By The Numbers

The Numbers Behind The Epidemic

Every figure on this page is real and sourced. Only the panic is invented.

~2 million*

sailors killed by scurvy during the Age of Sail (c. 1500–1800). It has slipped our collective mind.

1,400 of 1,900*

men lost on Commodore Anson’s 1740–44 voyage — most to scurvy, not to the enemy.

4–12 weeks*

of no vitamin C before symptoms begin. You may already be on the clock.

10 mg*

of vitamin C per day prevents it. Roughly one-seventh of one orange. We are losing anyway.

~70 mg*

of vitamin C in a single orange — nearly a week’s bare minimum, ignored daily.

1747*

the year a cure was proven in one of history’s first clinical trials. We have had 278 years to act.

0*

amount of vitamin C the human body can make on its own. We are one of the few mammals that cannot.

85%*

of modern adult scurvy cases in the U.S. go misdiagnosed for over six weeks. The silence is real.

Estimated Scurvy Risk by Demographic

Methodology: one (1) genuinely peer-reviewed review of 280 modern adult cases, generalized far beyond what its authors would ever endorse. Bachelor and Discord-moderator figures extrapolated by us, the concerned.

Sailors, Royal Navy (1740s)92%
Modern adult men in case reviews69%
College students surveyed by us81%
Discord moderators (extrapolated)74%
Bachelors aged 25–34 (extrapolated)69%
Remote workers (extrapolated)58%
Concerned grandmothers4%

A 2026 review of 280 twenty-first-century adult scurvy cases found 68.6% were men, median age 51. The data confirms what we feared about men.

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