Vitamin C History and how to take it

Albert Szent-Györgyi Discovered Vitamin C in the 1920s

Albert Szent-Györgyi was a Hungarian biochemist who received a Nobel Prize for his work in physiology and medicine in 1937. He is known for separating vitamin C and isolating components of the citric acid cycle.

Vitamin C is also known as ascorbic acid. The word ascorbic means anti-scurvy and the C was coined according to one source, as Casimir Funk. There were several more learned gentlemen involved in the process of discovery but Albert Szent-Györgyi is accorded the accolade for making it more public.

Back in 1747, a British Royal Navy surgeon James Lind decided to try to find a cure for scurvy which ravaged the sailors when they were away on long voyages to the far reaches of the British Empire. Due to the lack of understanding with respect to nutrition, thousands of sailors died of nutritional sickness. James Lind aboard the HMS Salisbury conducted an experiment and took 12 men and divided them into 6 pairs. Each group was given something different to their normal diet and he found that the one’s who had received citrus fruits recovered from the devastating effects of this, at that time, common disease.

Despite James Lind’s success in conquering scurvy, it wasn’t until some fifty years later that the Royal Navy finally got it that citrus fruits could improve the health of its men enormously and this was due to another medical doctor, Sir Gilbert Blane in 1795. He was able to convince the admiralty that the ships should always have citrus fruit juice served every day to prevent this horrendous disease.

The British sailors were often called “Limeys” because in the Caribbean, limes were more accessible than oranges and lemons.

It is interesting to note that it took the Royal Navy around fifty years to finally allow James Lind’s idea to be accepted. Large established organizations are prone to be less open to new ideas, despite that it would have meant a stronger, healthier fighting force. And even today, some 225 years later, vitamin C is still undergoing a lack of acceptance and its place in aiding people who are suffering from all sorts of sicknesses, more on that later.

Further Background on the History of Doctors Who Used Vitamins

According to what I have read on different websites and in certain books, vitamin C has been used both orally and intravenously under the supervision of numerous trained doctors.

A few, far-thinking doctors started using vitamin C way back in the 1930s very successfully and have done so ever since. So this is nothing new in the use of this wonderful medium. It is unfortunately not recognized by mainstream medicine and continues to be so. This is very sad because huge numbers of people could be helped, whatever the symptoms may be.

There are too many medically trained doctors to mention here, yet I would like to mention a few of the early ones and some illnesses they successfully treated. This is little known information unless you look for it and know what you are looking for on the internet. The mainstream generally poo-poos anything to do with what they deem as an alternative therapy but nutritional medicine really does work, in the right doses and quantities. I have seen this for myself but more on that later.

Christiaan Eijkman (1858 – 1930) was a Dutch medical doctor who was famous for his research into nutrition. He discovered that a diet of polished rice in 1893 would lead to beriberi. He experimented on birds with this disease and during this time he discovered vitamin B.

He demonstrated that an ingredient in polished rice was a prerequisite for the proper functioning of the body’s nervous system and metabolism and that the lack of this element could lead to beriberi and other sicknesses. It was in 1929, due to this research, he received the Nobel Prize sharing it with the British biochemist Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins for physiology and medicine.

Max Gerson M.D (1881 – 1959) started to use vegetable juices to help treat thousands of people suffering from all kinds of cancers and other critical illnesses as far back as the early 1920s. Patients receive a glass of freshly pressed vegetable juice every hour. His daughter Charlotte Gerson continued his work until her passing in 2019. There are several clinics around the world that offer Gerson’s therapy. Not everyone has been helped by this therapy but then has chemotherapy?

William McCormick M.D (1880- 1968) As a pioneer in the use of vitamin C and poor collagen formation who used it in extra-large doses on such cases as stretch marks, cardiovascular and cancer treatments successfully. He also established in his clinical and laboratory research that one cigarette could neutralize 25 mg of vitamin C in the body. This was amazing and at a time when the cigarette industry was going all out with it’s “no health issues” when smoking. Yet, the mainstream media continues to ignore the use of the wonder substance.

Roger J. Williams PhD (1893 – 1988) Was a Professor of Chemistry and discoverer of pantothenic acid (Vitamin B5). He was founder and director of the Clayton Foundation Biochemical Institute at the University of Texas which was responsible for many vitamin discoveries.

Cornelius Moerman M.D (1893 – 1988) Founder of the Moerman Therapy for cancer treatment. He fought all his life against the established views of his peers who regarded his views with disdain. Yet his name is revered today and his work continues in the Netherlands as Moermanvereniging.

This is only a small excerpt of the many men and women who specialized in implementing the usage of orthomolecular medicine on their patients. : It was the two-time Nobel Prize winner, Linus Pauling PH. D who created this word to mean what it means today. Ortho, from Greek means – to correct and molecule and the word Orthomolecular came in to being. It means correcting bodily imbalances with nutrients such as vitamins and minerals.

Here is a link to an excellent website where you will be able to see that vitamins usage in mega-doses is by no means an obscure, alternative medical treatment because the people mentioned on the linked website were all highly educated, for the most part, medical doctors or professors and Nobel Prize winners from the sciences. It makes for a fascinating read.http://orthomolecular.org/history/index.shtml

Why Vitamin Therapy Might be Good for You?

We are all so different yet, we all have the human body which has a heart, a pair of lungs, a couple of kidneys, a liver, a stomach and too many organs to mention here that almost all of are born with. There are some people who are born with an organ that is missing and some of us lose a part of the body due to an accident or illness but no matter your race, your gender, your size or age we are all members of the human family. Some of us treat our bodies better than others, some of us choose to smoke or to drink a little more than perhaps is recommended, some of us eat a less than healthy foods and often at some point in our lives we find that we, for the most part, go to the doctor and ask him or her what we can do about it.

I have lived a relatively healthy life, I drank little and I smoked, when I smoked only socially and that was in my early twenties but I never felt the need to imbibe when on my own. I also experimented with some substances only to find that one of them made me feel paranoid and due to long ago circumstances, I gave this up.

I have eaten moderately well and have rarely been over-weight, although there was a time, some ten years ago when I noticed that when I sat down a balloon of a stomach pushed out when on the loo or a chair when I could feel the constraints of my trousers and it didn’t feel good. Back in 2012, I was sick and tired of my seasonal allergies and my “balloon” so I decided on a radical action, I fasted.

Fasting to Clean the Pipes

I fasted for 17 days on water and herb-teas. I was not a happy camper at the time, business was bad, I was at a juncture in my life when I didn’t know how to continue so I decided to give my body (and my mind from sugar) a break. And yes, I lost weight and I had no need for the asthma inhaler I usually needed at this time of the year. The wonder of wonders, I could sleep with my bedroom window open, something I always do, no matter what the weather is like, but during the early spring I had to close the window and this was horrible.

Fasting is something that humankind has done for aeons, yet, once again, barely mentioned in the official medical journals although I have a number books written about fasting by medical doctors who went on to study this aspect of treatment and healing of their own accord. One book that comes to mind is the book written by the doctor Joel Fuhrman MD, whose own remarkable healing of an incidence as a young man put him on a path to want to help others experience similar treatment and success. The book’s title is “Fasting and Eating for Health”

NB. I would not recommend anybody doing a long fast for the first time or later without some sort of medical supervision, it can make one awfully weak, however, if you were to do a juice fast and then not so long, this also needs to be treated with great respect and also best under the supervision of a specialist.

Megavitamins to Help Treat Seasonal Allergies?

Although I had read about mega-vitamin therapy, I hadn’t really taken in “on board”. It was a case of, “yes, it might be good for others, but it won’t be good for me”.

A year a later I started to read more about vitamin D3 and K2 which I found fascinating but it wasn’t until I came across Doctor Andrew Saul’s book “Fire Your Doctor” that I began to take a few grams of vitamin C only to notice that my seasonal allergy symptoms, such as itchy eyes, runny nose and later in the allergy season asthmatic responses were vastly reduced. I am now taking between 10 and 15 grams a day mostly as ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) in a pleasant tasting, no-added-sugar fruit juice. As ascorbic acid is, well, an acid, Andrew Saul recommends rinsing one’s teeth after taking the dose. There are other types of vitamin C powder which are less aggressive to the teeth but are a little more expensive and I find more bitter tasting. However, there are always the 1 gram tablets which one can gulp down.

I have found that the itchy eyes, runny nose and asthma are greatly reduced when I up the daily dosage of vitamin C. I add vitamin D3 but this is best done a few weeks (or months) before the allergy season because it takes a while for this fat-soluble vitamin to stored in the body whereas vitamin C is more or less instant and by that I mean within in minutes, especially if taken on an empty stomach and as a powder/juice form I have just written about.

And Depression?

I remember cycling home from a client one warm summer evening and I became aware that the cloud of depression was gone! I felt good for the first time in a long time. It could have been the warm summer evening but I remember thinking that it was the larger doses than I had previously been taking. It was a wonderful feeling and it was such a relief. I felt happy and happier than I had felt for a long time.

There is a body of research relating to this factor of usage and I heartily recommend you researching this at ether: http://www.doctoryourself.com/depression.html This is only one of many articles on that website. Also http://orthomolecular.org/ Both websites are a wonderful resource and an incredible amount of information written by medical doctors which have been peer-reviewed.

How to take Vitamin C?

It has taken me a while to get it into my head how one should take this amazing substance.

The nutritionists talk about bowel tolerance. An interesting term and it is certainly better than the technical term for a runny-tummy, in other words, diarrhoea (diarrhoea). In order to take vitamin C, I have read and have indeed, learned that for my particular body, not to take much more than 3 grams at a time, whether as a tablet or a powder in juice when I am healthy. I have learned that on days when a cold or some sort of influenza is on its way, that I can up the dose to more. In other words, my bowel tolerance increases when I am not well. During the time of the year, I am allergic to certain pollen I take around 15 grams a day. I round off the day with about 2 grams before I head for bed. Some people can take much more than I do in one go and some might have to take much less. It is not the single size of the dose anyway, it is the dosage throughout the day which is important so that by the end of the day you will have reached your 10 to 15 grams of this wonderful substance.

If you happen to be coming down with a severe fever or influenza, I have been led to understand that many specialists recommend taking a bowel-tolerance dose and then following this up by a gram (some say) every half-an-hour or every hour. Doctor Andrew Saul writes in his book of how, when coming down with pneumonia took a one grams tablet of C every six minutes without any bowel-tolerance problems. The result was that very shortly after this he was able to carry on with his normal life and didn’t lie for days in bed recovering.

For more severe symptoms, my own doctor here in the city I live is both a medical doctor and biologist used IV (Intravenous) vitamin C with his cancer patients. From what I understand cancer patients invariably have extremely low levels of vitamin C in their blood (as do most elderly people) and benefit hugely from extra-large doses this marvellous substance directly into their veins. The massive advantage with the taking of it via IV is that huge amounts of C can be put directly into the bloodstream and there is no reaction to this with respect to bowel-tolerance levels, in other words, there is no problem at all regarding this issue.

Conclusion

My understanding and experience is that I personally take around 3 grams every morning before I leave the house and a further 3 grams sometime before lunch-time, then sometime during the afternoon and sometime in the early evening and 2 or 3 grams just before going to bed. Many people take less and some take more. If you should have a particularly sensitive stomach then I recommend calcium ascorbate or sodium ascorbate – both are vitamin C in another form. You could also take the much more expensive liposomal which is often (but not only) in liquid form and some people are saying it is the next best thing to IV dosing.

A Final Little Story

Two years ago, a client of mine came to our weekly business English training sessions in the city and he was cursing! He was and still is the manager of an outdoor wear shop of a very well-known company. The store had newly opened that year and he was under a lot of pressure from his superiors and was super busy. A really likeable guy who was primarily cursing his seasonal allergy and the severe symptoms he was suffering. Most people are not open to the idea of vitamin C as help and I occasionally mention that I took large doses of this when the season had come along but most people when hearing this revert to what their doctor had prescribed for them, which is okay and I have to accept it, I am not a doctor and have no idea what the background is. But this young – around 30-year-old – man seemed to listen as I told him about my own experience with seasonal allergies, I mentioned how much I took and what kind. The next week we met for another training session, he said how much better he felt and how he could now breath properly and carry out his work much better as branch manager and was very grateful I had mentioned this miracle substance to him.

I hope my brief article has helped you. I have been meaning to write this for a long time but have felt it was now very necessary due to the fact the mainstream press is giving this wonderful therapy a hard time. Potentially thousands of people could be helped with their modest to severe symptoms if there were more awake doctors around. I am aware that a doctor doesn’t become a doctor to hurt their patients but many still look down their noses at vitamin C and its brothers and sisters, other vitamins and minerals. Some articles are coming out but not many and as I am a great believer in this substance which can probably help many, many people, it has most certainly helped me with my allergies, my energy levels and my depressions, I felt obliged to write about it here. Have fun exploring the potentially better and improved you. Best wishes.

Oh, and by the way. human beings can’t make their own vitamin C alongside the fruit-bat, guineapigs and most primates. Irwin Stone’s wonderful book “The Healing Factor,” writes that he believes that almost all human beings suffer from what he terms a sub-scurvy condition, meaning that most us suffer from some sort of scurvy, bleeding gums when cleaning one’s teeth just to mention one…perhaps something to think about?

Important

The subject matter of vitamin C is an interesting one and I have written for the most part about my own experiences with it. At no point do I wish to suggest that it is a replacement for advice or medicines your doctor might recommend, however, there is a large body of documented research which shows that vitamin C can help as a supplementary wellness assistant. Do you own research, and remember, that the implication is large doses or mega-doses of vitamins and not the so-called “recommended amounts”. Please take this up with your health specialist should you wish to enquire further.