Researchers: Vitamin C Deficiency Widespread - Link to Heart Disease, Infections, Cancer

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Health

In their book "Ascorbate - The Science of Vitamin C", Steve Hickey PhD and Hilary Roberts PhD point out that deficiency of vitamin C is far more widespread than is generally acknowledged by medical doctors and dieticians today. The two scientists, specialized in medical biophysics and nutrition, have challenged the scientific basis of the recommended daily amounts for this vitamin with medical authorities including the NIH - the National Institutes of Health, the IOM - Institute of Medicine and its Food and Nutrition Board charging that the amounts recommended are inadequate and that the science that forms the basis of the recommendations is seriously flawed.

While vitamin C is a vital nutrient that plays a role in preventing many disease states, some of the major "diseases of civilization" including heart disease and stroke, infectious disease and "the big C" - Cancer - according to the researchers are directly attributable to having too little of it circulating in our veins or saturating our tissues.

Human bodies are unable to synthesize vitamin C internally and must therefore rely completely on absorbing what comes with foods - not much in this world of fast food and refined, overcooked meals most of us are used to eating. Even supplementation is not very effective if it is not repeated several times during the day, say Hickey and Roberts, because vitamin C has a very short half-life. The amount absorbed is used up quickly, decreasing by 50 per cent every 30 minutes. Along with other factors, it is this short half-life that confounded the scientific studies done to determine the "recommended" dose.

Medical News Today carries an article giving a short history of discovery and suppression of this vital nutrient.

ONLINE SLIDE SHOW REVEALS CONSPIRACY AGAINST VITAMIN C

Has there been an ongoing conspiracy against vitamin C pills? Did vitamin C researchers, Drs. Linus Pauling and Matthias Rath, uncover the primary cause of coronary heart disease in 1970, only to have their discovery shunned by modern medicine? Were factitious reports about vitamin C widely spread to create public doubt about high-dose vitamin C, such as the false claim that high-dose vitamin C causes gene mutations that could lead to cancer? 

Now, in graphic detail, a documentary slide show reveals how government health authorities conducted flawed scientific experiments to hide the many health benefits of vitamin C. British researchers Steve Hickey and Hilary Roberts reveal the flawed science, dispel the false idea that high-dose vitamin C creates nothing more than expensive urine, and show how humans can triple their blood concentrations of vitamin C and dramatically reduce their risk for heart attacks, cataracts, aneurysms, allergy and many other maladies. For the first time the public will view what happens inside arteries when vitamin C levels are low.  Viewers will learn that most sudden-death heart attacks are not caused by cholesterol but a type of arterial plaque induced by a shortage of vitamin C.

See www.VitaminCProject.com

The book of Hickey and Roberts can be obtained on line from Lulu.com. Here is Bill Sardi's excellent summary:

LINUS PAULING VINDICATED; RESEARCHERS CLAIM RDA FOR VITAMIN C IS FLAWED

Manchester, England - The authors of a new book claim the Institute of Medicine (IM) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) used flawed science to develop the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for vitamin C, a blunder that has likely caused millions of people to prematurely suffer avoidable health problems such as cataracts, strokes, heart attacks and many other maladies.

Steve Hickey PhD and Hilary Roberts PhD, pharmacology professors and graduates of the University of Manchester in Britain, claim they have been in communication with the NIH and the IM for over a year, challenging their rationale which establishes the RDA for vitamin C at 75 and 90 milligrams for males and females respectively. Hickey and Roberts say some basic errors in biology make justification for the current RDA for vitamin C indefensible. Even a recently proposed 200-milligram daily intake would still be inadequate to achieve optimal health says Hickey and Roberts.

HALF-LIFE FOR VITAMIN C IGNORED

The main flaw -- the half life for vitamin C is quite short, about 30 minutes in blood plasma, a fact which NIH and IM researchers have failed to recognize. (Half life is the time it takes for half of a substance to be removed from the body.) NIH researchers established the current RDA based upon tests conducted 12 hours (24 half lives) after consumption. "To be blunt," says Hickey, "the NIH gave a dose of vitamin C, waited until it had been excreted, and then measured blood levels." 

Because vitamin C is used up rapidly, a very high single dose of vitamin C would not achieve the same concentration in the blood serum over time as two divided lower doses. Hickey and Roberts claim many negative studies using high-dose vitamin C have failed to recognize this fact and have therefore mistakenly concluded that high-dose supplemental vitamin C is ineffective. 

RDA NOT FOR EVERYBODY

In the past year Hickey and Roberts have shaken the confidence of the IM and NIH, revealing that the medical establishment has failed to investigate the use of high-dose vitamin C properly, for more than 50 years. Hickey and Roberts have taken the IM and NIH to task for developing the RDA for vitamin C on studies using only 15 healthy test subjects. Normal variations would call for a greater pool of test subjects before establishment of an RDA for hundreds of millions of people. 

Furthermore, the RDA is intended to set a level of nutrient consumption that would prevent disease (scurvy) among the vast majority (95%+) of the population. Yet smokers (50 million), estrogen or birth control pill users (13 million and 18 million), diabetics (16 million), pregnant females (4 million) and people taking aspirin (inestimable millions) or other drugs, have increased need for vitamin C and comprise more than 35 percent of the population. The current RDA wouldn't meet the needs of these large subpopulations. 

CONTRADICTORY DATA

Furthermore, Hickey and Roberts confronted the IM and NIH with their own contradictory data. The IM and NIH claim the saturation point is reached at a certain concentration of ascorbic acid in blood plasma but later published a paper showing repeated oral doses could achieve much higher concentrations, more than three times greater! [Annals Internal Medicine 140: 533-37, 2004] 

Because of the short half-life of ascorbic acid, five 100 milligram doses of oral vitamin C taken at intervals through the day will raise average blood levels more than a single 1000 milligram dose. Hickey says the blood plasma is not saturated when 1000 milligrams of vitamin C is consumed orally since NIH researchers themselves demonstrated 2500 mg dose produces even higher concentrations. Hickey and Roberts claim the minimum supplemental dose of oral vitamin C needed to sustain blood plasma levels is around 2500 milligrams a day in divided doses in healthy individuals. Millions of others (smokers, diabetics, etc.) have needs greater than this.

NIH researchers doggedly cling to their claim that no more than 200 milligrams of oral vitamin C is required for human health and that a diet which includes five servings of fruits and vegetables would provide 210-280 milligrams of vitamin C. [Biofactors 15: 71-74, 2001] But only 9 percent of the US population consumes 5 servings of plant foods daily. The National Cancer Institute has abandoned their 5-a-day recommendation and replaced it with 9-a-day servings of fruits and vegetables once they recognized five servings a day had not reduced the risk for cancer or heart disease. 

TOLERABLE UPPER LIMIT ALSO FLAWED

The recommended Tolerable Upper Limit for vitamin C, 2000 mg per day, gives the false impression that amounts beyond this would be toxic or produce side effects. In fact, 2000 mg of oral vitamin C would not meet the needs of millions of American adults. The only side effect at this dose is transient diarrhea which usually dissipates over time.

TISSUE LEVELS VS. BLOOD PLASMA LEVELS

The mistaken idea that high-dose vitamin C supplementation saturates the blood plasma after a moderate dose of about 150 milligrams of oral vitamin C, and additional amounts are worthless since they are excreted in the urine, now must be abandoned, says Hickey and Roberts. More than a decade ago other researchers found that consumption of high-dose vitamin C (2000 mg per day) increased ascorbic acid levels in the human eye by 22-32 percent compared to when a so-called saturation dose (148 mg) is consumed. [Current Eye Research 8: 751, 1991] Ascorbic acid levels in other tissues in the body, such as the brain where vitamin C concentration is 10 times greater than in blood plasma [J Clinical Investigation 100: 2842, 1997], make it evident that blood plasma levels may not be the gold standard for measuring vitamin C adequacy in all tissues in the human body.

LINUS PAULING VINDICATED

Hickey and Roberts' revealing book confirms the work of Dr. Linus Pauling, a long-time advocate of high-dose vitamin C supplementation. Pauling advocated consumption of supplemental vitamin C throughout the day and he consumed 18,000 milligrams of vitamin C in divided doses on a daily basis, a practice which overcomes the half-life decay problem. 

Pauling also conducted stud