Linus Pauling, Vitamin C, and Rock & Roll (and Science)
Linus Pauling was a once in a lifetime genius and the only person
ever to be awarded two Nobel prizes.
Being in such high regard by society, Pauling became the first
modern Rock Star of Science.
Louis Pasteur was once a Rock Star, long before the term “Rock Star”
existed. And as we’ve discussed at this site previously, (see
Louis Pasteur And the Myth of Pasteurization), Pasteur, like
most geniuses, had his faults.
Pauling, too, had his faults. Idiosyncratic behavior is not just the
domain of genius. Idiots and crazy people also have idiosyncratic
behaviors. But we don’t worship idiots and crazy people (except
during elections, apparently) and we did once worship Pauling.
When Pauling said something, everyone listened, and furthermore,
they believed every word.
He (and Mathias Rath) proved that Cardiovascular Disease was a
pre-scurvy disease; that lack of vitamin C caused pitting in the
arteries which lead to a buildup of cholesterol, and lacking the
antioxidant vitamin C also caused the cholesterol to oxidize and
eventually calcify. The paper is called “A
Unified Theory of Human Cardiovascular Disease Leading the Way to
the Abolition of This Disease as a Cause for Human Mortality.”
Genius is a strange realm. Hitler was genius. Marilyn Monroe was a
genius. How genius reveals itself, what it accomplishes, and how it
is received by the world is unpredictable, and oftentimes genius
doesn’t look like genius. It looks crazy.
When Pauling spoke, we listened, we applauded, and we believed. The
problem is, he was often just plain wrong.
To start, he claimed that vitamin C was simply ascorbic acid. In
fact, according to a physician by the name of
Dr. Thomas Levy:
The Nobel laureate who discovered vitamin C, Dr. Albert
Szent-Gyorgyi, asserted that what he discovered was ascorbic acid
and nothing more.
It had been years earlier that scurvy had been cured on British
ships by giving the sailors “limes;” hence, they got the nickname
Limeys. And then, soon after Szent-Gyorgi discovered Vitamin C in
the thirties, the world put two and two together and realized that
it was Vitamin C that had cured scurvy. In fact, Pauling’s theory
that cardiovascular disease was a pre-scurvy condition concluded
that it was vitamin C that could prevent cardiovascular disease.
There’s only one problem: ascorbic acid does not cure scurvy.
Limes will cure scurvy, and ascorbic acid is part of the lime and
definitely assists in the cure of scurvy. Thus, if we are going to
say that Vitamin C cures scurvy, then we must admit that Vitamin C
is not just its most reducible part (ascorbic acid) but that it is a
complex consisting of a few other things found in that damn lime.
There is something about the entire lime that works\ while the
“active ingredient” doesn’t, and we’ve seen this time and time
again. We’ve even posted an article called
An Herb is
More Than its Active Ingredient.
Pauling was a reductionist. He reduced vitamin C to its active
ingredient, as did Szent-Gyorgy who discovered it. That is not
genius; that’s reductionism.
Geniuses often do stupid things. And Pauling’s genius turned out to
be dangerous, and could have been what killed him.
You see, Pauling kept touting that megadoses of ascorbic acid cured
cancer. One of his researchers discovered that megadoses of ascorbic
acid caused cancer. Pauling fired him. Pauling died from cancer.
I should tell you that there is some evidence that extremely high
doses of vitamin C will kill cancer cells, but the amount of vitamin
C needed is right near the toxic point, and the studies don’t show
overwhelming proof at all. In fact, the best results seem to come
from studies in which the patients are undergoing both chemo and
high dose IV C.
Complex
Vitamin C is a complex. It consists of many bioflavonoids, and
rather than working like a sweet violin, it works like an entire
orchestra. And the best way to get your vitamin C is through your
food, but there are times you need to supplement. Red peppers and
currents are among the two best foods for vitamin C.
And though people like Dr Levy will always tell you that charlatans
on the internet will try to convince you to pay more for a “natural”
form of vitamin C, even he admits that when it comes to
“antioxidants” in the bioflavonoids found in a “complex,” “the more
the merrier.”
If Dr Levy wants to call me a charlatan, fine. He’s a reductionist.
And this charlatan has never taken a dime for his work; we do great
research to get at the truth.
And Now A Word About Studies
As we’ve pointed out here often enough (this article, Studies Show,
was written in the late nineties, and is being been rewritten
[12/04/16]), anyone can make a study that proves just about
anything, as long as you can manipulate the methodology or the
statistical analysis.
One thing about studies on vitamin C is hundreds have shown that
megadoses of vitamin C don’t shorten the course of a cold, nor do
they ward off colds.
Take this study:
Mega-dose
vitamin C in treatment of the common cold: a randomised controlled
trial.
Here is the conclusion: Doses of vitamin C in excess of 1 g daily
taken shortly after onset of a cold did not reduce the duration or
severity of cold symptoms in healthy adult volunteers when compared
with a vitamin C dose less than the minimum recommended daily
intake.
Okay, now here’s another study:
The
effectiveness of vitamin C in preventing and relieving the symptoms
of virus-induced respiratory infections.
Here is this one’s conclusion: Vitamin C in megadoses administered
before or after the appearance of cold and flu symptoms relieved and
prevented the symptoms in the test population compared with the
control group.
How about that?
So let’s take a look at the actual studies, we will refer to them as
A (the first study above) and B.
A consisted of 400 students recruited to take either .03 g of
vitamin C (the placebo group), or in the experimental group, 1 g,
3g, or 3g of a c complex called “Bio-C” (consisting of ascorbic
acid, citrus bioflavonoids extract, rutin, hesperidin, rosehips, and
acerola). “Participants were instructed to commence medication when
they had experienced early symptoms of a cold for four hours, and to
record daily their symptoms, severity, doctor visits and use of
other medications.”
The results are interesting. Only 149, way less than half, finished
the study. They returned records for 184 cold episodes. So in this
18 month period, some of them caught more than one cold. The study
also points out that the placebo group “had the shortest duration of
nasal, systemic and overall symptoms, and the lowest mean severity
score at 14 days . . . .”
In B, a “total of 463 students ranging in age from 18 to 32 years
made up the control group. A total of 252 students ranging in age
from 18 to 30 years made up the experimental or test group.”
Here is their method: “Investigators tracked the number of reports
of cold and flu symptoms among the 1991 test population of the
facility compared with the reports of like symptoms among the 1990
control population. Those in the control population reporting
symptoms were treated with pain relievers and decongestants, whereas
those in the test population reporting symptoms were treated with
hourly doses of 1000 mg of Vitamin C for the first 6 hours and then
3 times daily thereafter. Those not reporting symptoms in the test
group were also administered 1000-mg doses 3 times daily.”
CONCLUSION: Vitamin C in megadoses administered
before or after the appearance of cold and flu symptoms relieved and
prevented the symptoms in the test population compared with the
control group.
So, which study had better methodology? Which had better statistics?
This is hard to tell from the information given at PubMed. So, we’ll
never know why the opposite conclusions.
We do know one thing, though. Their definition of “megadose vitamin
C” is not my definition of “megadose vitamin C.”
During the bird flu outbreak, naturopaths and functional physicians
were calling for daily dosing of vitamin C upwards of 250 thousand
milligrams (250 grams). Now that's a megadose of vitamin C.
You see, there’s this little thing that will tell you if you’ve
taken too much vitamin C called the bowel tolerance level. When
you’ve passed that, you’ll get a quick onset of diarrhea. This is
the body telling you you’ve taken too much.
Now, one really has to wonder why this limit exists, why it changes
when we are sick, and if our bodies are trying to tell us something.
Asking these questions is not science, but again, science will never
discover if our bodies are trying to tell us something until they
actually test “megadosing” with vitamin C in levels approaching
these higher, more significant numbers.
I went to the VA with the flu once, not because I thought they could
do anything about it, but wondering if I’d actually had something
else, like pneumonia. I was taking 100 grams of vitamin C daily with
no discomfort in my bowels. My doctor was amazed at my blood work
because the flu does a number on your liver and kidneys and all my
tests came back normal.
I was sick, but I wasn’t as sick as I’ve gotten without the vitamin
C; this I knew from experience. I was well enough to drive 50 miles
to the VA hospital.
Our Conclusion
Linus Pauling was a rock star, and everyone believed what he said
because he was a rock star; but in truth, Pauling was fallible and
went way off the deep end.
Vitamin C, like vitamin E, is a complex consisting of many other
antioxidants (or bioflavonoids).
The studies on vitamin C are inconsistent with mixed results and no
real conclusions. The studies use a term megadose which must be
defined for each study. And, in our minds, there have never been
studies on megadoses administered in “true” megadose fashion, where
by larger and larger doses are administered until bowel tolerance is
reached. These larger doses, upwards of 100 grams, or even 300 grams
must be studied.
A Little Story
I cannot vouch for this story. It could be a myth, but a very
learned professor told it to me while I was first researching this
stuff back in the early nineties.
Two fellows from the CDC, along with a police officer, knocked at
this guy’s place and he opened the door. They asked, “Mr Soandso?”
and he replied
“Yes.”
“How are you feeling?” they asked.
He said, “Horrible. Why do you ask?”
“Because we expected to find you dead,” they said.
They asked him if he’d eaten lunch at a specific place at a specific
time with his old navy buddies. He replied in the affirmative.
And that’s when he found out they’d all died from Legionnaires'
disease.
Before the three left, they asked him if he was doing anything
special to combat the illness, and he said, “Yeah, I’m taking 90,000
milligrams of vitamin C daily.”
Again, we must reiterate that studies are needed for “true”
megadoses of vitamin C because there is just too much anecdotal
evidence to ignore.
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