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Path: utzoo!decvax!linus!philabs!ttidca!ttidcb!speaker
From: speaker@ttidcb.UUCP (Kenneth Speaker)
Newsgroups: net.med,net.cooks
Subject: Re: How much Vitamin C is necessary.
Message-ID: <545@ttidcb.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Nov-85 13:26:13 EST
Article-I.D.: ttidcb.545
Posted: Wed Nov 13 13:26:13 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Nov-85 20:54:07 EST
References: <2046@aecom.UUCP>
Reply-To: speaker@ttidcb.UUCP (Kenneth Speaker)
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Organization: Transaction Technology, Inc. (CitiCorp), Santa Monica
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Xref: linus net.med:2581 net.cooks:4401
Summary: 

In article <2046@aecom.UUCP> werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) writes:
>
>	The following situation may be instructive:
>	A homeless alcoholic man is brought into the emergency room with 
>massive overt scurvy caused by severe malnutrition (in particular a lack
>of Vitamin C)
>	[Scurvy: what is it?  Vitamin C is required for the body to make
>connective tissue, which holds the body together - but in particular the
>blood vessels.  In Scurvy, the blood vessels all start falling apart, and
>there is massive skin hemorrhage, i.e., you get touched, you bruise. There
>are other symptoms, but this is the most distinctive.]
>
>	The standard treatment is 250mg of Vitamin C for 5-10 days, which
>complete improvement (cure) usually by day 5.
>	
>	This answers the question, "How much Vitamin C does the body need?"
>250mg per day or 1-2g total is enough to make up for months of deficiency,
>hence the answer is considerably less than this.
>	So now I ask the question, "Why do people advocate megadoses of 1 to
>10 grams DAILY (several months-years supply) in the absence of any real 
>evidence that it does any good?"
>

OK, I will tell you why I take 2 grams/day.  Above you state that the
(ONLY?) use of ascorbates by the body in is the production of collogen and
connective tissue.  Are you sure?  Funny, I thought it had a variety of
other uses, including but not limited to being a general anti-oxidant.  The 
level of C of the USRDA does indeed inhibit scurvy.  But...

Man is one of the few animals which does not manufacture his own vitamin
C.  Aparently this gene was lost very recently in evolutionary history.
If you measure the ascorbate levels of other mammals which do produce 
endogenous C, and extrapolate to determine what is needed in the 165 lb
man to produce similar levels (not just serum, but leucocyte levels),
it comes to between 1-3 grams (depending upon the animal analysed).  In
addition, making some educated guesses at the foodstuffs eaten by earlier
hunter/gatherer man and estimating his caloric requirement at somewhat
greater than modern sedentary man (about 4000 calories), then calculating
the C which might have been ingested to acquire this caloric input, the
numbers show about the same thing.  (These data came from various papers
and books by the advocate, L. Pauling, so you are free to condem them....)

I do know that after taking 2 grams/day C (plus 250 mg/day of BHT) for approx-
imately 8 years, you cannot recognize me from my old photographs.  I have
the skin of a person 10 years younger than my actual age (37), plus a
variety of other subtle differences.  

The "trouble" with AMA-type medicine (PERSONAL OPINION) is that it looks
for immediate and dramatic results, or something is of no use.  Your example
used the timeframe of 5-10 days.  You (the plural) never look for effects
which build over 5-10 years.  Perhaps because funding research for that
length of time is impractical....

I consider myself a skeptical holist (?), i.e., when I have a sore throat,
I want ampicillin FAST.  When I got an abdominal pain, with acute rebound
response, I went to the emergency room, FAST.  But I also believe that I
can do something to LESSEN the number of times I need to see a physician.
I do not have to stick my head in the ground and say that whatever happens,
a physician will be able to correct the damage already done.  I don't
smoke (as you do not smoke) because I believe in preventive medicine.  I
take Vit-C (as apparently you do not) also because I believe in preventive
medicine, and have sufficient evidence to believe that it probably is doing
me some good.  

I will also admit that I undoubtedly do some things which do me no good.
These only cost me money and perhaps some time.

I will also admit that I possibly do some things which (on the whole) cause
me some harm.  

I continue to read and re-evaluate what I do.  If I find that something
is not (or could not possibly) do me any good, that supplement or activity
is terminated.  If I find that new data (personal or published) shows
harm in what I am doing, that supplement or activity is terminated.
I have $300 worth of blood tests done every six months so I know what 
Isoprinosine does, what Co-Q10 does, that BHT is having no harmful hepatic 
effects, etc.

I do not advocate the blind use of supplements.  Much of the dogma one 
finds in vitamin shops and health food stores is misleading or out-and-out
wrong (SOD supplementation comes to mind).  If a person is not willing to
spend a significant amount of time critically reading and searching the
literature, I am not sure if the hit-and-miss of what they are doing will
be better than doing nothing.  However, there ARE data out there, and more
is published daily.

--Kne