Page 50Quality of Life
Studies in the 1970’s and 1980’s conducted by Linus Pauling and colleagues
suggested that very large doses of vitamin C (10 grams/day intravenously for
10 days followed by at least 10 grams/day orally indefinitely) were helpful in
increasing the survival time and improving the quality of life of terminal cancer
patients.
However, two randomized placebo-controlled studies carried out by Drs. Edward
Creagan and Charles Moertel of the Mayo Clinic and published in 1979 and 1985
found no differences in outcome between terminal cancer patients receiving 10
grams of vitamin C/day orally or placebo. But the difference is clear: the Mayo
studies used oral vitamin C, Pauling used IV. The intravenous route will result in
far higher blood levels of ascorbate.
In studies like this, with faulty technique, it’s hard to avoid suspicion that the
researchers didn’t WANT to find a beneficial effect.
Detox
It would be remiss not to share one of the important benefits of vitamin C which
a few of us discovered in the 1980s, even though no direct scientific research has
been done in this field.
We became keenly aware that significant doses of vitamin C were beneficial in
cases of chemical overload. By the late 70s we were encountering more and
more patients with “chemical allergy” syndrome.
Some individuals are super-sensitive to ambient chemicals. This is partly a
genetic thing, as we shall see later. They simply didn’t have the right enzymes,
or not enough, to adequately detoxify so-called xenobiotic (unnatural) chemicals.
The result was much suffering and incapacity.
But large doses of vitamin C would prove helpful. How big a dose? We used a
crude strategy called “fill and flush”; the patient would take increasing doses in
2 gram increments (a teaspoon is about 4 gms). Eventually, the side effect of
diarrhea would manifest and we told the patient to take just less than that as
their personal level. So, 10 grms = diarrhea; dose = 8 grams.
It was all rather crude by modern standards but it got results and, as I have
already said, there are no known toxic effects of vitamin C, even at levels
exceeding typical oral doses by 10- 20 times.
The result was that chemically-sensitive patients could get through their
working hours, endure traffic fumes and aircraft travel and not be sick for days