Lendon H. Smith, MD
You are going to hear something right from the horse's mouth. I am writing this just eight days after attending a conference in San Diego on vitamin C put together by Jay Patrick, the president of Alcar. Yes, you guessed it; he sells a good vitamin C product. He assembled vitamin C notables: Drs. Linus Pauling; Robert Cathcart; Emanuel Cheraskin; Joan Priestly; Clemetson; Rimland, and others. I mentioned some of the uses of vitamin C last month in this column, but this was the latest. The conference was even written up in the medical journal, the Star.
There is no doubt that many of us need more vitamin C than others. Herbert Boynton, a researcher with Mr. Patrick touched on the concept that we have the same intestinal track that our hunter and gatherer ancestors had 2 to 20 million years ago, and we should try to imitate that: One-third of their diet was wild game, frogs, snakes, etc., which gave protein and a little fat, even up to 600 mg of cholesterol a day. Two-thirds of the diet was fruit, vegetables, and tubers, which gave them about 50 grams of fiber a day. Most of the food was raw. From this they got about 400 mg of C a day, 1600 mg of calcium a day, and a potassium to sodium ration of about 16 to one. (That latter ratio today is to one:one.) It was a two food group diet without any dairy products or grains.
About 12,000 years ago our ancestors became farmers, they domesticated animals, and grew harvestable grains; they could at last stay in one place. But they became shorter, had bad teeth, and their longevity decreased. (They could also become alcoholics.) Now in the 20th century we have obesity, cancer, diabetes, degenerative diseases, and auto-immune diseases. Our diet has something to do with that. Studies indicated that 90 percent of us are low in chromium (related to diabetes), 80 percent of us are low in B6 (cancer-prone people are low in B6), 75 percent of us are low in magnesium (related to anxiety and depression), 68 percent are low in calcium, 57 percent are low in iron, 50 percent are low in A and folate, and at least 41 percent are low in vitamin C.
The answers are there. We must run naked through the field and forest eating bark and berries.
Two comments that most of the speakers touched upon: 1) vitamin C is very helpful to support the immune system as it acts as an antiviral agent, a fighter against bacterial infection, and an antioxidant; and 2) many of the studies that prove vitamin C is beneficial cannot get published in standard, peer-review journals as the editors of those journals are beholden to the pharmaceutical industry. "If it is not about a drug, don't publish it," seems to be their editorial policy.
Most people should really take the mineral ascorbates. Vitamin C as a carrier facilitates the ingress of the minerals into the cells. Just taking C in fairly large doses -- above 5000 mg a day -- because of its acidic nature will tend to remove the iron, the calcium, and the magnesium from the body. The pH of the urine may drop to four or five.
Lendon H. Smith, M.D.
Portland, Oregon
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