|
All You Need is C
By Natasha Lee, nutritional research for Natural Vitality
Also called ascorbic acid, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, M.D., and P.H. D isolated Vitamin C in 1928. It was the third vitamin to be discovered, thus, the letter C. It is probably best known as the "cure for the common cold", made popular by physicist Linus Pauling (who also won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 for being the first to educate people on the dangers of nuclear radiation and organizing the first ban of open-air nuclear testing). Linus Pauling, after he began studying vitamins and nutrition wrote an entire book on this one vitamin and there are other whole websites, books, and foundations entirely devoted to this one vitamin. It is the only vitamin which claims all of this.
The vitamin is more than a "warrior against disease" it is also the vitamin of beauty, and every cell in our body has a function which in some way depends on vitamin C.
It is vital to so many chemical reactions in the body, that without it, life would not be possible. Energy cannot be made in any cell either in the brain or muscles without adequate vitamin C. Vitamin C defends our body against foreign invaders of every type, and is the main ingredient of collagen, which is what our skin, bones, hair, teeth and nails are formed from. This article is about the startling power of this single vitamin.
Immune System:
Vitamin C kills both virus and bacteria directly, aids in neutralizing the toxins they give off, and also feeds our own antibodies and white blood cells. It has killing power against viruses. As much as 1000 milligrams of vitamin C can be used in an hour when the body is fighting illness. Seldom do people take enough or know how much to take. The body's own antibodies are unable to fight bacteria without vitamin C.
Antioxidant:
Vitamin C is in the family of antioxidants. This means that it protects the body from "oxidants" which are harmful crippled oxygen compounds roaming freely, called "free radicals". A proper analogy of what a "free radical" does with a cell would be the following: A person who has lost a limb, such as a leg for example, in order to rebalance itself goes and "takes" someone else's leg, thus crippling them. This action occurs with molecule's which have lost an electron, and go and take an electron from a thriving cell, which kills the once thriving cell and then creates a chain reaction of theft from cell to cell creating destruction of areas in the body. This action repeated over and over is the cause of aging and disease in the body. There are other nutritional elements which protect life organisms from this occurrence as well as C. ( Discussed in other articles). Please observe that "time" is merely the "carrier" of free radicals, or you could say their action happens within "time". But "time" itself is not the cause of a life organism deteriorating, looking or feeling old. Time is not the correct target, in other words.
Living in modern society the human body is continually subjected to chemicals or substances which are unnatural or foreign to it, such as air pollution, chemicals in paint, soap, shampoo, dry cleaning, etc. and the food we eat. These pollutants create "free radicals" abundantly in the environment. What vitamin C does is
act as a "decoy". Any roaming radical goes immediately to it first, instead of robbing the body of its thriving cells. It essentially bonds with them and makes them harmless because they quit "roaming" and "searching"; they don't need to steal.
It is perhaps the most important antioxidant in that it protects the other antioxidants, such as vitamin E from getting damaged.
It has been found that vitamin C can even prevent or cure chemical poisoning because of this "decoy" action it has. Vitamins C and E work together as a team to scavenge and fight off foreign pollutants in the body. Any person doing industrial work should take plenty of extra vitamin C to account for what will be allocated to
ward off the toxins and still have plenty left to fight bacteria or viruses floating about.
Allergies
Vitamin C detoxifies anything natural or unnatural which a persons body may not have immunity against. Studies have proven that vitamin C helps to prevent allergies by detoxifying the allergen before it causes a reaction. This author personally believes that people who are " allergic to everything" lack, and have been lacking vitamin C in their diet for some time. This makes sense because as our diets have grown poorer and poorer over time as a nation, our bodies are not getting enough C and what C we get is spent on detoxifying pollution, chemicals and drugs which are also more prevalent than they once were. Subsequently, more people are turning up with "allergies" to nearly everything. Yet, the human body was designed originally to withstand more stress and duress than any other life form on earth. Nature provides us with the solution for the body's ills and it would seem that those people who have "allergies" are not eating enough daily citrus fruits or getting some other supply of C. It is possible their ancestors were also lacking vitamin C and "allergies" were passed to them. Massive amounts of vitamin C can even detoxify poison oak, poison ivy, snake bite, spider bites and carbon monoxide poisoning. The quantity of vitamin C needed to detoxify a poison or allergen depends on the quantity of the substance which has entered the bloodstream.
Vitamin C and Collagen
Skin, tendons, ligaments, skin, bone, teeth, cartilage, heart valves, vertebrae, cornea, eye lens, and the ground substance between cells are all formed from collagen. Vitamin C is the chief ingredient in collagen. Without enough vitamin C, the body is unable to form collagen and is unable to repair itself. Some collagen forms in the absence of Vitamin C, but the fibers are abnormal resulting in skin lesions and fragile blood vessels.
When applied topically on skin it keeps cells fresh and healthy. Observe what happens when you put vitamin C (in lemon juice) on fruit. It will not brown. This is the vitamin protecting the fruit from interacting from harmful aging oxygen compounds (free radicals).
Fat Deposits
Vitamin C also helps to prevent and remove harmful fatty deposits from the arteries, escorting it to the liver where it is converted into bile and removed from the body.
Vitamin C as an antibiotic
Dr. Fred R. Klenner, retired chief of staff at the Memorial Hospital in Reidsville, North Carolina used the vitamin as an antibiotic giving injections of 2000 to 6000 which brought fevers down within hours.
In people who were extremely ill, it was reported that within an hour after giving massive doses of vitamin C, there were no traces in the patients' blood or urine.
This is because it was completely used up in fighting the illness or fever. After 25 years of clinical research he considered it to be superior to antibiotics.
Vitamin C and Cancer
Approximately ninety studies have been conducted concerning the effect of cancer on vitamin C.
The word "cancer" means "tumor". Tumors are formed from mutated cells. Mutated cells are caused by free radicals attacking them and, making them "confused" so they don't follow the regular DNA format and go off on their own. If one mutated cell replicates itself, it starts a tumor and grows stronger, taking nutrition from the other cells and warping the area it is in. This is cancer. Vitamin C destroys free radicals (anything toxic to the body), and it also destroys mutated cells, since they are "foreign" to the body and the immune system recognizes them as unwanted invaders. The more stress your immune system is under, the more Vitamin C is used, if it is available. If it isn't available, the disease will not be stopped. The truth is that mutated cells occur in the body all the time. It's just that our immune systems destroy them before they get out of hand. If not, it develops into a tumor, or "cancer" as it is called.
How much to take:
When vitamin C destroys viruses, bacteria, pollutants etc, the vitamin itself is also destroyed. Per nutritionist and biochemist Adelle Davis, as much as 20 to 40 times more vitamin C is needed when a person is ill. Many people may have tried simply "taking extra vitamin C" when they have a cold and not noticed much. This is because they do not take enough. When our bodies are exposed to stress (physical or emotional pressure), our stores of vitamin C are depleted by the adrenal gland which requires one molecule of vitamin C to make one molecule of adrenaline. One cigarette uses 50 mg. of vitamin C and an average of 200 to 300 mg. of vitamin C per day is needed to raise a smoker's vitamin C level to that of a non-smoker. If you drink alcohol, live in a polluted city, take drugs of any sort, smoke, or have stress in your life, all these factors use up the extra C you are taking and there is not enough left over to fight illness. Any type of strain reduces our resistance to infection. This is where the old wives tale " if you go outside in the rain you'll catch a cold" actually came from, although it is certainly not true in each case. There is some logic here in that when a person's body temperature is exposed to the elements, it is stressed which uses up vitamin C thus making the body less able to fight bacteria which may come along. The RDA is enough to prevent people from dying of scurvy, which is 60mg. This amount does not factor in how many milligrams are destroyed by whether or not people live in a polluted city, or drink coffee or alcohol, etc.
The ideal amount of C for the average individual to start with is around 1000 to 10,000 mg depending on what they expose themselves to.
The man who discovered vitamin C, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, took 1000 mg per day in1928, before the research on it had been completed and all the benefits were known. Linus Pauling took 10,000 to 18,000 mg. per day; Dr. Michael Colgan, prominent researcher of vitamin C, takes 5000 mg. per day. Vitamin C is not stored in the body, so we need a constant supply from food and supplements. Each individual should find their own requirement based on the number of toxic chemicals they expose themselves to. If they live in a polluted city, take drugs, have alot of stress, or have any symptoms such as bruising, swollen, bleeding, or receding gums, they will need to take higher amounts.
Dr. Fred R. Klenner, retired chief of staff at the Memorial Hospital in Reidsville, North Carolina gave severely ill patients injections of 50,000 to 100,000 milligrams of vitamin C with miraculous recovery. Taking vitamin C in a liquid form is the best. The following recipe is an excellent drink for recovering from any illness or injury.
Natasha's C drink:
1 Cup hot water;
1 Teaspoon C Crystals (Powdered C);
1 Teaspoon Natural Calm (Magnesium);
1 Teaspoon Honey.
The C works to kill infections, the magnesium works to relax the body so that the person feels better which assists the recovery process greatly, and the honey is for taste so the drink goes down easy. Works great!
This drink contains 4000 mg. Of Vitamin C and 205 mg of Magnesium delivered instantly into the body. This should be taken every hour, with an initial higher dosage at the first sign of any infection or illness. If diarrhea occurs, add fiber and rehydrate the body with extra fluids.
More information about this can be gotten through the Vitamin C Foundation.
What happens if I take too much?
Per Dr. Klenner, vitamin C is not toxic even in the most massive doses. However, if a poor quality of vitamin is used, a person could be allergic to the fillers or binders used to manufacture the vitamin pill. If one wishes to take large amounts he can use vitamin C powder, which has no fillers and is just the pure vitamin or, use tablets or capsules from a company he knows. The side effect of taking more C than your body can process at one time is diarrhea. If diarrhea occurs when one is taking a large amount of C to combat an illness, one would simply reduce the dosage, drink more fluids and work slowly up to higher amounts. Taking large doses of vitamin C to kill illness is much like attempting to fill a pail full of water which has holes in it. In order to fill it, you have to pour in larger amounts of water, faster than it can leak out the holes. As the body becomes healthier it will be able to process more at a time and no bad bacteria or virus stands a chance against this onslaught.
Written by:
Natasha Lee
Nutritional Research
Peter Gillham's Nutritional Center
References: Dr. Fred R. Klenner, "The Use of Vitamin C as an Antibiotic," Journal of Applied Nutrition , VI (1953) 274, "Massive Doses of Vitamin C and the Virus Diseases," Southern Medicine and Surgery, CXIII (1951), 101
"Cancer and Vitamin C" Copyright 1979, Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine The "Vitamin C Foundation" webpage
"CforYourself" webpage by researcher Randy Hoge
"Lets Eat Right to Keep fit" by nutritionist, biochemist Adelle Davis
This article is not intended to take the place of a competent nutritionist or doctor. It is solely intended to educate people on the vital and perhaps underestimated importance of this nutritional element.
The information in this site is presented for educational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose or prescribe.
In the event the reader uses the information for his own health, he is in fact prescribing for himself, which is his own constitutional right, and for which the author assumes no responsibility.
If you suffer from a medical condition, consult your doctor.
If you have questions as to the application of this information to your own health,
you are advised to consult a qualified health professional.
© 2000 by
Peter Gillham All rights reserved.
Go to shopping cart
|
|