis of the controversy on current recommended dietary allowances. It is countered by arguments that humans are very good at conserving dietary vitamin C, and are able to maintain blood levels of vitamin C comparable with other simians, on a far smaller dietary intake.
An adult goat, a typical example of a vitamin C-producing animal, will manufacture more than 13,000 mg of vitamin C per day in normal health and the biosynthesis will increase "manyfold under stress".[19] Trauma or injury has also been demonstrated to use up large quantities of vitamin C in humans.[20] Some microorganisms such as the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been shown to be able to synthesize vitamin C from simple sugars.[21][22]
[edit] Vitamin C in evolution
Venturi and Venturi[23][24] suggested that the antioxidant action of ascorbic acid developed first in the plant kingdom when, about 500 million years ago (mya), plants began to adapt to antioxidant-mineral-deficient fresh-waters of estuaries. Some biologists suggested that many vertebrates had developed their metabolic adaptive strategies in estuary environment.[25] In this theory, some 400–300 mya, when living plants and animals first began the move from the sea to rivers and land, environmental iodine deficiency was a challenge to the evolution of terrestrial life.[26] In plants, animals and fishes, the terrestrial diet became deficient in many essential antioxidant marine micronutrients, including iodine, selenium, zinc, copper, manganese, iron, etc. Freshwater algae and terrestrial plants, in replacement of marine antioxidants, slowly optimized the production of other endogenous antioxidants such as ascorbic acid, polyphenols, carotenoids, tocopherols etc., some of which became essential “vitamins” in the diet of terrestrial animals (vitamins C, A, E, etc.).
Ascorbic acid or vitamin C is a common enzymatic cofactor in mammals used in the synthesis of collagen. Ascorbate is a powerful reducing agent capable of rapidly scavenging a number of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Freshwater teleost fishes also require dietary vitamin C in their diet or they will get scurvy. The most widely recognized symptoms of vitamin C deficiency in fishes are scoliosis, lordosis and dark skin coloration. Freshwater salmonids also show impaired collagen formation, internal/fin haemorrhage, spinal curvature and increased mortality. If these fishes are housed in seawater with algae and phytoplankton, then vitamin supplementation seems to be less important, it is presumed because of the availability of other, more ancient, antioxidants in natural marine environment.[27]
Some scientists have suggested that loss of the vitamin C biosynthesis pathway may have played a role in the theory of rapid evolutionary changes, leading to hominids and the emergence of human beings.[28][29][30] However, another theory based on the theory of evolution is that the loss of ability to make vitamin C in simians may have occurred much farther back in evolutionary history than the emergence of humans or even apes, since it evidently occurred rather soon after the appearance of the first primates, yet sometime after the split of early primates into its two major suborders haplorrhini (which cannot make vitamin C) and its sister suborder of non-tarsier prosimians, the strepsirrhini ("wet-nosed" primates), which retained the ability to make vitamin C.[31] According to molecular clock dating, these two suborder primate branches parted ways about 63 to 60 Mya[32] Approximately three to five million years later (58 Mya), only a short time afterward from an evolutionary perspective, the infraorder Tarsiiformes, whose only remaining family is that of the tarsier (Tarsiidae), branched off from the other haplorrhines.[33][34] Since tarsiers also cannot make vitamin C, this implies the mutation had already occurred, and thus must have occurred between these two marker points (63 to 58 Mya).
It has been noted that the loss of the ability to synthesize ascorbate strikingly parallels the inability to break down uric acid, also a characteristic of primates. Uric acid and ascorbate are both strong reducing agents. This has led to the suggestion that, in higher primates, uric acid has taken over some of the functions of ascorbate.[35]
[edit] Absorption, transport, and disposal
Ascorbic acid is absorbed in the body by both active transport and simple diffusion. Sodium-Dependent Active Transport—Sodium-Ascorbate Co-Transporters (SVCTs) and Hexose transporters (GLUTs)—are the two transporters required for absorption. SVCT1 and SVCT2 import the reduced form of ascorbate across plasma membrane.[36] GLUT1 and GLUT3 are the two glucose transporters, and transfer only dehydroascorbic acid form of Vitamin C.[37] Although dehydroascorbic acid is absorbed in higher rate than ascorbate, the amount of dehydroascorbic acid found in plasma and tissues under normal conditions is low, as cells rapidly reduce dehydroascorbic acid to ascorbate.[38][39] Thus, SVCTs appear to be the predominant system for vitamin C transport in the body.
SVCT2 is involved in vitamin C transport in almost every tissue,[36] the notable exception being red blood cells, which lose SVCT proteins during maturation.[40] "SVCT2 knockout" animals genetically engineered to lack this functional gene, die shortly after birth,[41] suggesting that SVCT2-mediated vitamin C transport is necessary for life.
With regular intake the absorption rate varies between 70 to 95%. However, the degree of absorption decreases as intake increases. At high intake (12g), fractional human absorption of ascorbic acid may be as low as 16%; at low intake (<20 mg) the absorption rate can reach up to 98%.[42] Ascorbate concentrations over renal re-absorption threshold pass freely into the urine and are excreted. At high dietary doses (corresponding to several hundred mg/day in humans) ascorbate is accumulated in the body until the plasma levels reach the renal resorption threshold, which is about 1.5 mg/dL in men and 1.3 mg/dL in women. Concentrations in the plasma larger than this value (thought to represent body saturation) are rapidly excreted in the urine with a half-life of about 30 minutes. Concentrations less than this threshold amount are actively retained by the kidneys, and the excretion half-life for the remainder of the vitamin C store in the body thus increases greatly, with the half-life lengthening as the body stores are depleted. This half-life rises until it is as long as 83 days by the onset of the first symptoms of scurvy.[43]
Although the body's maximal store of vitamin C is largely determined by the renal threshold for blood, there are many tissues that maintain vitamin C concentrations far higher than in blood. Biological tissues that accumulate over 100 times the level in blood plasma of vitamin C are the adrenal glands, pituitary, thymus, corpus luteum, and retina.[44] Those with 10 to 50 times the concentration present in blood plasma include the brain, spleen, lung, testicle, lymph nodes, liver, thyroid, small intestinal mucosa, leukocytes, pancreas, kidney and salivary glands.
Ascorbic acid can be oxidized (broken down) in the human body by the enzyme L-ascorbate oxidase. Ascorbate that is not directly excreted in the urine as a result of body saturation or destroyed in other body metabolism is oxidized by this enzyme and removed.
[edit] Deficiency
Main article: Scurvy
Scurvy is an avitaminosis resulting from lack of vitamin C, since without this vitamin, the synthesised collagen is too unstable to perform its function. Scurvy leads to the formation of brown spots on the skin, spongy gums, and bleeding from all mucous membranes. The spots are most abundant on the thighs and legs, and a person with the ailment looks pale, feels depressed, and is partially immobilized. In advanced scurvy there are open, suppurating wounds and loss of teeth and, eventually, death. The human body can store only a certain amount of vitamin C,[45] and so the body stores are depleted if fresh supplies are not consumed. The time frame for onset of symptoms of scurvy in unstressed adults switched to a completely vitamin C free diet, however, may range from one month to more than six months, depending on previous loading of vitamin C (see below).
It has been shown that smokers who have diets poor in vitamin C are at a higher risk of lung-borne diseases than those smokers who have higher concentrations of vitamin C in the blood.[46]
Nobel prize winner Linus Pauling and G. C. Willis have asserted that chronic long term low blood levels of vitamin C ("chronic scurvy") is a cause of atherosclerosis.[47]
Western societies generally consume far more than sufficient Vitamin C to prevent scurvy. In 2004, a Canadian Community health survey reported that Canadians of 19 years and above have intakes of vitamin C from food of 133 mg/d for males and 120 mg/d for females;[48] these are higher than the RDA recommendations.
Notable human dietary studies of experimentally-induced scurvy have been conducted on conscientious objectors during WW II in Britain, and on Iowa state prisoner "volunteers" in the late 1960s. These studies both found that all obvious symptoms of scurvy previously induced by an experimental scorbutic diet with extremely low vitamin C content could be completely reversed by additional vitamin C supplementation of only 10 mg a day. In these experiments, there was no clinical difference noted between men given 70 mg vitamin C per day (which produced blood level of vitamin C of about 0.55 mg/dl, about 1/3 of tissue saturation levels), and those given 10 mg per day. Men in the prison study developed the first signs of scurvy about 4 weeks after starting the vitamin C free diet, whereas in the British study, six to eight months were required, possibly due to the pre-loading of this group with a 70 mg/day supplement for six weeks before the scorbutic diet was fed.[49]
Men in both studies on a diet devoid, or nearly devoid, of vitamin C had blood levels of vitamin C too low to be accurately measured when they developed signs of scurvy, and in the Iowa study, at this time were estimated (by labeled vitamin C dilution) to have a body pool of less than 300 mg, with daily turnover of only 2.5 mg/day, implying a instantaneous half-life of 83 days by this time (elimination constant of 4 months).[50]
Moderately higher blood levels of vitamin C measured in healthy persons have been found to be prospectively correlated with decreased risk of cardiovascular disease and ischaemic heart disease, and an increase life expectancy. The same study found an inverse relationship between blood vitamin C levels and cancer risk in men, but not in women. An increase in blood level of 20 micromol/L of vitamin C (about 0.35 mg/dL, and representing a theoretical additional 50 grams of fruit and vegetables per day) was found epidemiologically to reduce the all-cause risk of mortality, four years after measuring it, by about 20%.[51] However, because this was not an intervention study, causation could not be proven, and vitamin C blood levels acting as a proxy marker for other differences between the groups could not be ruled out. However, the four-year long and prospective nature of the study did rule out proxy effect from any vitamin C lowering effects of immediately terminal illness, or near-end-of-life poor health.
Studies with much higher doses of vitamin C, usually between 200 and 6000 mg/day, for the treatment of infections and wounds have shown inconsistent results.[52] Combinations of antioxidants seem to improve wound healing.[53]
[edit] History of human understanding
Text document with red question mark.svg
This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (January 2011)
James Lind, a British Royal Navy surgeon who, in 1747, identified that a quality in fruit prevented the disease of scurvy in what was the first recorded controlled experiment.
The need to include fresh plant food or raw animal flesh in the diet to prevent disease was known from ancient times. Native people living in marginal areas incorporated this into their medicinal lore. For example, spruce needles were used in temperate zones in infusions, or the leaves from species of drought-resistant trees in desert areas. In 1536, the French explorers Jacques Cartier and Daniel Knezevic, exploring the St. Lawrence River, used the local natives' knowledge to save his men who were dying of scurvy. He boiled the needles of the arbor vitae tree to make a tea that was later shown to contain 50 mg of vitamin C per 100 grams.[54][55]
Throughout history, the benefit of plant food to survive long sea voyages has been occasionally recommended by authorities. John Woodall, the first appointed surgeon to the British East India Company, recommended the preventive and curative use of lemon juice in his book, The Surgeon's Mate, in 1617. The Dutch writer, Johann Bachstrom, in 1734, gave the firm opinion that "scurvy is solely owing to a total abstinence from fresh vegetable food, and greens, which is alone the primary cause of the disease."[56]
Scurvy had long been a principal killer of sailors during the long sea voyages.[57] According to Jonathan Lamb, "In 1499, Vasco da Gama lost 116 of his crew of 170; In 1520, Magellan lost 208 out of 230;...all mainly to scurvy."[58]
While the earliest documented case of scurvy was described by Hippocrates around the year 400 BC, the first attempt to give scientific basis for the cause of this disease was by a ship's surgeon in the British Royal Navy, James Lind. Scurvy was common among those with poor access to fresh fruit and vegetables, such as remote, isolated sailors and soldiers. While at sea in May 1747, Lind provided some crew members with two oranges and one lemon per day, in addition to normal rations, while others continued on cider, vinegar, sulfuric acid or seawater, along with their normal rations. In the history of science, this is considered to be the first occurrence of a controlled experiment comparing results on two populations of a factor applied to one group only with all other factors the same. The results conclusively showed that citrus fruits prevented the disease. Lind published his work in 1753 in his Treatise on the Scurvy.[59]
Citrus fruits were one of the first sources of vitamin C available to ships' surgeons.
Lind's work was slow to be noticed, partly because his Treatise was not published until six years after his study, and also because he recommended a lemon juice extract known as rob.[60] Fresh fruit was very expensive to keep on board, whereas boiling it down to juice allowed easy storage but destroyed the vitamin (especially if boiled in copper kettles).[61] Ship captains concluded wrongly that Lind's other suggestions were ineffective because those juices failed to prevent or cure scurvy.
It was 1795 before the British navy adopted lemons or lime as standard issue at sea. Limes were more popular, as they could be found in British West Indian Colonies, unlike lemons, which were not found in British Dominions, and were therefore more expensive. This practice led to the American use of the nickname "limey" to refer to the British. Captain James Cook had previously demonstrated and proven the principle of the advantages of carrying "Sour krout" on board, by taking his crews to the Hawaiian Islands and beyond without losing any of his men to scurvy.[62] For this otherwise unheard of feat, the British Admiralty awarded him a medal.
The name antiscorbutic was used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as general term for those foods known to prevent scurvy, even though there was no understanding of the reason for this. These foods included but were not limited to: lemons, limes, and oranges; sauerkraut, cabbage, malt, and portable soup.[63]
Even before the antiscorbutic substance was identified, there were indications that it was present in amounts sufficient to prevent scurvy, in nearly all fresh (uncooked and uncured) foods, including raw animal-derived foods. In 1928, the Arctic anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson attempted to prove his theory of how the Eskimos are able to avoid scurvy with almost no plant food in their diet, despite the disease's striking European Arctic explorers living on similar high-cooked-meat diets. Stefansson theorised that the natives get their vitamin C from fresh meat that is minimally cooked. Starting in February 1928, for one year he and a colleague lived on an exclusively minimally-cooked meat diet while under medical supervision; they remained healthy. Later studies done after vitamin C could be quantified in mostly-raw traditional food diets of the Yukon, Inuit, and Métís of the Northern Canada, showed that their daily intake of vitamin C averaged between 52 and 62 mg/day, an amount approximately the dietary reference intake (DRI), even at times of the year when little plant-based food were eaten.[64]
[edit] Discovery
Albert Szent-Györgyi, pictured here in 1948, was awarded the 1937 Nobel Prize in Medicine "for his discoveries in connection with the biological combustion processes, with special reference to vitamin C and the catalysis of fumaric acid".
In 1907, the needed biological-assay model to isolate and identify the antiscorbutic factor was discovered. Axel Holst and Theodor Frølich, two Norwegian physicians studying shipboard beriberi contracted aboard ship's crews in the Norwegian Fishing Fleet, wanted a small test mammal to substitute for the pigeons then used in beriberi research. They fed guinea pigs their test diet of grains and flour, which had earlier produced beriberi in their pigeons, and were surprised when classic scurvy resulted instead. This was a serendipitous choice of model. Until that time, scurvy had not been observed in any organism apart from humans, and had been considered an exclusively human disease. (Pigeons, as seed-eating birds, were also later found to make their own vitamin C.) Holst and Frølich found they could cure the disease in guinea pigs with the addition of various fresh foods and extracts. This discovery of a clean animal experimental model for scurvy, made even before the essential idea of vitamins in foods had even been put forward, has been called the single most important piece of vitamin C research.[65]
In 1912, the Polish American biochemist Casimir Funk, while researching beriberi in pigeons, developed the concept of vitamins to refer to the non-mineral micronutrient that are essential to health. The name is a blend of "vital", due to the vital biochemical role they play, and "amines" because Funk thought that all these materials were chemical amines. Although the "e" was dropped after skepticism that all these compounds were amines, the word vitamin remained as a generic name for them. One of the vitamins was thought to be the anti-scorbutic factor in foods discovered by Holst and Frølich. In 1928, this vitamin was referred to as "water-soluble C," although its chemical structure had still not been determined. [66]
From 1928 to 1932, the Hungarian research team of Albert Szent-Györgyi and Joseph L. Svirbely, and American worker Charles Glen King, first identified the anti-scorbutic factor. Szent-Györgyi had isolated the chemical hexuronic acid from animal adrenal glands at the Mayo clinic, and suspected it to be the antiscorbutic factor, but could not prove it without a biological assay. At the same time, for five years, King's laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh had been trying to isolate the antiscorbutic factor in lemon juice, using the original 1907 model of scorbutic guinea pigs, which developed scurvy when not fed fresh foods, but were cured by lemon juice. They had also considered hexuronic acid, but had been put off the trail when a coworker made the explicit (and mistaken) experimental claim that this substance was not the antiscorbutic substance.
Finally, in late 1931, Szent-Györgyi gave Svirbely, a former worker in King's lab who had recently joined Szent-Györgyi's lab, the last of this hexuronic acid, with the suggestion that it might be the anti-scorbutic factor. By the spring of 1932, King's laboratory had proven this, but published the result without giving Szent-Györgyi credit for it, leading to a bitter dispute over priority claims (in reality it had taken a teamwork effort by both groups, since Szent-Györgyi was unwilling to do the difficult and messy animal studies).
Meanwhile, by 1932, Szent-Györgyi had moved to Hungary and his group had discovered that paprika peppers, a common spice in the Hungarian diet, was a rich source of hexuronic acid, the antiscorbutic factor. With a new and plentiful source of the vitamin, Szent-Györgyi sent a sample to noted British sugar chemist Walter Norman Haworth, who chemically identified it and proved the identification by synthesis in 1933. Haworth and Szent-Györgyi now proposed that the substance be called a-scorbic acid, and chemically L-ascorbic acid, in honor of its activity against scurvy.[67] Ascorbic acid turned out not to be an amine, or even to contain any nitrogen.
In part, in recognition of his accomplishment with vitamin C, Szent-Györgyi was awarded the unshared 1937 Nobel Prize in Medicine.[68] Haworth also shared that year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry, in part for his vitamin C synthetic work.
Between 1933 and 1934, not only Haworth and fellow British chemist (later Sir) Edmund Hirst had synthesized vitamin C, but also, independently, the Polish chemist Tadeus Reichstein, succeeded in synthesizing the vitamin in bulk, making it the first vitamin to be artificially produced. The latter process made possible the cheap mass-production of semi-synthetic vitamin C, which was quickly marketed. Only Haworth was awarded the 1937 Nobel Prize in Chemistry in part for this work, but the Reichstein process, a combined chemical and bacterial fermentation sequence still used today to produce vitamin C, retained Reichstein's name.[69][70] In 1934 Hoffmann–La Roche, which bought the Reichstein process patent, became the first pharmaceutical company to mass produce and market synthetic vitamin C, under the brand name of Redoxon.[71]
In 1957, the American J.J. Burns showed that the reason some mammals are susceptible to scurvy is the inability of their liver to produce the active enzyme L-gulonolactone oxidase, which is the last of the chain of four enzymes that synthesize vitamin C.[72][73] American biochemist Irwin Stone was the first to exploit vitamin C for its food preservative properties. He later developed the theory that humans possess a mutated form of the L-gulonolactone oxidase coding gene.[74]
In 2008, researchers at the University of Montpellier discovered that, in humans and other primates, the red blood cells have evolved a mechanism to more efficiently utilize the vitamin C present in the body by recycling oxidized L-dehydroascorbic acid (DHA) back into ascorbic acid, which can be reused by the body. The mechanism was not found to be present in mammals that synthesize their own vitamin C.[17]
[edit] Physiological function in mammals
In humans, vitamin C is essential to a healthy diet as well as being a highly effective antioxidant, acting to lessen oxidative stress; a substrate for ascorbate peroxidase in plants (APX is plant specific enzyme);[5] and an enzyme cofactor for the biosynthesis of many important biochemicals. Vitamin C acts as an electron donor for important enzymes:[75]
[edit] Collagen, carnitine, and tyrosine synthesis, and microsomal metabolism
Ascorbic acid performs numerous physiological functions in the human body. These functions include the synthesis of collagen, carnitine, and neurotransmitters; the synthesis and catabolism of tyrosine; and the metabolism of microsome.[10] During biosynthesis ascorbate acts as a reducing agent, donating electrons and preventing oxidation to keep iron and copper atoms in their reduced states.
Vitamin C acts as an electron donor for eight different enzymes:[75]
Three enzymes participate in collagen hydroxylation.[76][77][78] These reactions add hydroxyl groups to the amino acids proline or lysine in the collagen molecule via prolyl hydroxylase and lysyl hydroxylase, both requiring vitamin C as a cofactor. Hydroxylation allows the collagen molecule to assume its triple helix structure, and thus vitamin C is essential to the development and maintenance of scar tissue, blood vessels, and cartilage.[45]
Two enzymes are necessary for synthesis of carnitine.[79][80] Carnitine is essential for the transport of fatty acids into mitochondria for ATP generation.
The remaining three enzymes have the following functions in common, but have other functions as well:
dopamine beta hydroxylase participates in the biosynthesis of norepinephrine from dopamine.[81][82]
another enzyme adds amide groups to peptide hormones, greatly increasing their stability.[83][84]
one modulates tyrosine metabolism.[85][86]
[edit] Antioxidant
Ascorbic acid is well known for its antioxidant activity, acting as a reducing agent to reverse oxidation in liquids. When there are more free radicals (reactive oxygen species, ROS) in the human body than antioxidants, the condition is called oxidative stress,[87] and has an impact on cardiovascular disease, hypertension, chronic inflammatory diseases, diabetes[88][89][90][91] as well as on critically ill patients and individuals with severe burns.[87] Individuals experiencing oxidative stress have ascorbate blood levels lower than 45 µmol/L, compared to healthy individual who range between 61.4-80 µmol/L.[92]
It is not yet certain whether vitamin C and antioxidants in general prevent oxidative stress-related diseases and promote health. Clinical studies regarding the effects of vitamin C supplementation on lipoproteins and cholesterol have found that vitamin C supplementation does not improve disease markers in the blood.[93][94] Vitamin C may contribute to decreased risk of cardiovascular disease and strokes through a small reduction in systolic blood pressure,[95] and was also found to both increase ascorbic acid levels and reduce levels of resistin serum,[96] another likely determinant of oxidative stress and cardiovascular risk. However, so far there is no consensus that vitamin C intake has an impact on cardiovascular risks in general, and an array of studies found negative results.[97] Meta-analysis of a large number of studies on antioxidants, including vitamin C supplementation, found no relationship between vitamin C and mortality. Thus vitamin C does not appear to help people live longer.[98]
[edit] Pro-oxidant
Ascorbic acid behaves not only as an antioxidant but also as a pro-oxidant.[87] Ascorbic acid has been shown to reduce transition metals, such as cupric ions (Cu2+), to cuprous (Cu1+), and ferric ions (Fe3+) to ferrous (Fe2+) during conversion from ascorbate to dehydroascorbate in vitro.[99] This reaction can generate superoxide and other ROS. However, in the body, free transition elements are unlikely to be present while iron and copper are bound to diverse proteins[87] and the intravenous use of vitamin C does not appear to increase pro-oxidant activity.[100] Thus, ascorbate as a pro-oxidant is unlikely to convert metals to create ROS in vivo. However, vitamin C supplementation has been associated with increased DNA damage in the lymphocytes of healthy volunteers.[101]
[edit] Immune system
Vitamin C is found in high concentrations in immune cells, and is consumed quickly during infections. It is not certain how vitamin C interacts with the immune system, it has been hypothesized to modulate the activities of phagocytes, the production of cytokines and lymphocytees, and the number of cell adhesion molecules in monocytes.[102]
[edit] Antihistamine
Vitamin C is a natural antihistamine. It both prevents histamine release and increases the detoxification of histamine. A 1992 study found that taking 2 grams vitamin C daily lowered blood histamine levels 38 percent in healthy adults in just one week.[103] It has also been noted that low concentrations of serum vitamin C has been correlated with increased serum histamine levels.[citation needed]
[edit] Physiologic function in plants
Ascorbic acid is associated with chloroplasts and apparently plays a role in ameliorating the oxidative stress of photosynthesis. In addition, it has a number of other roles in cell division and protein modification. Plants appear to be able to make ascorbate by at least one other biochemical route that is different from the major route in animals, although precise details remain unknown.[104]
[edit] Daily requirements
The North American Dietary Reference Intake recommends 90 milligrams per day and no more than 2 grams (2,000 milligrams) per day.[105] Other related species sharing the same inability to produce vitamin C and requiring exogenous vitamin C consume 20 to 80 times this reference intake.[106] There is continuing debate within the scientific community over the best dose schedule (the amount and frequency of intake) of vitamin C for maintaining optimal health in humans.[107] It is generally agreed that a balanced diet without supplementation contains enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy in an average healthy adult, while those who are pregnant, smoke tobacco, or are under stress require slightly more.[105]
High doses (thousands of milligrams) may result in diarrhea in healthy adults, as a result of the osmotic water-retaining effect of the unabsorbed portion in the gastrointestinal tract (similar to cathartic osmotic laxatives). Proponents of orthomolecular medicine[108] claim the onset of diarrhea to be an indication of where the body’s true vitamin C requirement lies, though this has not been clinically verified.
United States vitamin C recommendations[105]
Recommended Dietary Allowance (adult male) 90 mg per day
Recommended Dietary Allowance (adult female) 75 mg per day
Tolerable Upper Intake Level (adult male) 2,000 mg per day
Tolerable Upper Intake Level (adult female) 2,000 mg per day
[edit] Government recommended intakes
Recommendations for vitamin C intake have been set by various national agencies:
40 milligrams per day: the United Kingdom's Food Standards Agency[3]
45 milligrams per day: the World Health Organization[109]
90 mg/day (males) and 75 mg/day (females): Health Canada 2007[110]
60–95 milligrams per day: United States' National Academy of Sciences.[105]
The United States defined Tolerable Upper Intake Level for a 25-year-old male is 2,000 milligrams per day.
[edit] Therapeutic uses
Further information: Vitamin C and the common cold
Vitamin C functions as an antioxidant and is necessary for the treatment and prevention of scurvy, though in nearly all cases dietary intake is adequate to prevent deficiency and supplementation is not necessary.[111][112][113][114][115][116] Though vitamin C has been promoted as useful in the treatment of a variety of conditions, most of these uses are poorly supported by the evidence and sometimes contraindicated.[117][118][119][120] Vitamin C may be useful in lowering serum uric acid levels, resulting in a correspondingly lower incidence of gout.[121] Neither prophylactic nor therapeutic use is supported in the prevention or treatment of pneumonia.[122] People with a the highest levels of ascorbic acid in their blood stream seem to be at a significantly reduced risk of having a stroke and low ascorbic acid has been suggested as a way of identifying those at high risk of stroke. [123]
Vitamin C's effect on the common cold has been extensively researched. It has not been shown effective in prevention or treatment of the common cold, except in limited circumstances (specifically, individuals exercising vigorously in cold environments).[124][125][126] Routine vitamin C supplementation does not reduce the incidence or severity of the common cold in the general population, though it may reduce the duration of illness.[124][127][128]
[edit] Vitamin C megadosage
Main article: Vitamin C megadosage
Several individuals and organizations advocate large doses of vitamin C in excess of 10–100 times RDI in the form of oral or intravenous therapy.[129] Large, randomized clinical trials on the effects of high doses on the general population have never taken place. Arguments for megadosage are based on the diets of closely related apes, the hypothesized diet of prehistoric humans, and that most mammals synthesize vitamin C rather than relying on dietary intake. Linus Pauling spent much of his life advocating for the use of megadose vitamin C and believed the established RDA was sufficient to prevent scurvy, but not necessarily the dosage for optimal health.[130] Megadoses have been promoted for the treatment or prevention of various conditions, including cancer,[131][132][133][134] the common cold,[124] and coronary disease.[135] These uses are not supported by clinical evidence, and in some cases harm may result.[124][131][132][133][134][135]
[edit] Testing for ascorbate levels in the body
Simple tests use dichlorophenolindophenol, a redox indicator, to measure the levels of vitamin C in the urine and in serum or blood plasma. However these reflect recent dietary intake rather than the level of vitamin C in body stores.[2] Reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography is used for determining the storage levels of vitamin C within lymphocytes and tissue. It has been observed that while serum or blood plasma levels follow the circadian rhythm or short term dietary changes, those within tissues themselves are more stable and give a better view of the availability of ascorbate within the organism. However, very few hospital laboratories are adequately equipped and trained to carry out such detailed analyses, and require samples to be analyzed in specialized laboratories.[136][137]
[edit] Adverse effects
[edit] Common side-effects
Relatively large doses of ascorbic acid may cause indigestion, particularly when taken on an empty stomach. However, taking vitamin C in the form of sodium ascorbate and calcium ascorbate may minimize this effect.[138] When taken in large doses, ascorbic acid causes diarrhea in healthy subjects. In one trial in 1936, doses up to 6 grams of ascorbic acid were given to 29 infants, 93 children of preschool and school age, and 20 adults for more than 1400 days. With the higher doses, toxic manifestations were observed in five adults and four infants. The signs and symptoms in adults were nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, flushing of the face, headache, fatigue and disturbed sleep. The main toxic reactions in the infants were skin rashes.[139]
[edit] Possible side-effects
As vitamin C enhances iron absorption,[140] iron poisoning can become an issue to people with rare iron overload disorders, such as haemochromatosis. A genetic condition that results in inadequate levels of the enzyme glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) can cause sufferers to develop hemolytic anemia after ingesting specific oxidizing substances, such as very large dosages of vitamin C.[141]
There is a longstanding belief among the mainstream medical community that vitamin C causes kidney stones, which is based on little science.[142] Although recent studies have found a relationship,[143] a clear link between excess ascorbic acid intake and kidney stone formation has not been generally established.[144] Some case reports exist for a link between patients with oxalate deposits and a history of high-dose vitamin C usage.[145]
In a study conducted on rats, during the first month of pregnancy, high doses of vitamin C may suppress the production of progesterone from the corpus luteum.[146] Progesterone, necessary for the maintenance of a pregnancy, is produced by the corpus luteum for the first few weeks, until the placenta is developed enough to produce its own source. By blocking this function of the corpus luteum, high doses of vitamin C (1000+ mg) are theorized to induce an early miscarriage. In a group of spontaneously aborting women at the end of the first trimester, the mean values of vitamin C were significantly higher in the aborting group. However, the authors do state: 'This could not be interpreted as an evidence of casual association.'[147] However, in a previous study of 79 women with threatened, previous spontaneous, or habitual abortion, Javert and Stander (1943) had 91% success with 33 patients who received vitamin C together with bioflavonoids and vitamin K (only three abortions), whereas all of the 46 patients who did not receive the vitamins aborted.[148]
A study in rats and humans suggested that adding Vitamin C supplements to an exercise training program lowered the expected effect of training on VO2Max. Although the results in humans were not statistically significant, this study is often cited as evidence that high doses of Vitamin C have an adverse effect on exercise performance. In rats, it was shown that the additional Vitamin C resulted in lowered mitochondria production.[149] Since rats are able to produce all of their needed Vitamin C, however, it is questionable whether they offer a relevant model of human physiological processes in this regard.
A cancer-causing mechanism of hexavalent chromium may be triggered by vitamin C.[150]
[edit] Chance of overdose
Vitamin C is water soluble, with dietary excesses not absorbed, and excesses in the blood rapidly excreted in the urine. It exhibits remarkably low toxicity. The LD50 (the dose that will kill 50% of a population) in rats is generally accepted to be 11.9 grams per kilogram of body weight when given by forced gavage (orally). The mechanism of death from such doses (1.2% of body weight, or 1.8 lbs for a 150 lb human) is unknown, but may be more mechanical than chemical.[61] The LD50 in humans remains unknown, given lack of any accidental or intentional poisoning death data. However, as with all substances tested in this way, the rat LD50 is taken as a guide to its toxicity in humans.
[edit] Natural and synthetic dietary sources
Rose hips are a particularly rich source of vitamin C
The richest natural sources are fruits and vegetables, and of those, the Kakadu plum and the camu camu fruit contain the highest concentration of the vitamin. It is also present in some cuts of meat, especially liver. Vitamin C is the most widely taken nutritional supplement and is available in a variety of forms, including tablets, drink mixes, crystals in capsules or naked crystals.
Vitamin C is absorbed by the intestines using a sodium-ion dependent channel. It is transported through the intestine via both glucose-sensitive and glucose-insensitive mechanisms. The presence of large quantities of sugar either in the intestines or in the blood can slow absorption.[151]
[edit] Plant sources
While plants are generally a good source of vitamin C, the amount in foods of plant origin depends on the precise variety of the plant, soil condition, climate where it grew, length of time since it was picked, storage conditions, and method of preparation.[152]
The following table is approximate and shows the relative abundance in different raw plant sources.[153][154][155] As some plants were analyzed fresh while others were dried (thus, artifactually increasing concentration of individual constituents like vitamin C), the data are subject to potential variation and difficulties for comparison. The amount is given in milligrams per 100 grams of fruit or vegetable and is a rounded average from multiple authoritative sources:
Plant source Amount
(mg / 100g)
Kakadu plum 3100
Camu Camu 2800
Rose hip 2000
Acerola 1600
Seabuckthorn 695
Jujube 500
Indian gooseberry 445
Baobab 400
Chili pepper, green 244
Guava (common, raw) 228.3[s 1]
Blackcurrant 200
Red pepper 190
Chili pepper, red 144
Parsley 130
Kiwifruit 90
Broccoli 90
Loganberry 80
Redcurrant 80
Brussels sprouts 80
Wolfberry (Goji) 73 †
Lychee 70
Persimmon (native, raw) 66.0[s 2]
Cloudberry 60
Elderberry 60
† average of 3 sources; dried
Plant source Amount
(mg / 100g)
Papaya 60
Strawberry 60
Orange 50
Kale 41
Lemon 40
Melon, cantaloupe 40
Cauliflower 40
Garlic 31
Grapefruit 30
Raspberry 30
Tangerine 30
Mandarin orange 30
Passion fruit 30
Spinach 30
Cabbage raw green 30
Lime 30
Mango 28
Blackberry 21
Potato 20
Melon, honeydew 20
Cranberry 13
Tomato 10
Blueberry 10
Pineapple 10
Pawpaw 10
Plant source Amount
(mg / 100g)
Grape 10
Apricot 10
Plum 10
Watermelon 10
Banana 9
Carrot 9
Avocado 8
Crabapple 8
Persimmon (Japanese, fresh) 7.5[s 3]
Cherry 7
Peach 7
Apple 6
Asparagus 6
Horned melon 5.3[s 4]
Beetroot 5
Chokecherry 5
Pear 4
Lettuce 4
Cucumber 3
Eggplant 2
Raisin 2
Fig 2
Bilberry 1
Medlar 0.3
[edit] Plant sources notes
United States Department of Agriculture Research Service (2010), USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 23, Nutrient Data Laboratory, retrieved 2011
^ USDA Guava, common, raw
^ USDA Persimmons, native, raw
^ USDA Persimmon, japanese, raw
^ USDA Horned melon
[edit] Animal sources
Goats, like almost all animals, make their own vitamin C. An adult goat, weighing approx. 70 kg, will manufacture more than 13,000 mg of vitamin C per day in normal health, and levels manyfold higher when faced with stress.[156][157]
The overwhelming majority of species of animals and plants synthesise their own vitamin C. Therefore, some animal products can be used as sources of dietary vitamin C.
Vitamin C is most present in the liver and least present in the muscle. Since muscle provides the majority of meat consumed in the western human diet, animal products are not a reliable source of the vitamin. Vitamin C is present in mother's milk but, not present in raw cow's milk.[158] All excess vitamin C is disposed of through the urinary system.
The following table shows the relative abundance of vitamin C in various foods of animal origin, given in milligram of vitamin C per 100 grams of food:
Animal Source Amount
(mg / 100g)
Calf liver (raw) 36
Beef liver (raw) 31
Oysters (raw) 30
Cod roe (fried) 26
Pork liver (raw) 23
Lamb brain (boiled) 17
Chicken liver (fried) 13
Animal Source Amount
(mg / 100g)
Lamb liver (fried) 12
Calf adrenals (raw) 11[159]
Lamb heart (roast) 11
Lamb tongue (stewed) 6
Human milk (fresh) 4
Goat milk (fresh) 2
Camel milk (fresh) 5[160]
Cow milk (fresh) 2
[edit] Food preparation
Vitamin C chemically decomposes under certain conditions, many of which may occur during the cooking of food. Vitamin C concentrations in various food substances decrease with time in proportion to the temperature they are stored at[161] and cooking can reduce the Vitamin C content of vegetables by around 60% possibly partly due to increased enzymatic destruction as it may be more significant at sub-boiling temperatures.[162] Longer cooking times also add to this effect, as will copper food vessels, which catalyse the decomposition.[61]
Another cause of vitamin C being lost from food is leaching, where the water-soluble vitamin dissolves into the cooking water, which is later poured away and not consumed. However, vitamin C does not leach in all vegetables at the same rate; research shows broccoli seems to retain more than any other.[163] Research has also shown that fresh-cut fruits do not lose significant nutrients when stored in the refrigerator for a few days.[164]
[edit] Vitamin C supplements
Vitamin C is widely available in the form of tablets and powders. The Redoxon brand, launched in 1934 by Hoffmann-La Roche, was the first mass-produced synthetic vitamin C.
Vitamin C is the most widely taken dietary supplement.[165] It is available in caplets, tablets, capsules, drink mix packets, in multi-vitamin formulations, in multiple antioxidant formulations, and as crystalline powder. Timed release versions are available, as are formulations containing bioflavonoids such as quercetin, hesperidin, and rutin. Tablet and capsule sizes range from 25 mg to 1500 mg. Vitamin C (as ascorbic acid) crystals are typically available in bottles containing 300 g to 1 kg of powder (a 5 ml teaspoon of vitamin C crystals equals 5,000 mg).
[edit] Industrial synthesis
Vitamin C is produced from glucose by two main routes. The Reichstein process, developed in the 1930s, uses a single pre-fermentation followed by a purely chemical route. The modern two-step fermentation process, originally developed in China in the 1960s, uses additional fermentation to replace part of the later chemical stages. Both processes yield approximately 60% vitamin C from the glucose feed.[166]
Research is underway at the Scottish Crop Research Institute in the interest of creating a strain of yeast that can synthesise vitamin C in a single fermentation step from galactose, a technology expected to reduce manufacturing costs considerably.[21]
World production of synthesised vitamin C is currently estimated at approximately 110,000 tonnes annually. Main producers have been BASF/Takeda, DSM, Merck and the China Pharmaceutical Group Ltd. of the People's Republic of China. By 2008 only the DSM plant in Scotland remained operational outside the strong price competition from China.[167] The world price of vitamin C rose sharply in 2008 partly as a result of rises in basic food prices but also in anticipation of a stoppage of the two Chinese plants, situated at Shijiazhuang near Beijing, as part of a general shutdown of polluting industry in China over the period of the Olympic games.[168] Five Chinese manufacturers met in 2010, among them Northeast Pharmaceutical Group and North China Pharmaceutical Group, and agreed to temporarily stop production in order to maintain prices.[169] In 2011 a case was filed in a US court against 4 Chinese companies that they colluded to limit production and fix prices of vitamin C in the United States. According to the plaintiffs, after the agreement was made, spot prices for vitamin C shot to as high as $7 per kilogram in December 2002 from $2.50 per kilogram in December 2001.The companies do not deny the accusation but say in their defense that the Chinese government compelled them to act in this way.[170]
[edit] Food fortification
In 2005, Health Canada evaluated the effect of fortification of foods with ascorbate in the guidance document, Addition of Vitamins and Minerals to Food.[171] Abscorbate was categorized as a ‘Risk Category A nutrients’, meaning it is a nutrient for which an upper limit for intake is set but allows a wide margin of intake that has a narrow margin of safety but non-serious critical adverse effects. Health Canada recommended a minimum of 3 mg or 5% of RDI for the food to claim to be a source of Vitamin C, and maximum fortification of 12 mg (20% of RDI) to claim "Excellent Source".[171]
Langganan:
Postingan (Atom)