libes@nbs-amrf.UUCP (Don Libes) (12/09/85)
I posted this last time Vit. C came up, but since the same discussion is
being repeated I might as well repeat my testimonial.
By the way, let's hear some references on this "Vitamin C damages the
liver". I have never seen this documented. Please do not repeat this
unless you have a reference, ok?
Ok, here's my experience with C:
A couple years ago I was having a tough time with hayfever. I'd sneezed
all of my life, but this was the pits. I try not to take pills, but I
broke down and tried antihistamines, for the first time. They were so-so
but made me drowzy. I still felt blah.
So I read "The People's Pharmacy" by Graedon who spends a whole chapter
denigrating allergists. At the end, he makes an off-the-cuff remark about
trying 3-5g of Vitamin C.
Next, I call my mom who is heavily into vitamins and she tells me Pauling's
cancer therapy (explained quite well by Dudek in <997@utai.UUCP>) and
suggests I try that, starting with 3g the first day. I take the 3g and the
following day, I get up out of bed and NO HAYFEVER. No runny, itchy,
stuffy nose; no watery eyes, no sneezing, no headaches, no blah feeling. I
felt great.
First thing I did was chuck the antihistamines. I continued increasing the
amount of C by .5 grams everyday, to see if my body could absorb more.
Diarrhea at 6g. I dropped back to 3g, since I seemed fine there and took
that for three weeks, still not quite believing all of this.
After three weeks, I'd used up the bottle of vitamins and decided I'd wait
a couple days - maybe my hayfever was "cured", maybe the season was over,
etc. In two days, the hayfever symptoms were back in full.
Needless to say, I resumed taking the C and again, the symptoms disappeared.
I've been taking C for over 4 years now. (I kid my mother that she got me
"hooked on C", since I'll probably take it for the rest of my life.) I've
changed my diet substantially (inc. other vitamins), and eat enough fresh
fruit and vegies so that I only need 1g/day of C. I exercise daily. I
occasionally have a cold, but they last only a day and the symptoms are so
mild, they are undetectable to others. I never have hayfever symptoms.
I'm not going to draw any conclusions for you, but for me, the possibility
of potential benefits of so-called megadoses of Vitamin C were proven very
dramatically.
Don Libes {seismo,umcp-cs}!nbs-amrf!libes