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From: werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner)
Newsgroups: net.med,net.cooks
Subject: How much Vitamin C is necessary.
Message-ID: <2046@aecom.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 10-Nov-85 01:22:05 EST
Article-I.D.: aecom.2046
Posted: Sun Nov 10 01:22:05 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Nov-85 04:43:25 EST
Distribution: na
Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
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Xref: linus net.med:2576 net.cooks:4397


	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?"

	From my point of view, the disadvantages of Vitamin C megadoses
completely outweigh any demonstrated benefit.  It is not that they are that
harmful - they aren't, but they are not totally risk-free in all people.
And that the people who are deriving the most benefit from Megadoses of
Vitamin C are the vitamin manufacturers.
	Remember - in the case of a normal drug, the manufacturer has to
prove that it is both relatively safe and effective (which means better
than doing nothing).
	In the case of so-called "Nutritional" therapies the medical
establishent is challenged to prove something DOESN'T work. I say the burden
of proof should be on the Nutritional advocates , but it isn't. Not only that,
it is totally legal to lie about the product - as long as one doesn't do it
on the label -- and Vitamins and Natural Supplements don't have labeling
requirements as pharmacy drugs do.
-- 

				Craig Werner
				!philabs!aecom!werner
		"The world is just a straight man for you sometimes"