We know that genetics plays a big role in autistic spectrum disorders, but our environment dictates which genes turn on and off so this research is no surprise to those of us who understand the genetics. The environment that we are referring too here is food, or more specifically, protein, fat, vitamins and minerals.

It has been my opinion, and the opinion of the scientific authorities who I listen to, that not only is the average American diet a disease producing disaster, but prescribed pre-natal vitamins are woefully inadequate.

I have had expectant moms under my care who all take additional supplementation in addition to their pre-natal vitamins, and I have never had one of my moms have a child with an autistic spectrum disorder. The research that supports these ideas has been around for over fifty years, and is readily available to anyone who is interested enough to review the literature.

If you talk to families who have an autistic child, it is not unusual for them to tell you that the autistic behavior didn’t start until shortly after a vaccination. Adequate nutrition through supplementation, especially during breast feeding, will also reduce risk. Optimum vitamin and mineral levels have been know for decades to help detoxify toxins and heavy metals, even the mercury associated with vaccines.

The most important of these supplements in my opinion is Vitamin C, and that is a story all by itself. I have written newsletters, most are listed on the Preventics Vitamin C-1000 page that you can access, if you are so inclined.

Lately, I’ve seen several articles about the dangers of BBQ. What’s the truth?

There is no question that cooking animal flesh over an open flame yields a meal loaded with carcinogens. Heterocyclic amines (HCA’s), caused by cooking meat over high heat, have been known to be a potential problem for as long as I have been in practice (a very long time).

I’m always fascinated by the majority of these articles because they don’t tell the whole truth. They just focus on making BBQ a bad guy.

In truth, most of us eat veggies and fruit along with our summer BBQ, and those foods are full of the antioxidant vitamins that protect us against HCA’s. Additionally, if you are receiving this newsletter you are undoubtedly smart enough to supplement your diet with additional vitamins and minerals, and these are the chemicals that protect us against these harmful HCA’s.

Undoubtedly, the most important protective antioxidant is Vitamin C, so don’t stop taking your Vitamin C during the warm BBQ season, it’s good for a lot more than thwarting the common cold.

After some personal investigation (thank goodness for the internet) I determined that I had the typical symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) but nothing I did with my diet eased my ongoing discomfort. Intestinal distress had become a way of life for me. After the age of 50, my chronic constipation turned to frequent uncontrollable diarrhea.

Fortunately, two years ago Dr. David was recommended to me by my daughter-in-law.

Dr. David was the first and only doctor who took the time to talk with me first and then examine me. He identified my very distressed upper and lower intestinal track among other weak areas and prescribed a vitamin and probiotic regimen that helped me begin to heal.

He also identified food allergies that contributed to my intestinal distress. Calcium was one of the many minerals/supplements that I could not absorb and was one of the many things, along with dairy products, that resulted in uncontrollable diarrhea. My inability to absorb calcium created potential bone loss issues as I continued to age.

After a few NAET treatments, I was able to overcome many of those allergies which allowed me to begin taking calcium supplements again. Fortunately, my bone scans now reveal a normal bone density for my age.

Although Dr. David’s vitamin and NAET treatments have been invaluable to my quality of life, his greatest gift to me is the time he takes to answer my questions not only when I am in his office but during his “free” call times.

I have never worked with a doctor who takes the time to answer all of my questions in a manner that is clear to me with such grace and understanding. Dr. David has dedicated his life to helping others and is a credit to the medical profession.

Linda Stainbrook

I remember writing the introductory statement, and on reflection, I must say that it’s one of the things that hasn’t changed. In fact, it’s one of the best bits of advice dispensed in any of the newsletters. For those of you who do not subscribe to my newsletter, here it is…

The opinions of the experts are constantly changing. The correct treatment this year is often the wrong treatment next year. When choosing an approach, treatment, or therapy, try to pick the one that poses the smallest risk of harm. When you’re done mulling it over in your mind, listen to your heart before making your decision, because “woman’s intuition” is invaluable. Always remember, doctors cause more deaths every year than traffic accidents, so choose carefully.

Unfortunately, it is getting tougher to make good choices when it comes to health/disease care because the toxic drug treatments are increasingly more toxic, and the advice from our government and medical/pharmaceutical authorities is increasingly contradictory on how to achieve optimum health.

In the last seven years, the members of the pharmaceutical industrial complex “have seen the writing on the wall” and are quickly buying up the smaller vitamin oriented pharmaceutical manufacturers. Prices that were stable for two decades have gone up three times in twenty four months. The smaller companies were more quality oriented and preferred to purchase material locally. Now, the “big boys” really aren’t nearly as quality oriented, and a lot more raw material is coming in from China and India, etc. It’s even getting harder to buy physician quality supplements from companies that were beyond question just a few years ago.

This field of nutrition used to be a lot more fun. Unfortunately, it’s less fun every year. I remember that it wasn’t so long ago that I was delighted to see more M.D.’s entering the field. I saw that as a light at the end of the tunnel and perhaps the beginning of the end for symptomatic treatment. I was wrong. The field of nutrition, from a medical perspective, is about substituting supplements for drugs, “this for that” medicine. It’s still mostly about treating symptoms instead of balancing physiology, and although using supplements certainly reduces toxic side effects, the philosophy is unchanged. Additionally, money has become an issue. In a field that always produced reasonable incomes, a new push toward enormous amounts of laboratory analysis can now result in incomes that must be described as lucrative. I guess that’s the kind of incentive that was needed to get many doctors interested. Oh well!

So as we start the New Year together, please be alert, and ever more careful in your choices of doctor and treatment. The choice of therapies that can “first do no harm” are so much more important than when I first wrote the introductory paragraph to the newsletter seven long years ago.

Approximately 30 years ago, while at a Preventive Medicine meeting in Chicago, I found myself alone in a hospitality suite with Dr. Linus Pauling. Dr. Pauling had been one of my hero’s for a long time, a two time Nobel prize winner, and at that time, the foremost promoter of high dosage Vitamin C therapy. Our conversation changed the way I have practiced since that fateful meeting.

Dr. Pauling told me a lot that day that I really didn’t want to hear. First he said he thought that Chiropractors got a bad reputation for over treatment because they didn’t address the underlying reason for most spinal subluxations/misalignments. He told me that Connective tissue, ligament and tendon specifically, could not be adequately repaired without really sizeable amounts of Vitamin C being available, and if Vitamin C was administered in adequate amounts, multiple spinal manipulations would seldom be required.

Then Dr. Pauling went on to tell me that virtually all animals make copious amounts of Vitamin C and gave examples. One example sticks in my mind. He said that cats made hundreds of milligrams (mg) a day for every pound of body weight, and that was why they seldom experienced sprains and strains when they fell from high places. He also said that the animals that make the most Vitamin C were the healthiest in the animal kingdom, and those that make the least were among the sickest.

Additionally, he told me that Guinea Pigs, the South American Bubal Bat, some species of New World monkeys, and Humans had lost the ability to make Vitamin C. He claimed that a genetic flaw had apparently occurred millennia ago, and all the machinery to make Vitamin C was present in the Liver except the very last enzyme in the manufacturing chain. I wrote down the name, l-Galunolactone oxidase.

He claimed that one of the reasons that humans were susceptible to so many ills, compared to other animals, was this inability to manufacture Vitamin C. He pointed out that although primates that made Vitamin C didn’t make very much, they did make on the average of 1000 mg of Vitamin C every day for every 50 pounds of body weight. I find it to be amazing, that as the years have passed, the doctors that pursue what orthodoxy calls mega-scorbic practice continue to get the kind of results Dr. Pauling described as possible so many years ago, while the remainder continue to hide their heads in the sand.

He was particularly emphatic about the role Vitamin C played in potentizing the immune system response, and emphasized how it can be used to treat everything from the common cold to ear infections. He talked about how adequate Vitamin C slowed down the aging process, and how it works synergistically with other vitamins like Vitamin E so the body can use the Vitamin E over and over. Lastly, he mentioned the work of Dr. Frederick Klenner, of Reidsville, NC, and the scientific papers and books published on the subject that medicine chose to ignore.

Upon arriving back at my practice, I made it a priority to go to the old Clendenning Library at K.U. Medical Center, and after searching through the research literature I learned that Dr. Pauling was right on every single point. I had learned none of this in school, and to this day it isn’t taught in any medical or chiropractic curriculum that I am aware of. If people would take adequate Vitamin C, it would cost the disease care delivery system and the pharmaceutical industry a fortune, and I am convinced that is the reason why the information on Vitamin C isn’t common knowledge.

What can you do to verify this information?

There are still books in print by Frederick Klenner, M.D., in which he shares how he treated everything from poison snake bite to polio with Vitamin C, often by injection. Emanuel Cheraskin, M.D., D.M.D., wrote what some consider the benchmark book on Vitamin C over 15 years ago called The Vitamin C Connection, and it is still available. However, some of the most recent studies are even more amazing, so if you are a KS resident, you can go to the new Archie Dykes library at K.U. Medical Center, on 39^th Street, and ask a librarian for help researching Vitamin C for yourself. It’s a State library, so you pay for this service with your taxes.

What have I learned about Vitamin C over the last thirty plus years?

Dr. Pauling was right. A good rule of thumb for daily supplemental Vitamin C intake is 1000 mg for every 50 pounds of body weight. This is maintenance dosage, and when supplemental Vitamin C is taken daily, the number of colds and general infections experienced is greatly reduced. I have had numerous patients who said they would always get one or two colds a year, and then go eight or ten years without one once Vitamin C was begun at the recommended dosage level. Supplementing your child on Vitamin C will save a lot of missed school time, and make parenting much easier. It is also a smart habit to start when the children are in their formative years.

An orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Robert Cathcart, established that the safe upper limit for Vitamin C intake was consistent with diarrhea and/or painful abdominal gas. This he named the “Cathcart point” or “bowel recognition.” His protocol for ear infections, sore throats, etc., is:

• on day one, take 1000 mg of Vitamin C every hour while awake;
• on day two, take 2000 mg of Vitamin C every hour while awake; and
• on day three, take 3000 mg of Vitamin C every hour while awake.

You do this until the “Cathcart point,” or “bowel recognition” occurs. At this point you stop for the remainder of the day. The following day you reduce dosage to the previous day’s level. You continue that until “recognition” occurs again, and so on until the child’s condition is stable. If your child is having serious immune challenges, it is wise to call the health help hotline number on Tues., Wed., or Thurs. mornings and get specific advice from me. The only side effect established for Vitamin C is diarrhea. Naysayers have postulated a connection between Vitamin C and kidney stones, but I have found no citations in the literature verifying this hypothesis, in fact just the opposite.

It is my opinion that all humans should be supplementing with Vitamin C. Before we stopped making that last enzyme in the manufacturing cycle, humans, like other primates, made substantially larger amounts of Vitamin C than recommended by our present RDA.

Which product will be best for your needs

For the average adult, or child old enough to swallow a larger pill, I recommend Preventics Vitamin C-1000. If broken blood vessels have become a problem, which is often the case in old age when Vitamin C has not been regularly supplemented, I recommend Bio C, which has 50% bioflavonoid content to help stabilize those fragile capillaries. For the children, I like the Ascorbate C Powder. The Ascorbate C Powder can be mixed in juices and the children do not find it objectionable.

In Ester C’s advertising, they compare their product to ascorbic acid. Ester C always comes out looking vastly superior. It should. No quality vitamin manufacturer makes an ascorbic acid vitamin C. Even nature refuses to allow ascorbic acid without combining it with minerals (buffering), because it is too strong an acid.

All Preventics vitamin C products are buffered and contain natural levels of the other members of the vitamin C family, the Bioflavonoids. Especially during cold and flu season, you can trust Preventics Vitamin C products to provide your family with the best that technology can produce. It doesn’t hurt that they cost half of what you will pay for an Ester C.

Early detection is not prevention, although it is represented as such in this article. Early detection has resulted in women treated for breast cancer living longer after treatment, which is good, but they still tend to die after seven or eight years with an exacerbation of the breast cancer, and unfortunately, or by design, after five years they are listed statistically as a cure… so there’s truth to the old adage, figures lie and liars figure, and the National Cancer Institute is the liar that’s doing the figuring.

The article talked about reducing risk with supplements of Vitamin D and flaxseed oil, exercise and an intelligent diet. That was a good start, brief but good nevertheless. However, it also advocated Tamoxifen and Raloxifene as preventatives in spite of all the horrible side effects of those drugs. It did not, however, discuss iodine/iodide supplements and the connection between iodine intake and the extremely low amount of breast cancer found in Japanese women, which happens to be directly related to their iodine intake. I will discuss this iodine/iodide connection and the flaxseed oil (omega 6, omega 3 balance) connection in a following paragraph, but first a word about Vitamin D.

It was mentioned that promising research is being done on Vitamin D, but it didn’t mention that a great deal of research has already been done. For example, in a paper analyzing combined data from several studies that covered colon, ovary and breast cancer, the authors determined that a 30% reduction of breast cancer could be achieved if one sustained blood levels of greater than or equal too 42 ng/ml, and they projected that a 50% reduction could occur by lifelong maintenance of serum levels of 52 ng/ml or greater. Now there’s a terrific goal for a prevention minded woman, especially one with elevated risk. Combine that with other suggestions in this newsletter and you no longer have a goal, you have a program. That is what prevention should be all about.

Please consider that nothing that medicine offers short of preventive mastectomy can offer these kinds of numbers. I guess we should ask why that wasn’t mentioned in the newspaper, but then the answer is pretty obvious. Because Vitamin D levels decline with aging, increased levels of supplemental Vitamin D may be necessary to reach the necessary 52 ng/ml serum goal. Usually 2000 iu of Vitamin D will produce the desired serum levels, but the elderly, obese, homebound and those with dark skin may need higher dosages. Other studies have found that Vitamin D is especially important in pubescent girls, and that an adequate level of Vitamin D during puberty significantly reduces breast cancer risk in womanhood.

Given this important information, it would seem prudent to rethink our present dermatological position that paints the sun, our primary source of Vitamin D, as such a bad guy. I have written other newsletters on that subject, so I will not belabor this article with repetition. However, I must say that my position that the sunscreen manufacturers have knowingly misinformed the public on the dangers of sunshine and are continuing to do so in the name of profit becomes more obvious with each new year of published Vitamin D research.

Iodine/iodide is cheap and non patentable so you won’t hear much about it from present day assembly line medicine whose patient education information is determined by the pharmaceutical industry. Iodine/iodide reduces fibroids and the research suggests that it reduces cancer risk for breast, uterus, ovary and prostate by occupying estrogen receptor sites, the same sites targeted by drugs like Tamoxifen. Oh, and I might add, without the side effects. Iodine stimulates the metabolism of estrogens that are carcinogenic into Estriol, the anti-cancer estrogen, adding extra protection for those at risk. Iodine can also be applied directly to the breasts (avoid the sensitive areolas) to reduce fibro-cystic breast disease. The iodine used for that is tincture of iodine, usually less than $5.00 a bottle, and it can’t be patented so assembly line medicine has little knowledge of it. Interestingly enough, it has also been reported that women who take thyroid medication, without a supplemental iodine/iodide supplement have twice the risk of cancer as those women who take both thyroid and iodine together.

It discussed other drugs that blocked “estrogens,” but never discussed balancing estrogens (there’s more than one), or the use of Estriol (the anticancer estrogen) to balance the pro cancer estrogen factions. Alternative/complimentary medical doctors who deal in bio-identical hormone therapy have been trying to get the assembly line doctors to pay attention to this for years, so far to no avail. I frequently refer patients to doctors who prefer this more natural approach, especially since when natural, bio-identical hormones are given in balance there appears to be virtually no cancer risk. If you have been determined to be a high risk for any of these estrogen sensitive cancers, the smart decision would be to find an M.D. who is experienced in balancing natural (bio-identical) hormones and have the Lab done to determine the ratio of Estriol to the other estrogens. Once that is determined, natural hormone replacement can be done to create a balance that reduces that risk. If you need the name of an M.D. who specializes in natural hormone balancing/replacement, call the office at 913-432-4477, and Chris, my office manage, will help you with the name of one north and one south of the river.

Overweight, of course, was a major focus because of the associated higher risk in obese women. No one, however, addressed the causes of obesity, and how the foods that cause the biggest problems with weight gain are also the foods that both prepare the path for cancer to begin with, and then feed the very cancer that they helped create. Of course the foods I’m referring to are processed, so the anti-cancer essential (essential means that without them we die) unsaturated fatty acids are made biologically unavailable by hydrogenation and other methods. A good example of a biologically unavailable fat is a trans fatty acid… and we all know how dangerous trans fats are. The second culprit, of course is sugar, which is what cancers eat. Any foods that quickly turn to sugar are food sources for cancer cells, and that includes fruit and grain.

This is probably the time to mention another terrific risk reducer, the vegetables that the first President Bush made famous, the Brassica family. Eating three meals a week with broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, bok choy, and other cruciferous vegetables helps keep the right balance between pro-cancer and anti-cancer hydroxyl estrogens. How about that for an honest and easy prevention strategy that the paper neglected to mention?

I think that it is important to point out at this time that industry hasn’t been deterred by the ban on trans fatty acids. A major article in the New England Journal, about twenty years ago pointed out the cancer and heart disease dangers of trans fatty acids, but in spite of thousands of deaths contributed to by these adulterated fats, it took until recently for government to start enforcing their elimination from processed foods. During that time, the processed food industry has had time to find other ways to inactivate healthy, essential fatty acids, and any inactivated fatty acid is as dangerous as a trans fatty acid. Once an essential fatty acid is chemically altered so that it will no longer attract oxygen, it is a dangerous rather than a friendly substance, and plays a major role in both cardio-vascular disease and cancer. PROCESSED FOOD IS KILLING US! Naturally, not a word about this was mentioned, and what could be easier than reducing our processed food intake. Now that’s a real preventive measure.

There was also reference to concentrated flaxseed oil and lignins, but no association to the essential omega-6 unsaturated fatty acids. The most important cancer research of the last fifty years, in my opinion, revolves around the importance and adulteration of these essential omega-6 oils. Everyone should Google, “Brian Peskin.” The man has done some brilliant work that will be largely ignored because he is not an M.D. He has taken the work of Otto Warburg, M.D., Ph. D. one step further and explained a major piece of the puzzle of WHY healthy cells become cancer cells, or specifically, why they switch from making their energy from oxygen to making it from sugar. Oh, and this information could easily save your life so don’t put off going to his website. Professor Peskin’s work is so sensational that he is presenting it to the Anti Aging Medical Society in Las Vegas this December. There will be over three thousand doctors present at that convention, so that’s a start.

Those doctors will learn that if we can alter the diet by going back to using unadulterated forms of the Omega-6 essential fatty acids, we can greatly reduce the risk of having our cells go from using oxygen to using sugar for energy. Professor Peskin’s website is very thorough regarding this issue, and it will not serve us here to repeat it. I should add that his work has helped answer some interesting questions about some old research that was done in Sweden.

Many years ago, researchers at the Karolinska Institute worked with women who were considered terminal with breast cancer. These women were all on various programs that utilized high levels of vitamin and mineral supplements in addition to a more organic diet. One group lived longer with fewer side effects from the cancer than would normally be expected, so their quality of remaining life was definitely improved. The second group was given additional Co-enzyme Q 10, in substantial amounts. A significant number of women from this group experienced remission. Co-enzyme Q 10 increases the oxygen uptake of our cells, which makes it so important after a heart muscle is damaged from a heart attack. The same ability to help the cancer patient can now be explained in the light of Peskin’s work. It’s apparently CO-enzyme Q 10′s ability to change cellular respiration from glycolysis (burning sugar) to Oxidative Phosphorylation (burning oxygen) that made the difference, or from keeping cells from switching from Oxidative Phosphorylation to Glycolysis in the first place.

Naturally, the genetic link to cancer was mentioned, but it was also qualified, because only 60% of these genetically susceptible women ever get breast cancer. There was a time when cancer was thought to be mostly caused by genetics, but those days are gone. Now we know better. The study of genes and their contribution to disease is now one more correctly called epigenetics, and the study of epigenetics tells us how our environment, both internal and external, speaks to our genes, turning them on and off. The big question, then, should be “what are the other 40% of women doing that’s different that reduces their risk by obviously turning their cancer genes off.”

Last, but not least, is the use of a key natural hormone, DHEA, that regulates an important enzyme involved in the pathway that feeds energy to cancers. By keeping DHEA at the right level we can make the potential cancer energy pathway less active, thereby reducing risk. Your family doctor can order the necessary testing.

The emphasis of this major newspaper article was on preventive drugs, with all their horrible side effects, preventive mastectomy, and early detection which simply leads to early treatment. Unfortunately, virtually everything mentioned was designed to keep the money in the medical industrial pharmaceutical cancer monopoly.

Preventics carries a superior Iodine/iodide product, Vitamin D, and an organic Omega 6, Omega 3 balanced essential unsaturated fatty acid product called Parent Essential Fatty Acids. I’m available for questions on Tues., Wed., and Thurs. between 10 and 12 at 816-753-4866 or 800-888-4688.

This is what we know so far. Electric lights result in decreased production of melatonin, a necessary brain chemical, and greater vulnerability to oxidative injury and AD. It is very important to sleep in a dark room. All sleep deprivation affects melatonin production and therefore increases the risk of AD.

Aluminum, like other metals, directly increases the production of free radicals that can and do damage the delicate myelin sheath of nervous tissue. There is a 250% increase risk of AD in people drinking municipal water high in aluminum content for more than ten years. Much municipal drinking water in North America is treated with alum (aluminum) to purify it and aluminum fluoride to prevent cavities. That’s why I have Mountain Valley Water in both my practice and my home. Characteristic brain AD lesions contain very high levels of aluminum.

Mercury is another chemical of concern, and studies show that mercury levels continue to escalate. Mercury is now found in most fish, but bigger problems come from silver dental fillings (mostly mercury). Additionally, consider that the average child receives 35 vaccines, and most of them contain thimerosol (mercury). Unfortunately, science has demonstrated that when both these toxic chemical are found together as they are in AD, the combination, due to synergy, is many times more toxic than we would expect.

Electromagnetic waves are also a culprit. Electricians, machinists, machine operators, seamstresses, sewing factory workers, sheet metal workers, typists, key punch operators, welders, and machine shop workers have a four times greater risk of acquiring AD. This study was done over twenty years ago. What would we find today when we add to that list the users of personal and business computers, cell phones, electric blankets, clock radios near the head when sleeping, and users of hair dryers. Fortunately, most of these risks are modifiable.

The gene primarily incriminated in AD is APOE4; however, the disease only occurs when there is a favorable environment. Again, the disease only occurs when there is a favorable environment.

A good test for AD risk is serum homocysteine. There is a 200% increased risk of AD in people with elevated homocysteine levels. Elevated homocysteine is related to a nutritional deficiency of the B-complex family. Serum homocysteine is a simple test that any doctor can order on patient request. Supplementation with B vitamins restores serum homocysteine to normal levels and reduces the risk to AD. Glyco-B is the Preventics B vitamin product along with Glyco Min. They can be found on the website, Ask Doctor David.

Researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, have developed a cocktail of 30 dietary supplements such as the B vitamins, etc., that counteract the symptoms of aging. The mice live 10% longer, are twice as active as normal, and seem to get smarter.

The experiment was prompted by research that showed single vitamin supplements didn’t seem to make a big difference, and the researchers wondered if mixing the ingredients might improve the results. Of course, this is what most intelligent nutritionists have insisted for decades… supplements work together as a team to produce their effects.

When researchers examined the animals’ brains, they found the cells were generating fewer of the free radicals that cause aging, evidence that shows the supplements make a difference. The team is now using crickets to try to figure out what role each of the 30 ingredients plays. So far, crickets that were fed the supplements have double their normal life span.

One of the most memorable experiences of my life occurred back in the 1980s, when I was on the board of directors of the International Academy of Preventive Medicine. I was at a meeting in Chicago, and skipped a lecture that I had heard at a previous seminar. When I walked into the hospitality suite reserved for board members and speakers I found myself alone with Dr. Linus Pauling. A conversation ensued that would change my life.

When he discovered that I was a Chiropractor, Dr. Pauling told me that in his opinion the Chiropractic premise of the spinal misalignment didn’t go far enough. He suggested that before the misalignment could exist, a sprain/strain syndrome must occur at the musculo-ligamentous support for any specific joint(s). This is not what someone wants to hear who has invested a huge amount of time and money in a pre-med and Chiropractic education. He spoke to me of Vitamin C and its relationship to detoxification, immunity, sprain/strain repair and aging. The information on sprain/strain repair and aging was all new to me and I had some serious doubts. However, Dr. Pauling’s reputation as a recipient of two Nobel prizes prompted me to respectfully hold my tongue.

Upon arriving home, I immediately headed for the library at the local medical school to look up the available research on Vitamin C. This is what I found.

Vitamin C is a powerful anti-oxidant and detoxifier

Vitamin C is a powerful anti-oxidant, and it is stored in small amounts in the liver and adrenal cortex. One of its many functions is the reactivation of Vitamin E. In the presence of adequate Vitamin C, Vitamin E is able to be used over and over. Vitamin C also plays a large roll in carrying various heavy metal poisons like lead and mercury out of the body. In inner city children, where testing has shown that the toxic body burden of these poisonous heavy metals is often perilously high and significantly effects I.Q. and life expectancy, Vitamin C can be a virtual lifesaver.

Vitamin C is an immune system booster

Vitamin C has been shown to increase the effectiveness of white blood cell function. White blood cells (WBC’s) are the policemen of the body. To simplify a complicated chemical interaction, it is safe to say that they “beat up” invading germs to keep us from infections. Vitamin C potentizes WBC’s to the extent that when adequate Vitamin C is taken, the body will automatically reduce the WBC’s it makes because it can then do a better job with fewer WBC’s.. Now that’s efficiency. Vitamin C is also important in the manufacture of anti-stress hormones that are so important when the body is under stress from infection or environmental pollution. In fact, it is so important to the manufacture of these hormones that Vitamin C is stored in the actual adrenal glands that make these hormones.

Vitamin C and sprains and strains

Sprains and strains occur when ligaments (they hold bone to bone), and tendons (they hold muscle to bone), are torn or damaged. A subluxation is a sprain/strain injury between two vertebrae (bones of the back). A common complaint about Chiropractic care is that it takes so many adjustments or manipulations to fix a problem. When I started using Dr. Pauling’s advice about supplementing my chiropractic patients with Vitamin C, I reduced the number of office visits needed to fix the average back, hip, shoulder, etc., problem to between two and three. Although my income was initially reduced, it was soon more than made up for by referrals from happy patients. If you utilize Chiropractic care, it is possible to save yourself a fortune in office visits by simply supplementing with adequate Vitamin C.

The mechanism of action for healing sprain/strains and anti-aging are the same

Vitamin C is a major component of collagen. Collagen is the basic building block of connective tissue. Connective tissue holds the other tissues of the body together. Some connective tissue is relatively inelastic while some is very elastic. Tissues that need stretchability usually have more of the elastic type. When the body has inadequate Vitamin C, sprains/strains repair very slowly. As we get older and our ability to absorb Vitamin C is compromised by the aging process, not only do sprains and strains heal more slowly, but all connective tissue repair is compromised. When that happens, we virtually disconnect and one of the signs of that is drooping and sagging skin. Aging can’t be stopped by taking Vitamin C, but it can sure be slowed.

Why isn’t there enough Vitamin C to keep us healing quickly and looking young?

Scientists have discovered that virtually all animals make copious amounts of Vitamin C. The exceptions are guinea pigs, the South American bubal bat, some species of new world monkeys, and man. Thousands of years ago, a genetic glitch took place and mankind completely lost its’ ability to make Vitamin C. The mechanism to make Vitamin C from glycogen (storage sugar), is intact in our livers with the exception of the last enzyme in the chain (l-gulunolactone oxidase). Interestingly, animals that make the most Vitamin C have the least cancer, the least overall illness, and they age the most slowly. This inability to make Vitamin C is an important part of why humans age faster than practically all the other animals on the planet. Supplementation is the only solution.

How much Vitamin C is enough?

Medicine hasn’t been much help determining optimum Vitamin C amounts because it is primarily concerned with the amount needed to keep from dying of scurvy (the disease associated with Vitamin C deficiency). There’s a huge difference between the amount needed to avoid scurvy and the amount needed for optimum health. Linus Pauling suggested that we use the amount of Vitamin C made by other primates that do make their own Vitamin C as a reasonable amount for optimum health. The recommended daily amount (RDA) for Vitamin C (the amount needed to avoid scurvy), is 30 mg. Primates that make their own Vitamin C make about 1000mgs (1 gm) of Vitamin C for every 50 pounds of body weight. That would mean that a 150 pound chimpanzee would make approximately 3000mgs (3 gms) of Vitamin C a day when under low to moderate stress. When heavily stressed, the amount of Vitamin C manufactured can quadruple.

In my practice, I have recommended a gram of Vitamin C for every 50 pounds of weight for over thirty-five years.

Do certain things increase the need for Vitamin C?

Unfortunately, Vitamin C needs increase when we are confronted with a hostile chemical environment, e.g., pollution from chemical dumping; preservatives, hormones, and antibiotics that are added to our food; off-gassing of modern building materials and carpeting; airborne agribusiness chemicals used by farmers; first or second hand tobacco smoke; etc. To use tobacco smoke as an example, the average smoker needs approximately 600mgs of Vitamin C just to detoxify a pack of cigarettes. Remember now, the RDA is only 30 mgs. I have been called a megascorbic practitioner, but given the scientific information available in the literature, I think my recommendations are on the conservative side.

How much Vitamin C is too much?

Just over two decades ago, a very famous orthopedic surgeon named Robert Cathcart became interested in Vitamin C when he noticed that when his patients were given large doses before and after surgery, their expected fatality rate dropped to almost non existent, and they healed at a much faster rate. Dr. Cathcart wondered if Vitamin C needs differed greatly from person to person, so he embarked on a few research trials. What he found was that when you give a patient more Vitamin C than they can use, they stop absorbing it. It then becomes an irritant to the large intestine and causes diarrhea. He called that the Cathcart point, or bowel recognition. He also found that some of his patients reached bowel recognition on as little as 5 or 6gms of Vitamin C per day, and that some needed 50 or 60gms to reach the same recognition, a ten fold difference. He also found that his patience healed significantly faster when they were supplementing with Vitamin C just below the point of bowel recognition. Other than diarrhea, no other side effects have been attributed to megadosing Vitamin C.

Does Vitamin C quality differ?

Unfortunately, most Vitamin C on the market is ascorbic acid. It is cheap, irritates the stomach, and is not found in this form in nature. Nature buffers ascorbic acid with minerals, which makes it gentle to the stomach and intestinal tract. Nature also supplies Vitamin C as a member of a group or family called the bioflavonoids, along with other members of that family. The correct ratio is controversial, but is generally thought to be about 10% bioflavonoids. Vitamin C can be made from almost any source of sugar. The technology involved in making Vitamin C in pill form is universal, and everyone uses the same technology. Some companies use only the best ingredients. The companies that sell exclusively to physicians are among those companies. An example of quality Vitamin C that can be purchased in a health food store would be “Ester C.” It is the most advertised Vitamin C product on the market. Preventics Vitamin C 1000 is the equivalent of “Ester C,” and because you buy Preventics Vitamin C1000 at wholesale you save over $30.00 a bottle.

Are there circumstances where we need more Vitamin C?

When my patients are seriously acutely or chronically ill, I will often recommend they take their Vitamin C levels up to bowel recognition. I suggest they do this by taking it with meals, and by increasing one pill per meal each day until recognition is reached. At this point, the Vitamin C is reduced somewhat, which depends on the dose at which recognition occurred, and continued at the reduced dose until recognition occurs again. This is continued until wellness is achieved or it is determined that it is time to go back to maintenance dosage. This is not something I recommend people try on their own, and is why we have a Health Help Hotline for our customers.