Vitamin C: Can Vitamin C cure a cold or cancer?
March 1, 2005 (Press Release) --
Can Vitamin C cure a cold or cancer?
Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, Ph.D., in his last interview months before his death (April 1994), continued to advocate high doses (megadoses) of vitamin C to cure and prevent colds, prolong the lives of terminal cancer patients, and prevent other ailments. The basic premise of his avocation of vitamin C in these doses was that because man was one of the few animals that do not produce its own vitamin C, it is somehow a design flaw in our genetic make-up. He calculated that an average adult should need about 10-12 grams of vitamin C daily to prevent a wide range of ailments.
Recent research has indicated that the intake of of antioxidants like vitamin C can prevent or counteract cell damage due to aging and exposure to antioxidants. However, studies have yet to prove that vitamin C's effectiveness at the cell level translates to the prevention of or cure for chronic diseases. High doses of vitamin C at the beginning of a cold has only been shown in some cases to reduce the severity of the symptoms to a modest degree, due to a mild antihistaminic effect. Vitamin C has not been shown to prevent the common cold. Similar high doses of vitamin C used for the treatment of cancer patients have not been found to be beneficial. For example, research done at the Mayo clinic in a double blind trial (neither the doctors or the patients knew who was given the high doses of vitamin C) revealed that those who received the vitamin C in the high doses actually did worse than those who got a placebo.
Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, Ph.D., in his last interview months before his death (April 1994), continued to advocate high doses (megadoses) of vitamin C to cure and prevent colds, prolong the lives of terminal cancer patients, and prevent other ailments. The basic premise of his avocation of vitamin C in these doses was that because man was one of the few animals that do not produce its own vitamin C, it is somehow a design flaw in our genetic make-up. He calculated that an average adult should need about 10-12 grams of vitamin C daily to prevent a wide range of ailments.
Recent research has indicated that the intake of of antioxidants like vitamin C can prevent or counteract cell damage due to aging and exposure to antioxidants. However, studies have yet to prove that vitamin C's effectiveness at the cell level translates to the prevention of or cure for chronic diseases. High doses of vitamin C at the beginning of a cold has only been shown in some cases to reduce the severity of the symptoms to a modest degree, due to a mild antihistaminic effect. Vitamin C has not been shown to prevent the common cold. Similar high doses of vitamin C used for the treatment of cancer patients have not been found to be beneficial. For example, research done at the Mayo clinic in a double blind trial (neither the doctors or the patients knew who was given the high doses of vitamin C) revealed that those who received the vitamin C in the high doses actually did worse than those who got a placebo.
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