I wonder if Dr Linus Pauling (1901-94) and Dr Robert Atkins (1903-2003) are not laughing at our folly, wherever they are. Dr Pauling died aged 93, leaving behind life long studies on vitamin c, two Nobel prize awards he shared with no one, a remarkable feat, and a long standing controversy on how many milligrams of vitamin c the average human being should consume in the daily diet. Where his fellow medical researchers and physicians limited daily intake at 60 milligrams, Dr Pauling set the minimum daily dosage at 3,000mg and even always ventured beyond 10,000mg(10g). I said he should be smiling wherever he is today because, from about two weeks ago, Chinese doctors have been saying vitamin c at 20,000 mg daily intake has cured some cases of coronavirus among the elderly in their country. Almost overnight, many health food stores in the United States and in the United Kingdom had no vitamin c to sell. Even in Nigeria, many shelves are empty.
Since the news about vitamin c coronavirus cure broke in China, I have been asked by some Nigerians if it is not all a hoax, a sales gimmick. Every time, I refer the enquirers to the life long studies of Dr Linus Pauling on the internet. I also mention the uncompromising efforts of Dr Robert Atkins to promote mega dosage nutrition. He died at the age of 72
Dr Pauling was scorned by his colleagues as a man who caused his followers to waste their resources on vitamin c because, as they said, the body would urinarily excrete vitamin c over 60mg daily, or remove it in loose bowels. Dr Pauling replied the criticisms with three simple words. Time Will Tell. Indeed, time told. For while many of them died in their sixties or seventies, Dr Paulin lived to be 93. And even now that some Chinese doctors say they are containing coronavirus with 20,000mg of vitamin c every day, could time not be still telling?
As for Dr Atkins, he may be unfit to lace the shoes of Dr Pauling. He was a mega dosage nutritional orthodox doctor. Long before Dr Udo Erasmus unified the fat theory with his work in the book, Fats that heal and Fats that kill, Dr Atkins had been prescribing up to eight grams (80,000mg) of vitamin c daily for pulmonary diseases and encouraging his patients to minimise carbohydrate intake and go for more fats. He set himself in opposition to the American Medical Association (AMA), which crowded his views out of the media and book publishing industry. Dr Atkins set up his own printing press. I came across his works in the 1980s. He did not believe there were diseases without cures. At that time, the popular medical opinion was that fat caused heart disease, heart attacks and stroke. Dr Atkins said fat was good food. Apparently, the fat” bad-mouthed “at that time, which he prescribed in large quantum, sometimes at three grams daily, 300 percent above permitted daily values, were essential fatty acids (EFAs) which are in vogue today. Today, many doctors do not prescribe more than 5,500 international units of vitamin A on daily basis for fear that an excess may cause liver damage. On a collision course with them, Dr Atkins prescribed between 15,000 and 25,000 iu.
It is possible Dr Atkins may have lived longer than 72 had he not slipped on that fateful day on a snow covered street of New York near the Atkins Centre and hit his head badly on the kerb and died.
Coronavirus and vitamin c
About two weeks ago, some Chinese doctors began to inform the medical world that mega intravenous vitamin c dosages may cure corona virus disease. A doctor from Shanghai whose daughter was among doctors in the region heading for Wuhan, epicentre of coronavirus outbreak in China, said many of them were packing vitamin c in suitcases for personal prophylactic use out there in the “inferno”. There have been an official report that decades of vitamin c clinical trials provided huge evidence that the vitamin may kill viruses.This was probably because it helps produce Hydrogen Peroxide which killed microbes.
This doctor told the story of a family . The focus is the matriarch who suffered from diabetes, coronary heart disease, other chronic diseases and began to exhibit symptoms of coronavirus infection. Her daughter had read a lot about the immune boosting, antioxidant and virus killing activities of vitamin c and began to take 20 grams (20, 000mg) of it everyday. She persuaded other members of the family to do likewise. The 70-year-old woman reluctantly joined them, taking only 10,000 mg daily.
Just before January 2020, her flu like symptoms escalated, and she had to go to hospital. She was in the general ward for 10 days, and taken to the intensive Care unit (ICU) when her symptoms worsened. Three of the family members took turns to visit her everyday. Except the masks and gloves they wore during the visits, they took no other precaution other than their regular daily intake of 20 grams (20,000milligrams) of vitamin c tablets . The patient’s daughter informed the doctors about the official advisory on vitamin c for the medical community and requested that her mother be placed on 20,000 mg intravenous vitamin c everyday. This was in addition to her other daily medication. The doctors agreed. And in about two weeks, her doctors began to think of letting her go home.
Lessons from the Chinese report
The Chinese report teaches us many lessons.
- The elderly are more likely than the young to be coronavirus victims
- Vitamin c protected people, young or old who are likely to be infected by corona virus and, if infected, cure them under high dosage therapy, as treatment of choice or adjunct medicine.
- There is no disease that cannot be overcome through the creation plan for help established by nature in The Will of God.
- Accordingly, panic or fear is not the approach to the solution of any problem. For those of us who believe in extra earthly life and events, nothing takes place in the material world that has no architype model in the unseen world. These models are formed and sustained by our thoughts and lifestyles on earth and mature someday for us to harvest. When we plan to develop a killer virus on earth, the thoughts go up, develop prototypes for us which we receive through inspiration and believe we have made a discovery.The architype which manifests on earth when we lower a bridge to it through fear or other play in thoughts.
Dr Pauling and vitamin c
First, I would like to mention the value of lime juice, grape seed extract and pine grape extract(pycogenol) in this matter. Dr James Lind brought lime juice to medical limelight in 1747. Before then, British sailors often died of illnesses associated with long voyages when their organs bled (sub clinical scurvy) which may later manifest outwardly as bleeding gums. In one episode, about 1,300 out of 2,000 sailors perished in a voyage. Dr Lind discovered that lime juice solved this problem. It was antioxidant and contained vitamin c.
Vitamin c would appear to work better when it is used alongside grape seed extract or pycogenol and zinc, according to some studies. Pycogenol or pine bark extract was researched by professor Jack Masquelier in the late 1960s after he read the travel diary of Jacques Cartier dated 1534. Cartier was an explorer. His ship got stuck in ice on St Lawrence river. Scurvy killed 25 of his 110 member crew, 50 were close to death and only three of the remainder were relatively healthy. Then, they discovered land. Villagers in Quebec region gave them tea made from the bark and leaves of the pine tree. In about one week, they substantially recovered. Professor Masquelier and other medical researchers found about 40 chemicals in pycogenol (pine bark extract) and grape seed extract, the American preference. Today, pycnogenol is believed to fight allergies, protect veins and capillaries, combat inflammation and edema, revive damaged collagen, check clotting and cholesterol build-ups, scavenge free radicals, improve memory, ADHD and autism among many other health challenges.
Our goal is to design a strategy for building immunity to its maximum potential in the prevention or treatment of corona virus disease. GlutathIione, one of the body’s primary antioxidants for this and any job, is the central focus. Vitamin c boosts glutathione production and extends its shelf life. Pycogenol, like grape seed extract, about 50 times more powerful than vitamin c and vitamin E as an antioxidant, revives tired vitamin c and extends its shelf life. Selenium impacts vitamin E and glutathione. Zinc boosts production of immune cells. Italian scientists a few years ago researched the impact of pycnogenol, vitamin c and zinc combination on immune function with startling results. Cellgevity, a cysteine formula, boosts glutathione level. Sulfur rich foods build glutathione. Some of them include garlic, onion, avocados, okra, asparagus, milk thistle, turmeric, curcumin and whey protein.
Dr Pauling and vitamin c
His studies were as controversial and remarkable. He found that vitamin c may neutralise snake poison, prevent retinal detachment, shorten the course of the cold virus, protect collagen structures, destroy free radicals, calm inflammation and help drainage in the eye, thereby preventing glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness, among many suggestions. In pursuit of an answer to the enquiry.Is mega dosage of vitamin c a conqueror of corona- virus disease ? I yield the ground to Michael Wooldridge.
Linus Pauling lectures on Vitamin c and Heart Disease, August 13, 1993 By Michael Wooldridge, MAWooldridge@lbl.gov
One of the great scientific mavericks of this century spoke at LBL August 10, 1993 at a special seminar hosted by the Life Sciences Division’s Lipoprotein and Atherosclerosis Group. Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel laureate and the world’s foremost vitamin c proponent, entertained an overflow crowd in the Bldg. 66 auditorium with a talk on vitamin c and heart disease.
The lively 92-year-old first gave a candid history of how he came to take up the vitamin c cause. He was introduced to the subject by biochemist Irwin Stone in 1966. Five years later, he would pen Vitamin c and the Common cold, and then boldly go on to champion vitamin c as a fighter of more serious diseases such as cancer.
According to Pauling, the vitamin’s versatility in illness prevention arises from its role in the manufacture of collagen, the protein that gives shape to connective tissues and strength to skin and blood vessels.
One of the great misfortunes of human evolution, Pauling explained, was when our human ancestors lost their ability to manufacture vitamin c. Pauling thinks the trait was probably discarded at a time when our ancestors had a diet of vitamin-rich plants and didn’t need to produce the vitamin themselves. This left today’s primates (including humans) as one of the few groups of animals that must get the vitamin through the diet.
Ever since proto-humans moved out of fruit-and-vegetable-rich habitats, Pauling said, they have suffered great deficiencies of vitamin c. Pauling has forthrightly recommended that people make up for this deficiency with daily doses of vitamin c much greater than the 60 mg generally recommended.
He said our vitamin c consumption should be at par with what other animals produce by themselves, typically 10-12 grams a day. Pauling practises what he preaches, having gradually upped his daily doses of vitamin c from 3 grams in the 1960s to a hefty 18 grams today.
Pauling went on to discuss vitamin c’s connection with lipoprotein-a, a substance whose levels in the blood have been linked to cardiovascular disease. Lipoprotein-a is also a major component of the plaques found in the blood vessels of atherosclerosis patients.
Pauling has published studies asserting that lipoprotein-a is a surrogate for vitamin c, serving to strengthen blood vessel walls in the absence of adequate amounts of the vitamin in the diet. In the lecture, Pauling noted that animals which, unlike humans, manufacture their vitamin c and have much higher levels of the vitamin in their bodies, have very little lipoprotein-a in their blood.
Pauling is convinced that doses of vitamin c can help prevent the onset of cardiovascular disease, inhibiting the formation of disease-promoting lesions on blood vessel walls and perhaps decreasing the production of lipoprotein-a in the blood. Vitamin c’s link to healthy blood vessels, Pauling said, is further supported by studies of scurvy, the disease caused by vitamin c deficiency. Fifty percent of patients who die of scurvy, he said, do so because of ruptured blood vessels.
Pauling won his first Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 for using quantum mechanics to elucidate the nature of chemical bonds. He garnered a Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 for his efforts to stem nuclear weapons proliferation.
The scientist founded the Linus Pauling Institute in Palo Alto, where research on vitamin c and other nutrients continues today
