Expand Page
FDA Disclaimer
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Vitamin C Foundation Recommended Daily Allowance for Vitamin C

RDA: 3000 mg Vitamin C

The Vitamin C Foundation recommends that every man, woman and child over the age of 3 consume at least 3 g (3000 mg) vitamin C daily in order to enjoy optimum health.

We recommend more vitamin C during pregnancy (6000 mg), and much more while under stress or fighting infectious diseases (e.g., 20,000 to 300,000 mg).

Vitamin C Foundation Vitamin C is defined as the substance the cures the deficiency disease scurvy. This separates ascorbic acid (C6H8O6) from the unscientific "natural vitamin C complex." Such a thing can be defined to exist, however, any such complex minus ascorbic acid does not and cannot cure scurvy, and therefore, cannot be "Vitamin C."

Comparison of Recommended Daily Intakes (RDI)
RDISource/Population
60-95 mgU.S. Recommended Intake
200 mgLevin/NIH Recommendation
400 mg (recently increased)Current Linus Pauling Institute Recommendation
2,500 mgHickey/Roberts minimum
3,000 mgFoundation's daily recommendation (up to 250,000+ mg)
6,000-12,000 mgThomas Levy's daily recommendation
6,000-18,000 mgLinus Pauling's daily recommendation
20,000-300,000 mgCathcart/Levy Cure for Infectious Diseases
10,000-130,000 mgRussel Jaffe calibration
1,000-10,000 mgChildren (Klenner recommendation 1 g/year)
6,000-9,000 mgPregnancy
6,000-18,000 mgHeart Disease
14,000-30,000 mg oral (200,000 IV)Cancer

Comment

Our recommendation is more than 30 times what the United States Government's National Academy of Sciences recommends (75-90 mg), and 15 times more than what the Linus Pauling Institute and the Levin group at the National Institutes of Health recommend (200 mg).

Linus Pauling recommended 2 to 6 times the Foundation's vitamin C RDA (6000 to 18,000 mg vitamin C). Pauling wrote that his recommendation was based on the large amounts of vitamin C animals make for themselves, and on the amount humans must ingest orally to achieve similar levels.

Vitamin C author/expert Thomas E. Levy, MD, JD, recommends from 2 to 4 times our recommendation (6,000 to 12,000 mg daily)

Our recommendations are partly based on the work of Dr. Robert Cathcart, III. Cathcart determined that the ability to tolerate oral intakes of the vitamin vary between 4 and 16 g daily during ordinary poor health. Cathcart's clinical experience demonstrates that virtually every human being will tolerate 4 g vitamin C daily.

The Foundation recommends 1 g vitamin C for children based on their age, up to the age of 3. One gram for one-year-olds, two grams for two-year-olds, etc.

Our recommended daily allowance may not prevent or resolve diseases related to lack of vitamin C. For example, we believe that heart disease requires from 6000 to 18,000 mg vitamin C, and that cancer may require 14,000 to 30,000 mg daily.

We do realize that if our recommendation were adopted by most people in the world, there would be a grave shortage of the vitamin. (Perhaps this is one reason that Government recommendations are so tiny?)

Owen R. Fonorow


Articles

Vitamin C Dosage in Disease Cathcart's Bowel Tolerance paper in PDF suitable for printing.

Hickey/Roberts Ridiculous Dietary Allowance

Foundation's Comments on Recent RDA Changes

Bill Sardi's Comments on RDA

FDA Disclaimer
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.