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From: sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: Allergies and Treatments Thereof - try Vitamin C
Message-ID: <799@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 23-Jun-84 14:02:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbncca.799
Posted: Sat Jun 23 14:02:17 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 24-Jun-84 00:06:57 EDT
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	>A drug is something not normally ingested/present-in-the-body.
	>Would you call someone a drug user if they ingested a lot of
	>H2O ?  There is evidence that we are *supposed* to ingest several grams
	>of Vitamin C per day.  And it doesn't follow that you'll get
	>kidney stones.

As with most discussions which crop up on the net, we often find ourselves
wrestling with semantics rather than issues.  To clarify, I would define a
drug as any substance which exerts a pharmacological action in the body
independent of its primary role (if any) in ordinary human physiology.  In this
sense, I would definitely call the effects of excessive water ingestion
sufficient to endanger life a "drug effect", though I would hedge on calling
the unfortunate victim a "drug user", a phrase which has acquired extra-medical
connotations.

In the case of Vitamin C, megadoses not only protect against scurvy, but
also begin to effect other physiological systems.  In this sense, it could
be said to be acting as a "drug."  This is a completely neutral term in
the medical literature.  Unfortunately, the same term dredges up Manichean
polarities in certain people's minds:  "natural" vs. man-made, "health-
giving" vs. health-crippling, "wellness" vs. the spectre of organized medicine.
This is fine as religion, politics or philosophy, but it makes for a poor
science of nutrition, pharmacology and physiology.

With regard to kidney stones: SOME people, not all, get kidney stones after
excessive megadoses of Vitamin C.  This is to be expected, given the
variance in individuals.  I end with a quote from Goodman and Gilman,
"The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics", 1980 ed., pp. 1579-1580:

	"...studies [of ascorbic acid in the treatment of colds and
	viruses and cancer] have yielded negative or inconsistent results.
	Any benefit which might be derived from such use of ascorbic acid
	seems small when weighed against the expense and the risks of the
	megadosage treatment.  The latter include formation of kidney stones
	resulting from excessive excretion of oxalate, rebound scurvy in the
	offspring of mothers taking high doses, and a similar phenomemon
	when subjects who are consuming large amounts of vitamin C suddenly
	stop; a precipitous reduction in ascorbic acid concentration in
	plasma follows.  These rebound phenomena are presumably due to
	induction of pathways of ascorbic acid metabolism as a result of
	the preceding high dosage.  Excessive doses of ascorbic acid
	also enhance the absorption of iron [not clear that this is bad--
	sdyer] and interfere with anti-coagulant therapy."
-- 
/Steve Dyer
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