Letter about Pauling/Vascular disease - who is right?

[ofonorow]

http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/Articl ... ?e=2938025

It is a nice and simple idea, but the reality is that vitamin C trials have demonstrated absolutely no impact, at any dose, in reducing the incidence of vascular disease including heart attack and stroke.

In the interest of honesty, it is also important to point out that Dr. Pauling, a chemist, did not receive the Nobel prize for these ideas concerning vitamin C and vascular disease.

I'd like him to name the study (any study) that has investigated it with the proper dose!

[majkinetor]

In the interest of honesty, it is also important to point out that Dr. Pauling, a chemist, did not receive the Nobel prize for these ideas concerning vitamin C and vascular disease.

Yeah, right.
The only thing Pauling did was to discover protein 3d conformations (alpha helix and beta sheets) and lock/key mechanism, without which modern medicine wouldn't exist. Nobel prise for nature of chemical bonding has really nothing to do with physiology ....

[Ranne]

What was the highest dose used in a decent clinical trial, anyone know?

[pamojja]

The trial with the highest doses I'm aware of is:
'The effectiveness of vitamin C in preventing and relieving the symptoms of virus-induced respiratory infections'
at 6 grams spread out during one day only.

This WHO report talks about a 1936 study:
'Doses up to 6000 mg of ascorbic acid were given to 29 infants, 93 children of preschool and school age, and 20 adults for more than 1400 days.'

Anyone else?

[Ranne]

I wondered about the Wiki page on megadosing; the section on heart disease says clinical studies have been equivocal but their footnote points to a review that only really addresses hypertension.

I have been searching Pubmed but studies on "heart disease" don't necessarily even use that term, depending on what particular aspect they're studying, and I haven't seen anything even approaching what I'd call a megadose... I thought since Pauling's theory seems to be roundly dismissed on the basis of studies showing it doesn't work, these studies would be easier to find.

[Johnwen]

Here's some trials to go through some are still on going others are completed etc.

http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/resul ... heart&pg=1

[ofonorow]

What was the highest dose used in a decent clinical trial, anyone know?

I infer that this question is related to heart disease, and your search of Pubmed would miss the likely studies, as they would probably be published in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine - which is not cataloged by Medline/Pubmed.

The Willis studies in the 1950s, probably the first, used as much as 1500 mg of just vitamin C and found that 2/3 of the plaques either stopped forming or regressed during the study. vitamincfoundation.org/pdfs

As we have mentioned, we heard of one 3-year UK study via email that was never published that used the appropriate dosages of vitamin C, lysine and vitamin E. The progress of atherosclerosis was reportedly "halted" in the vitamin C/lysine group, but progressed normally in the placebo group. We have tried to follow up to see why the study was never published, and all we found was an International Patent application for the vitamin C/lysine and vitamin E for the treatment of heart disease.

These observational studies of food questionaires are probably useless. I remember one of the early Rimm studies (Harvard) that claimed to show "no benefit" from vitamin C. After closer inspection the study was rigged against finding a benefit from vitamin C. They claimed something like 67,000 doctors participated, but the study only evaluated something like 465 who "developed CVD during the study." In other words, there was no examination of whether vitamin C intake prevented CVD, no blood level measurements, etc. Of those studied who developed CVD, they found no correlation to vitamin C - but a strong correlation with vitamin E - presumably the 465 were on low vitamin C, which is why they developed CVD. In other words, these studies sound impressive, but are usually meaningless propaganda.

There was one of these studies that showed benefit from a little pill. The 15-YEAR HARVARD STUDY OF 85,000 THAT FOUND A SINGLE VITAMIN C PILL REDUCES HEART DISEASE ALMOST 30%. Interestingly, dietary intake of vitamin C seemed to have little effect on coronary heart disease risk. But if women used vitamin C supplements, their risk was reduced by 27 percent. According to the numbers in this study, a single 360 mg vitamin C pill daily would save more than 300,000 lives per year.

Now we did find one study that accidentally made it into medline - because vitamin C and magnesium were used in the placebo! 5000 mg. Caused a hell of a placebo affect!

JAMA STUDY: JAMA Jan 23/30 2002 RANDOMIZED, DOUBLE-BLIND CONTROLLED TRIAL IN HUMANS FOUND STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT 60-SECOND TREADMILL EXERCISE IMPROVEMENTS IN 5000 MG VITAMIN C GROUPS [Chelation Therapy for Ischemic Heart Disease: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Knudtson, et. al. JAMA, Jan 23/30, 2002 - Vol 287, No 4. Pp 481-486]

This may be the only published study of the "right amount" of vitamin C. (Of course, you would never realize this from reading the abstract or most of the study! But the data is there.) I wrote a paper about this because you cannot find a similar improvement in exercise time for statins or any other drug other than testosterone. http://internetwks.com/owen/placeboethics.htm

So there it is, amazingly in the wonderful world of medical science this is the amount of study of Pauling's reported cure for heart disease! (If anyone can find more studies, we would welcome this contribution.)

[majkinetor]

There is also this study using 5g of C 1 month.

Effects of high dose vitamin C treatment on Helicobacter pylori infection and total vitamin C concentration in gastric juice.

The amount was very effective, bacteria was 100% cleared in 30% of the cases.

Now, H Pylori may be linked to heart disease.

[Ranne]

Thanks Owen/maj/Johnwen/pam.