INTRODUCTION
Vitamin C – Past, Present
and Future
To put
this saga in proper perspective,
we should begin this tale
about 60 million years ago.
For that is when, according
to biochemist Dr. Irwin
Stone, our ancestors lost
the ability to make their
own Vitamin C(200). But
we did NOT lose our requirement
for considerable amounts
of this life-sustaining
and critical nutrient on
a daily basis. Our loss
of self-sufficiency with
respect to Vitamin C and
our subsequent dependence
upon diet to provide adequate
amounts has impacted significantly
our health and lifestyle
throughout history, relevant
ESPECIALLY today in our
polluted, nutrient-depleted,
stressful high-tech "advanced"
world. We have indeed travelled
(fallen) a long way since
our proverbial exit from
the paradisiacal garden
of Eden, where presumably
there was an abundance of
citrus fruits and Vitamin
C.
Time warp.
Middle Ages. Sailors expiring
by droves – xhaustion,
depression, muscle pain,
haggard appearance, bleeding
gums, stinking breath, hemorrhaging
and extensive bruising,
diarrhea, lung/kidney troubles,
death. Scurvy. Dead sailors
of all nationalities –
Portuguese, Spanish, British,
French. Horrible voyages,
many corpses and countless
unaccomplished missions.
1536. Jacques
Cartier, Quebec City, Canada.
Iroquois Indian remedy for
scurvy – tea made
from the leaves and bark
of the arbor vitae tree
determined, centuries later,
to possess high Vitamin
C content.
1747. British
physician James Lind performed
a now famous clinical trial
on twelve of his men suffering
from scurvy. He divided
the men into six groups,
receiving daily, in additional
to their normal diets, either:
2 oranges and 1 lemon; cider;
dilute sulfuric acid; vinegar;
sea water; or a mixture
of drugs. After 6 days the
men receiving the citrus
fruits were well, all ten
others remained ill. This
and other experiments were
later published in Lind's
A Treatise on Scurvy, 1753.
In today's
world obsessed with double-blind
placebo-controlled trials,
Lind's work would have been
criticized on the basis
of the small sample size,
lack of placebo and lack
of double blind. The British
Admiralty, despite the huge
losses incurred from this
devastating condition, waited
48 years until 1795 before
decreeing that daily rations
of fresh lime juice be given
to sailors in the British
Navy. Although scurvy disappeared
very soon thereafter from
the British Navy, it continued
its scourge throughout the
British merchant marine
for another 70 years, until
the Board of Trade followed
suit with a similar decree
in 1865.
1911. Theory
of "vitamines"
published by Polish biochemist
Casimir Funk working in
London, theorizing that
four substances found in
natural foods confer protection
against the diseases of
beriberi, rickets, pellagra
and scurvy. In 1913 the
American E.V. McCollum started
the modern nomenclaturesystem
of vitamins, by referring
to "fat-soluble A",
"water-soluble B",
scurvy-preventing "water-soluble
C" and rickets-preventing
"fat-soluble D".
1928. First
isolation of pure Vitamin
C by Hungarian biochemist
Albert Szent-Györgyi
working in Cambridge England,
the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota
and Hungary(202). Szent-Györgyi
isolated a substance which
he named hexuronic acid,
and which was subsequently
shown, in 1932, to be Vitamin
C by American scientists
Waugh and King(233). Typical
of so many scientific discoveries,
Szent-Györgyi was not
actually searching for Vitamin
C. He was attempting to
identify an oxygen-combining
substance which prevents
the appearance of brown
pigment from decaying fruit.
His diverse expertises in
oxidation-reaction and physiology
enabled him to isolate a
large enough quantity of
hexuronic acid from cabbages,
adrenal glands of animals,
as well as that favourite
Hungarian spice, paprika.
Following the determination
by Szent-Györgyi of
the substance's chemical
formula C6H8O6, and the
determination of its structural
formula in collaboration
with the English chemist
Haworth, the chemical name
for Vitamin C was changed
from hexuronic to ascorbic
acid, denoting an acidic
substance which prevents
and cures scurvy.
Research
directed at the determination
of the level of Vitamin
C necessary to prevent scurvy
led to the establishment
of a recommended dietary
allowance (RDA) for Vitamin
C of 60 mg per day(179).
And, basically, what most
scientists and doctors are
taught in their medical
training about nutrition
is that certain nutrients
prevent certain deficiency
diseases. There is abundant
evidence that this minimal
RDA levels of 60 mg in no
way reflects the optimal
level of Vitamin C required
for excellent health. In
fact, Irwin Stone blames
the emphasis of Vitamin
C as an antiscurvy vitamin
rather than an essential
nutrient since the 1930's
for halting progress of
clinical research and therapeutic
application of Vitamin C
for the treatment of a wide
number of diseases. During
the 1940's amd 50's, Dr.
F.R. Klenner pioneered large
doses of Vitamin C for the
treatment of many viral
diseases, including poliomyelitis(126-8).
We of the
late twentieth century are
so smug. The word scurvy
induces an almost knee-jerk
smirk and the thought "oh,
scurvy doesn't exist anymore
– a glass of orange
juice, Vitamin C, etc."
Scurvy is a boring subject
which has been relegated
to the annals of history
as such to school aged children.
Well, look again at the
symptoms and forget the
name of the disease: exhaustion,
depression, muscle pain,
haggard appearance, bleeding
gums, stinking breath, hemorrhaging
and extensive bruising,
diarrhea, lung/kidney troubles.
Who amongst the most fit
and active super specimens
has NOT occasionally experienced
degrees of several or all
of the above symptoms? Perhaps
we have been so clever in
categorizing every substance
into a pigeon hole in relation
to a given disease that
we have totally ignored
the universal and massively
complex biochemical roles
played by substances such
as Vitamin C.
The American
biochemist Dr. Irwin Stone
published in 1965 an evolutionary
treatise expounding that
by a chance genetic mutation
in the required Vitamin
C enzyme machinery, humans
and several other animal
species lost their ability
to make Vitamin C(199).
The time estimates for this
genetic event vary from
between 25 to 60 million
years. According to this
theory, because we lack
this crucial Vitamin C manufacturing
ability, humans generally
suffer from a genetic disease
called hypoascorbemia (deficiency
of asorbic acid), which
in mild form produces chronic
health problems such as
high cholesterol, heart
disease, arthritis, colds
and cancer, and in severe
cases leads to the fatal
condition of scurvy.
As a theoretical
framework, the concept of
a flexible continuum of
Vitamin C required for optimal
health is impeccable, especially
when integrated with each
person's biochemical individuality,
environmental and nutritional
history and lifestyle and
stress factors.
In 1970
Linus Pauling produced shock
waves throughout the medical
establishment by publishing
his first book "Vitamin
C, the Common Cold and the
Flu"(164), in which
he documented evidence of
Vitamin C's efficacy, and
presented extensively researched,
sometimes searing yet well-deserved
critiques of scientific
investigations and trials
previously conducted, some
of which arrived at erroneous
conclusions or seriously
understated or omitted their
positive findings from abstract
summaries of their studies.
Throughout
the 1970's research burgeoned
investigating Vitamin C's
interactions with the immune
system, therapeutic action
in the treatment of postoperative
patients, cancer, heart
disease, diabetes, while
in the market place appeared
different forms of Vitamin
C: mineral ascorbates, buffered
and time-released capsules.
1981. In his landmark paper
"Vitamin C, Titrating
to Bowel Tolerance, Anascorbemia,
and Acute Induced Scurvy"(46),
Dr. Robert Cathcart described
a method to determine one's
optimal level of ascorbic
acid and revealed the successful
use of ascorbic acid in
treating over 9,000 patients
with conditions including
mononucleosis, hepatitis,
bacterial infections, allergy,
candida albicans, trauma,
surgery, burns, cancer,
disc-related back pain,
arthritis, scarlet fever,
herpes and crib death. In
1984 Dr. Cathcart published
another paper(47) describing
the use of Vitamin C in
the treatment of AIDS.
As the
1980's have progressed,
so has the research, clinical
and consumer use of versatile
Vitamin C increased astronomically.
Linus Pauling published
his best seller "How
to Live Longer and Feel
Better"(166) in 1986,
with meticulous research
and references summarizing
therapeutic uses of Vitamin
C; likewise Drs. Cheraskin,
Ringsdorf, and Sisley in
"The Vitamin C Connection
– Getting Well and
Staying Well with Vitamin
C(54). The New York Academy
of Sciences' Third Conference
on Vitamin C was held on
July 7, 1987(36), bringing
together scientific papers
about Vitamin C in subjects
such as Neurochemistry,
Epidemiology, Biochemistry
and Immunology, diseases
such as Diabetes, Cataracts
and Eye Disease, Free Radicals,
and Metabolic requirements
and Safety.
During
the 1980's a tiny fledgling
company, Oxycal Laboratories
Inc. in Prescott Arizona,
while researching a novel
ascorbate production process,
determined that natural
by-products, called metabolites,
in their Vitamin C product
greatly enhanced its absorption
and retention. Ewan Cameron
and Linus Pauling, in their
book "Cancer and Vitamin
C"(43), farsightedly
predicted that "these
oxidation products (metabolites),
which as yet have not been
thoroughly studied, may
provide an important part
of the mechanism by which
large doses of vitamin C
help to control cancer and
other diseases". United
States Patent No. 4,822,816
was assigned to Oxycal Laboratories
for this improved form of
Vitamin C, tradename Ester-CR
ascorbate on April 18, 1989(146).
At the
2nd International AIDS Symposium
in Feb. 1989 in Los Angeles,
Dr. Raxit Jariwalla, Director
of the Immune Deficiency
and Viral Carcinogenesis
Department of the Linus
Pauling Institute, presented
a paper documenting that
Vitamin C was capable of
inhibiting, by 99%, the
reverse transcriptase (RT)
activity of the AIDS virus
in laboratory cells infected
with the Human Immunodeficiency
Virus (HIV)(97). Molecular
biology experiments suggest
that by-products or metabolites
of Vitamin C may be responsible
for this anti-HIV activity.
The future
with respect to Vitamin
C is really only beginning.
The biochemistry of the
metabolism of Vitamin C
in the body is only crudely
understood. The role of
metabolites, the subject
of exciting research into
atherosclerosis and diabetes,
may reveal aspects of Vitamin
C not even thought of several
years ago. And still the
controversial debates rage
among all the experts in
this "respectable"
yet contentious field: whether
Vitamin C causes kidney
stones or alleviates kidney
stones; the advisability
of taking massive doses
versus the requirement to
take massive doses to experience
benefit. The experts argue
over the best composition
of Vitamin C – ascorbic
acid, buffered ascorbates,
Ester C, and in what form
– crystals, tablets,
capsules or intravenous
injections.
The saying
goes that "wherever
there is smoke there is
fire". Well, the corollary
to this truism must be "wherever
there is fire there is inspiration".
So, to you, the reader,
whether practitioner, researcher
or health-minded consumer,
sit back and enjoy the substance
and the fireworks of the
Vitamin C debate, remembering
that you are the final arbiter
of your health and health
care, and that no "expert"
is omniscient.
