werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) (11/10/85)
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"
speaker@ttidcb.UUCP (Kenneth Speaker) (11/13/85)
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
atkins@opus.UUCP (Brian Atkins) (11/15/85)
I had a soccer coach in high school that had us take 3g of vitamin C
a day. This was to reduce the chances of getting bruises and charlie-horses.
Does such a megadose defend against bruising and charlie-horses?
One of the bad side effects was that it gave us all a mild case of
the runs; the more V-C, the more you run.
Brian Atkins ...{attunix, hao, allegra, ucbvax}!nbires!atkins
NBI Inc., P.O. Box 9001, Boulder CO 80301 (303) 444-5710john@ur-tut.UUCP (John Gurian) (11/15/85)
> 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. First, I'd like to state that in general, I am dead set against the fad diets and vitamin therapies of health-food nuts. Having said that, I think that it's important to keep an unbiased view of things (which is difficult considering how many "health-food" vitamins, etc. constitute a big rip-off of the public). As it concerns Vitamin C, certainly no good comes from taking 10 grams a day for your entire lifetime. But, taking a couple of grams during a cold, while not proven to help, has not been proven to hurt, either. So why not? At least, if you believe in it, you could get a placebo effect. More importantly, a treatment that is known to be benign and useless may turn out to be helpful in the future. A good example of this is the preventative effect of normally dangerous intakes of aspirin in diabetics. About 20 years ago or so, it was noticed that if a diabetic ate about 10 grams of aspirin/day, s/he would have a greatly decreased risk of acquiring cardiovascular and renal disease, two big killers of diabetics. However, this amount of aspirin can knock out the liver & its host in the process. This was not proved conclusively until the past few years, but I know someone who started the aspirin routine 20 years ago before it was really proved and has reaped the rewards. It turns out that taking just one aspirin/day can help prevent atherosclerosis (this is a good idea for all you non-diabetic red meat eaters, too), but the amount necessary to prevent renal disease is still controversial. P.S. This does NOT mean that you should make a quick trip to your local vitamin-crazy health guru. - John Gurian (seismo!rochester!ur-tut!john) - Taking a short break from my Pediatrics clerkship at the Univ. Rochester
ed@gargoyle.UUCP (Ed Friedman) (11/15/85)
The question is not how much Vitamin C does someone need, but rather how much Vitamin C produces optimal results. To answer this question, you might want to read an article published in the early 1970's in PNAS. In this article, scientists described how the punched holes in the backs of guinea pigs using a paper punch, and then correlated healing time with the dosage of Vitamin C given. They found that increasing the amount of Vitamin C given, hastened the healing time up to a certain limit. Any more Vitamin C given above this limit seemed to cause no further improvement. The scientists tried to estimate what this maximum dosage would be in humans (using standard methods to extrapolate from the body weights and dosages in the test animals) and came up with a figure of 1500mg per day. Of course this figure has no meaning unless one assumes that experiments carried out on guinea pigs may have some validity to human beings.
mwg@petrus.UUCP (Mark Garrett) (11/18/85)
++ > 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. > Craig Werner I only saw Pauling speak on this once (on TV), but I remember him responding to this objection by saying that perhaps the body needs more vitamin C than is necessary to simply prevent scurvy. When I heard this, I tried to be open-minded about his theory. It makes sense that perhaps the body can perform certain things better with increasing levels of vitamin C (to a point perhaps). On the other hand, Pauling was claiming all kinds of wild things this stuff could do, and I think some skepticism should be in order. I was reluctant to take huge amounts of C (ie more pills than breakfast), but I did try 500 to 1000 mg a day for a whole winter, and found that I didn't get any colds, even under severe pressure at school, when I would usually get 4 or 5 in a season. I think it worked for me. Craig, have there been any conclusive or indicative results showing that vitamin C is useful for more than prevention of scurvy? Or do you think there is really no benifit from doses beyond the RDA? -Mark Garrett
ayers@convexs.UUCP (11/21/85)
>I only saw Pauling speak on this once (on TV), but I remember him >responding to this objection by saying that perhaps the body needs >more vitamin C than is necessary to simply prevent scurvy... >On the other hand, Pauling was >claiming all kinds of wild things this stuff could do, and I think some >skepticism should be in order. > >...have there been any conclusive or indicative results showing that >vitamin C is useful for more than prevention of scurvy? Just after Pauling published his book on vitamin C, he was asked in an interview if he had done any research on the subject. His answer: "No". He was then asked if he knew of any research on the subject. Same answer. Made _me_ wonder... <Okay! Okay! I admit it, I take C anyway...> blues, II
dudek@utai.UUCP (Gregory Dudek) (12/03/85)
I spoke to Pauling several years ago and he claimed that vitamin C played an
important and useful role is cell-wall construction and that this
was *one* of the reasons it helped fight so many ailments.
Although as vitamin C dosage increases the amount excreted increases
too, he said it didn't increase quit as fast as the dosage did, and thus
more of the vitamin was retained. Whether
this is true even after the dosage has stabilized for a while I didn't
ask. In his cancer therapy, he said he gave people Vit. C in increasing doses
until negative side effects (loose bowels) appeared, then be backed the
does down a bit. I think this gave a dose of a gram or two more than once
a day (this was for disease, not his regular dose).
Finally, he suggested a plausible (?) diet for primitive man
that contained some leaf (leaves?) that were very rich in Vit. C and
hence yielded very high daily doses. I don't recall what the
leaf was, but it supposedly exists in the right places (Kenya?).
I'm not sure how much of this I believe myself, but maybe I'll go
have an orange and think about it...
--
Computer Systems Research Institute University of Toronto
Usenet: {linus, ihnp4, allegra, decvax, floyd}!utcsri!dudek
CSNET: dudek@Toronto
ARPA: dudek%Toronto@CSNet-Relayugzannin@sunybcs.UUCP (Adrian Zannin) (12/06/85)
> ++ > > 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. > > Craig Werner > > Craig, have there been any conclusive or indicative results showing that > vitamin C is useful for more than prevention of scurvy? Or do you think > there is really no benifit from doses beyond the RDA? > > -Mark Garrett I would like to caution you against taking too much vitamin C. I had a discussion about this with my doctor, and later on my sister, who is in the medical profession, and it seems that taking above the RDA of vitamin C for extended periods of time (also for many short periods) can lead to quite complicated kidney problems. This goes for other some other vitamins also, but I don't remember which ones off hand. If there is interest though, I will look into it. Has anyone else heard of this? I don't doubt what my doctor said, I just want to see if many people know about this hazard. -- Adrian Zannin ..{bbncca,decvax,dual,rocksvax,watmath,sbcs}!sunybcs!ugzannin CSNET: ugzannin@Buffalo.CSNET ARPANET: ugzannin%Buffalo@csnet-relay.ARPA BITNET: ugzannin@sunybcs.BITNET
sdyer@bbncc5.UUCP (Steve Dyer) (12/08/85)
> I spoke to Pauling several years ago and he claimed that vitamin C played an >important and useful role is cell-wall construction and that this >was *one* of the reasons it helped fight so many ailments. Um, this would be correct except that animals don't have cell walls, plants and bacteria do. Pauling is probably referring to the role of ascorbate in the hydroxylation of proline residues to hydroxyproline in collagen synthesis. Collagen is the stuff of all connective tissue, and a defect in collagen synthesis is the underlying biochemical pathology in the clinical disease, scurvy. It would be silly to claim that most of us have some subclinical degree of scurvy, since collagen biosynthesis is unimpared in normal individuals with ordinary intakes of vitamin C. -- /Steve Dyer {harvard,seismo}!bbnccv!bbncc5!sdyer sdyer@bbncc5.ARPA