Does my body know the difference between pill and food?

Re WDDTY vol 14 no 4, Alternatives, p 6, which vitamin C is it that reacts adversely with aspirin? Is it the vitamin C that my body extracts from food or is it from the 1000-g supplement I take daily? – C. Harper, Isle of Lewis

WDDTY replies: Taking aspirin depletes vitamin C (whatever the source), so people who regularly take aspirin should consider supplementing with a few hundred milligrammes of the vitamin per day, an amount that is often found in a multivitamin (BMJ, 1975; 1: 208).