Away with heart disease/strokes/cardiovascular disease information that may save your life?

The theory goes that vitamin c deficiency leads to cardio vascular disease. (atherosclerosis)
Vitamin C (Or ascorbate) along with cholesterol is needed to synthesize collagen.
Collagen fibers are the building blocks of blood vessels.
Blood vessels become damaged due to stress etc and collagen is used in the repair.
If there is little or no vitamin c available then the vessel can't be repaired properly,
cholesterol builds up over the damaged vessel and this causes a "plaque."
These plaques pose a threat to the human i.e. they can rupture or completely block the vessel.

www.vitamincfoundation.org...
www.courseweb.uottawa.ca... en.wikipedia.org...

In a natural diet we obtain slow release nutrients.
These nutrients are slowly released from the "mash" of food as they pass through the gut.
This mechanism of slow release is very important, has been overlooked in the past, and is
one of the reasons why there is such a controversy over the claims for vitamins C and atherosclerosis

www.medicalnewstoday.com...

What is a pulsed dose?

Vitamin C is excreted fast with half life of approx 30m. (I.e. your body pees it out quickly.)
To keep average blood levels high, so it can do its job, we either pulse the dose or mimic
nature by taking a slow release pill.

For a single dose the blood level will rise, reach a maximum as bowel absorption stops, and then
fall off as your body excretes etc.

en.wikipedia.org...

What is a nutritional dose?

A dose needed to prevent deficiency.

What is pharmacological dose ?

Taking a dose large enough to remove a symptom/treat a disease.

Usually when you take a drug it is "pulsed."
The reason for this is to keep average blood levels high enough for the drug to do its thing.
If you imagine our single dose curve, the blood levels start off low, increase as the drug is absorbed,
reach a peak as no more is being absorbed from the gut and then fall off.
If we take another dose before this fall off, you can see the levels will again begin to rise and hence the average levels in the blood will be higher than for a single dose.
There is also an accumulation of the drug which leads to a higher maximum level

For more information see en.wikipedia.org...

Doses for all RDA? Mega doses - problems?

lpi.oregonstate.edu...

"The RDA continues to be based primarily on the prevention of deficiency disease, rather than the
prevention of chronic disease and the promotion of optimum health."

What is this chronic disease ?
Well one of them is atherosclerosis a manifestation of scurvy.

The controversial argument is that atherosclerosis is manifestation of scurvy.

www.seanet.com...


Clinical scurvy has all but been eliminated thanks to the work of Lind..
For a primer on scurvy. (Lind basically is the father of the modern clinical trial.) en.wikipedia.org...

It is possible to argue using modern methods, to debunk Lind's study.
Selection bias small sample size etc but what he did was initiate an experiment with a human control and this is continued today and is the basis for modern clinical trials trial.
en.wikipedia.org...

Interesting facts the British were called "Limeys" because of the citrus fruits they carried on their ships to
prevent scurvy. It is argued one of the reasons the British empire was so strong was because it used the scientific knowledge of scurvy as a weapon to conquer the seas.

We humans are missing a gene (GLO) which enables us to synthesize vitamin c in our livers.
This gene defect if you can call it that was probably the result of some evolutionary pressure.

www.seanet.com...

Can primates synthesize vitamin c?

Yes they can but not in large quantities.
www.vitamincfoundation.org...

Interesting fact is that some nomads (Probably under evolutionary pressure can synthesize enough vitamin c to prevent scurvy.)


Why animals don't get heart attacks but humans do ?

Is an oversimplification. Pets that synthesize vitamin c should be bullet proof against atherosclerosis, but they are not, but the incidence is probably low and probably the result of other diseases interfering with the vitamin c somehow.
(For more information google ebook Hickey/Roberts Ascorbate Science Of Science Vitamin C or buy from your favorite book store.)

Linus Pauling/Raths argument. Linus Pauling was great but controversial scientist, who argued vitamin c is the cure for atherosclerosis.

en.wikipedia.org...
www.brighthub.com... www4.dr-rath-foundation.org...

So the theory is that atherosclerosis is manifestation of scurvy.
We get it because we are missing a gene that enables us to synthesize vitamin c in our livers, and our dietary intake is too low.

Some experimental evidence

Guinea pigs are missing the L-gulono-γ-lactone oxidase (GLO) gene -they do not synthesize their own vitamin c. When they are given vitamin c in their diets atherosclerosis is abscent.

"A total of 77 male and female adult guinea-pigs was rendered scorbutic... After intervals of from 21 to 30 days, 50 of these animals were given ascorbic acid therapy and there remaining 27 were sacrificed. "
"No atherosclerosis was found in the controls (with ascorbic acid added from the beginning."

www.internetwks.com...


In conclusion To eradicate atherosclerosis from mankind you need to prevent it.
To do this we need to apply a nutritional approach which puts large enough amounts of vitamin c back into the diet, paying attention to dosage. A nutritional dose high enough to keep us in vibrant health.

For someone to reverse atherosclerosis, a pulsed pharmacological regime, paying careful attention to dosage and timings should be used.or a bowel tolerance regime.
www.orthomed.com...

Side effects of large doses
Diarrhea + good health!
Vitamin C crosses the bowel wall through a mechanism called "osmosis."
en.wikipedia.org...

If the concentration is high enough across your bowel wall, then water can pass through the membrane and the result is diarrhea.

For a more details visit www.vitamincfoundation.org...
For posts related to this on ATS ask.abovetopsecret.com... type in vitamin c heart disease and click search.

What I find _really_ interesting is the argument that somewhere along the lines,
along came a genetic error that affected vitamin c synthesis and this gave the species
an evolutionary advantage.
Vitamin c is an anti oxidant and a free radical scavenger and thus the lack of it would
have meant that the mutation rate increased and thus more information was added to the
genome.


Limbo

What an excellent thread! Valuable information. It may be that you have saved someones life. Thank you for posting this. Linus Pauling is smiling.

reply to post by Iamschist


Thanks - there really is too much information out there to cover it all.
I'm glad you enjoyed it!

I admit I am a fan of anecdotes and other scientific bon bons.
I have looked on the Pauling Therapy site and what people are saying is that this therapy is rapid
and miraculous.
There's an unpublished study that claimed 800%-1500% higher plaque in the placebo group.
I wonder what happened to this?

www.vitamincfoundation.org...

"I believe that you read it wrong - but Kenton never published. He filed patents, etc. (He may have confused apo(A) with apo(a) - and that may be why he didn't publish)

Basically atherosclerosis progressed as expected in the placebo group.

But was practically halted - stopped - in the vitamin C/vitamin E and lysine groups.

I mention in our book and Kenton's letter is

www.internetwks.com... Scroll down to "UK Study"

Shame I can't find anymore info on it.
Limbo

You want to avoid the squirts, take sodium ascorbate, it's also alkalizing like taking bicarb.

You can stomach (pun) a lot more ascorbic acid this way, go right to about 2 grams a day without any distress.