Ascorbic Acid is not Vitamin C

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Legislation

I just read an article by Tim O'Shea discussing vitamins and their inherent complexity. O'Shea says that vitamin C is not only Ascorbic Acid but rather a complex of substances that work in synergy. Taking ascorbic acid and calling it vitamin C is actually misleading, according to O'Shea, as it's only one part of the whole picture.

The article discusses not only vitamin C but a host of other substances and shows that what has been isolated and called "vitamins" is often but a fraction of the natural (phyto)complex that contains and in fact makes up these vital nutrients.

The article is posted here not because I believe isolated vitamins to be damaging (O'Shea may go too far in that respect) but because it does contain a quite valid message: The closer to the natural form a vitamin/mineral is, the better for our health.

Now look at the list of "allowed vitamin and mineral sources" in Annex II of the European Food Supplements directive, and see whether you can find any of the complex food-form vitamins or minerals listed there.

International legislation on supplements, which includes the European food supplements directive and the proposed Codex Guidelines on vitamin and mineral supplements, goes in the direction of not only favouring the pharmaceutical single compound synthetic nutrients but of imposing their use, by disallowing the more natural food-bound complexes as sources of vitamins and minerals.

WHOLE FOOD VITAMINS:
ASCORBIC ACID IS NOT VITAMIN C
- Tim O'Shea

This will be a short chapter, but after you're finished with it, you will know more about vitamins than 95% of clinical nutritionists, doctors, supplement sales force, or bodybuilders. If that sounds arrogant or overstated, it really isn't my fault. I'm just a messenger; a purveyor of information. Either I'm right or the 95% are right; can't be both.

Without further ado, here's the kernel: ascorbic acid is not vitamin C. Alpha tocopherol is not vitamin E. Retinoic acid is not vitamin A. And so on through the other vitamins. Vast sums of money have been expended to make these myths part of Conventional Wisdom. If you have several college degrees and all this is news to you, don't feel bad. Unless you think your education ended at Commencement. Which is generally true.

WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS

Vitamins are not individual molecular compounds. Vitamins are biological complexes. They are multi-step biochemical interactions whose action is dependent upon a number of variables within the biological terrain. Vitamin activity only takes place when all conditions are met within that environment, and when all co-factors and components of the entire vitamin complex are present and working together. Vitamin activity is even more than the sum of all those parts; it also involves timing.

Vitamins cannot be isolated from their complexes and still perform their specific life functions within the cells. When isolated into artificial commercial forms, like ascorbic acid, these purified synthetics act as drugs in the body. They are no longer vitamins, and to call them such is inaccurate.

A vitamin is
" a working process consisting of the nutrient, enzymes, coenzymes, antioxidants, and trace minerals activators."
- Royal Lee "What Is a Vitamin?" Applied Trophology Aug 1956

FORGOTTEN TRAILBLAZER

Dr. Royal Lee was the pioneer researcher in the field of whole food vitamins. For decades he documented the basic facts summarized in this chapter. His work has never been scientifically refuted. Anyone who seriously undertakes the study of vitamins today corroborates Lee's work. His story is a fascinating study in itself, a study of indomitable perseverance in the pursuit of true principles. Jensen tells us that Royal Lee's work will not be appreciated until the next century.

Hasn't happened yet.

Lee felt the full weight of organized drugs/medicine bearing down on him. Reading like something out of Schindler's List , we learn that the FDA not only persecuted Lee for challenging the economics of synthetic vitamins, produced by giant drug companies, but that he was actually ordered by a court to burn all his research of the past 20 years! Burn his research! When has that ever happened in this country? They didn't even do that to Larry Flynt.

Going off on a tangent, ever wondered how the FDA attained its present position as attack dog for the drug companies and food manufacturers? It's another whole story in itself. The precursor of the FDA was the Bureau of Chemistry. Up until 1912 the Bureau of Chemistry was headed up by a man named Dr. Harvey W. Wiley. Here's a quote from Dr. Wiley that illustrates where his interests lay:

"No food product in our country would have any trace of benzoic acid, sulfurous acid or sulfites or any alum or saccharin, save for medical purposes. No soft drink would contain caffeine or theobromine. No bleached flour would enter interstate commerce. Our foods and drugs would be wholly without any form of adulteration and misbranding. The health of our people would be vastly improved and the life greatly extended. The manufacturers of our food supply, and especially the millers, would devote their energies to improving the public health and promoting happiness in every home by the production of whole ground, unbolted cereal flours and meals."
-The History of a Crime Against the Pure Food Law ,1912

Now obviously we can't have a dangerous lunatic like this in charge of the public nutrition, can we? Dr. Wiley actually filed suit against the Coca-Cola company in an attempt to keep their artificial product out of interstate commerce, and off the market. Fortunately Wiley was eventually replaced by a saner individual, more attuned to the real nutritional needs of the American people, as determined by the experts who knew what was best for us: the food manufacturers. This was Dr. Elmer Nelson, and in his words we get an idea of the change in philosophy that marked the transformation of the Bureau of Chemistry into the FDA:

'It is wholly unscientific to state that a well-fed body is more able to resist disease than a poorly-fed body. My overall opinion is that there hasn't been enough experimentation to prove that dietary deficiencies make one susceptible to disease."
- Elmer Nelson MD
Washington Post 26 Oct 49

Bernard Jensen illustrates how the tobacco industry and the food giants like Coke were indirectly behind the legal persecution of Royal Lee. Cigarette ads in the 40s and 50s showed medical doctors promoting the digestive benefits of smoking Camels. Or the advertising of Coke and other refined sugar foods stating that "science has shown how sugar can help keep your appetite and weight under control." ( Empty Harvest)

During this same period, Royal Lee was kept in courts for years, fighting to keep the right to advertise his vitamin products, because he was a threat to the food manufacturers. Lee knew they were poisoning the American public. He proved that refined sugars and devitalized, bleached flours were destroying the arteries and the digestive system, causing heart disease and cancer.

WHOLE VS. FRACTIONATED

OK, natural vs. synthetic. Let's start with Vitamin C. Most sources equate vitamin C with ascorbic acid, as though they were the same thing. They're not. Ascorbic acid is an isolate, a fraction, a distillate of naturally occurring vitamin C. In addition to ascorbic acid, vitamin C must include rutin, bioflavonoids, Factor K, Factor J, Factor P, Tyrosinase, Ascorbinogen, and other components as shown in the figure below:

__________ A s c o r b i c A c i d ___________

ascorbinogen
bioflavonoids
rutin

tyrosinase

Factor J
Factor K
Factor P
________________________________________

A s c o r b i c A c i d

________________________________________

V I T A M I N C

In addition, mineral co-factors must be available in proper amounts.

If any of these parts are missing, there is no vitamin C, no vitamin activity. When some of them are present, the body will draw on its own stores to make up the differences, so that the whole vitamin may be present. Only then will vitamin activity take place, provided that all other conditions and co-factors are present. Ascorbic acid is described merely as the "antioxidant wrapper" portion of vitamin C; ascorbic acid protects the functional parts of the vitamin from rapid oxidation or breakdown. (Somer p 58 "Vitamin C: A Lesson in Keeping An Open Mind" The Nutrition Report)

Over 90% of ascorbic acid in this country is manufactured at a facility in Nutley, New Jersey, owned by Hoffman-LaRoche, one of the world's biggest drug manufacturers(1 800 526 0189). Here ascorbic acid is made from a process involving cornstarch and volatile acids. Most U.S. vitamin companies then buy the bulk ascorbic acid from this single facility. After that, marketing takes over. Each company makes its own labels, its own claims, and its own formulations, each one claiming to have the superior form of vitamin C, even though it all came from the same place, and it's really not vitamin C at all.

FRACTIONATED = SYNTHETIC = CRYSTALLINE = FAKE

The word synthetic means two things:
- manmade
- occurs nowhere in nature

From the outset, it is crucial to understand the difference between vitamins and vitamin activity. The vitamin is the biochemical complex. Vitamin activity means the actual biological and cellular changes that take place when the stage is set for the vitamin complex to act.

Think of it like gas and a car. Pumping the gas into the tank doesn't necessarily mean the car is going anywhere. Other conditions and factors must be also present, in order for Activity to occur. The gas line to the carburetor must be clear, the carburetor jets must be set, there must be an exact mixture of air flow, the ignition must be turned on, the spark plugs must be clean, the exact amount of gas must reach each spark plug right before it fires, no gas must be left over in the cylinder after the plug fires Getting the idea? If any of this stuff is missing, there's no Activity: the car doesn't run, or at least not very well.

Amazing as it may sound if you're hearing this for the first time, vitamins are more