Dr. Linus Pauling, the only American to win two unshared Nobel prizes, conducted years of research and personal trials of consuming large doses of vitamin C.  Dr. Pauling surmised that our current RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance) for Vitamin C, which is 75mg for males, 90mg for females (and additional 35mg for smokers), is only good to prevent scurvy, but not enough for optimal health.

Pauling himself took 18,000mg (18gm) of vitamin C every day and used up to 250,000mg (250gm) to treat cancer patients with great success.   His rationale came from the fact that most animals (of human size) produced 18,000mg of vitamin C daily.  In fact, these animals produced even more vitamin C under stressful situations.

Humans, along with bats, monkeys, apes, guinea pigs and some species of birds and fish are the only animals that do not produce their own vitamin C.  Animals comparable in size to humans, who do not create their own vitamin C, consume approximately 18 grams of vitamin C every day.   This means we need to consume enough vitamin C everyday to sustain health.  In all likelihood, you and everyone in your family are deficient in vitamin C, even if you take a multivitamin every day!

Vitamin C is used as a cofactor for the enzymes prolyl hydroxylase and lysyl hydroxylase, which function to hydorxylate the amino acids proline and lysine in collagen.  Vitamin C is necessary to activate these amino acids in collagen, which is needed to form the cross-links between cells.  In other words, cells are like bricks and billions upon billions of them cram together to make up our body and the glue—the binding that makes it all hold together—is vitamin C.

Without enough of this glue, other materials, such as cholesterol, is used to connect the cells inside the vessels, which is called atherosclerosis or plaque buildup.  When we don’t have enough collagen in our skin, ladies, we call these wrinkles!  When we don’t have enough in our vessels, it causes ruptures called aneurysms.

Dr. Pauling did not like the term, Megadosing, which is what others called his dosing regimen.   He called his dosing regimen Optimal dosing because it’s not “mega” if it’s what your body actually needs every day.  I couldn’t agree with him more.
How Much Vitamin C Should We Take?

Vitamin C is clearly one of the most important nutrients.  Just about every plant that has roots on the ground has vitamin C in it.  As you realized throughout this book that we are just like the earth with same proportion of materials, this vitamin C ubiquity means it needs to be ubiquitous in our diet, also.

A regular healthy “maintenance” level for the average adult is about 2,500 mg (2.5gm) of vitamin C daily.  500mg of Vitamin C can be taken five times throughout the day for optimal results.  This is because the half-life of vitamin C is only 30 minutes.  This means vitamin C will not stay in the body too long, therefore more frequent dosing is necessary.

An interesting effect that has been noted in megadosing vitamin C is what is referred to as the “bowel tolerance.” For healthy people, at around 15,000 - 20,000 mg per day, vitamin C will cause mild diarrhea. You can use this to measure your optimal level by decreasing dosages until normal movements return. Even more interesting is that unhealthy people—such as those with the flu or even cancer—hundreds of thousands of milligrams can be taken during a day with no bowel tolerance issues. In other words, when you’re sick, your body uses all the vitamin C it gets to fight disease. At high doses, vitamin C is antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal.  If you’re in stage four of cancer, your body is fighting infection throughout the body. It will use all the vitamin C with no loose stool side effects. Quite a testament to the power of optimal dosing!

If you are a smoker (50million), estrogen or birth control users (13million and 18 million), diabetics (18million), pregnant females (4million) and people taking aspirin (many millions) or other drugs, you should be increasing your daily vitamin C intake dramatically.

How about other Vitamins?

12,500 IU of vitamin A and 12,500 IU of beta carotene are recommended if you want to optimal dose, especially if you are under stress, such as going through a surgery.  RDA for vitamin A is 5,000 IU normally.

RDA for vitamin D is 200-400 IU.   I recommend 4,000-10,000 IU for optimal health.  This is further discussed in the Sun chapter under “How To Get Enough Vitamin D.”

Another crucial antioxidant is vitamin E.  The recommended dosage is 30 IU  but I recommend 400 IU per day for optimal health.

Megadosing can be a way to improve health, quickly boost energy and fight off colds and flus or more serious illnesses. At the very least, you should be eating foods high in naturally occurring vitamins. If you plan to start a megadose program, be sure and speak with your physician, especially if you are on any medications that could be counter-indicated by taking high dosages of vitamins.

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References:

“Cancer and Vitamin C”; Ewan Cameron and Linus Pauling; 1981

http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-magazine-linus-pauling.htm

“Vitamin C: The Real Story”; Steve Hickey, PhD & Andrew W. Saul, PhD; 2008

http://www.communicationagents.com/chris/2004/ /09/the_vitamin_c_fanatics_were_right_all_along.htm
http://www.enn.com/agriculture/article/23640