Megadose Vitamin C therapy
A book that provides a great introduction is “Vitamin C the Real Story” by Steve Hickey and Andrew Saul
Another really good book is “Primal Panacea” by Thomas Levy
An excellent one of the original books by Linus Pauling is “How to live longer and feel better” (1986)
More information is also available from www.vitaminc.co.nz
Ways to take Vitamin C
Liposomal Vit C is best if taking large 6 – 20+ gram daily doses
Nature Foods sells NZLF Liposomal Vit C for $38 for 30 sachets each containing 1000mg Vitamin C.
https://www.naturefoods.co.nz/supplements/vitamins/liposomal-vitamin-c
The newer Micro Liposomal Vitamin C is also available.
This is more convenient to take than the regular liposmal vitamin C – a liquid rather than a gel, but it is also more expensive.
https://www.naturefoods.co.nz/supplements/vitamins/quicksilver-c
www.naturefoods.co.nz
Powders are really only suitable for
small maintenance doses of up to 1- 4 grams per day – for mega dosing we
recommend taking Liposamal or Microsomal Vit C.
(Many of the colourful pictures on this page are optical microscopy images of Vitamin C)
Liposamal Vitamin C dosage – to fart tolerance
I have found this works well for
minor illnesses like colds, but I made this up myself and some people
may say it’s a load of bollocks
Cut out all the other types of Vit C
Start with 6x 1gram doses of Liposomal spread through the day with one in the middle of the night
(6 grams is too low for pretty much everyone but it’s a safe starting point)
Add 2 extra grams a day until you start to fart a bit.
If you start to fart a lot back off until it’s only occasional farting
(Vit C farts are mild and odourless so it’s not as bad as it sounds )
As the dose becomes larger it’s easier to take two grams at a time.
I have found 12 grams a day works well to rapidly fix problems such as colds
Have we been going backwards with knowledge of Vitamin C for the past 40 years like we have with cars?
1972 – Valiant Charger in “Vitamin C Orange” – awesome!
2012 – Smart Car in “snot green” – less than awesome
This video clip uses a few gratuitous arse shots to up its ranking, but the treatment works brilliantly
Vitamin C – a cure for Ebola
Steve Hickey PhD, Hilary Roberts PhD, and Damien Downing MBBS, MSB.
Vitamin C is the primary antioxidant in
the diet. Most people do not take enough to be healthy. While this is
true of many nutrients, vitamin C is a special case.
Ignore governments telling you that you
only need about 100 mg a day and can get this amount from food. The
required amount of vitamin C varies your state of health. A normal adult
in perfect health may need only a small intake, say 500 mg per day, but
more is needed when someone is even slightly under the weather.
Similarly, to prevent illness, the intake
needs to be increased. The intake for an otherwise healthy person to
have a reasonable chance of avoiding a common cold is in the region of
8-10 grams (8,000-10,000 mg) a day.
This is about ten times what corporate
medicine has tested in their trials on vitamin C and the common cold.
Ten grams (10,000 mg) is the minimum pharmacological intake; it may help
if you have a slight sore throat but more (much more) may be needed.
To get rid of a common cold, you may need
anything from 20 to 60 grams (60,000 mg) a day. With influenza the need
might be for 100 grams (100,000 mg) a day. Since it varies from person
to person, and from illness to illness, the only way to find out is to
experiment for yourself.
Dynamic flow – The problem with oral
intakes is that healthy people do not absorb vitamin C well due to
something Dr Robert Cathcart called bowel tolerance. Take too much of
the vitamin in a single dose and it will cause loose stools.
In good health, a person might be able to
take a couple of grams at a time without this problem. Strangely, when a
person becomes sick they can take far more without this side effect: as
much as 20-100+ grams a day, in divided doses.
High dose vitamin C has a short half-life
in the body. The half-life is the time for the level in the blood
plasma to fall back to half its concentration. Until recently, some
people claimed that the half-life of vitamin C was several weeks.
We have shown that this long half-life
applies only to very low doses. By contrast, the half-life for high
blood levels is only half an hour. This short half-life means that for
high dose vitamin C the period between doses needs to be short – a few
hours at most.
The aim is to achieve dynamic flow, to
get vitamin C flowing continuously through the body. Dynamic flow
requires multiple high doses taken throughout the day. When separated in
time, each dose is absorbed independently. Two doses of 3 grams, taken
12 hours apart, are absorbed better than 6 grams taken all at once.
Multiple large doses, say 3 grams four
times a day, produce a steady flow of the vitamin from the gut, into the
bloodstream and out, via the urine. Some of the intake is not absorbed
into the blood and stays in the gut, as a reserve against the early
onset of illness.
As illness begins, the body pulls in this
“excess” to help fight the virus. The idea behind dynamic flow is that
the body is kept in a reduced (antioxidant) state, using high doses.
There is always vitamin C available, to refresh the body and other
antioxidants.
Each vitamin C molecule (ascorbic acid)
has two antioxidant electrons, which it can donate to protect the body.
It then becomes oxidized to dehydroascorbate (DHA). This oxidized
molecule is then excreted, so the body has gained two antioxidant
electrons.
The kidneys reabsorb vitamin C, but not
DHA; the vitamin C molecule is absorbed, used up, and then the oxidized
form is thrown out with the rubbish. The effectiveness of vitamin C is
not directly proportional to the dose; it is non-linear.
There is a threshold above which vitamin C
becomes highly effective. Below this level, the effect is small; above
it, the effect is dramatic. The problem is that no-one can tell you in
advance what intake of vitamin C you need. The solution is to take more –
more than you think necessary, more than you consider reasonable. The
mantra is dose, dose, dose.
Sugar interferes with the uptake of
vitamin C. If you are using vitamin C to combat a viral infection do not
eat any sugar or carbohydrates (long chain sugars) or the vitamin C
will not be absorbed properly. We stress that this means no sugar and no
carbs, at all.
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service
UNIQUE FUNCTION OF VITAMIN C – Dr. Robert F. Cathcart, M.D.
Vitamin C is a reducing substance, an
electron donor. When vitamin C donates its two high-energy electrons to
scavenge free radicals, much of the resulting dehydroascorbate is
rereduced to vitamin C and therefore used repeatedly.
Conventional wisdom is correct in that
only small amounts of vitamin C are necessary for this function because
of its repeated use. The point missed is that the limiting part in
nonenzymatic free radical scavenging is the rate at which extra
high-energy electrons are provided through NADH to rereduce the vitamin C
and other free radical scavengers.
When ill, free radicals are formed at a
rate faster than the high-energy electrons are made available. Doses of
vitamin C as large as 1 to 10 grams per 24 hours do only limited good.
However, when ascorbate is used in massive amounts, such as 30 to 200+
grams per 24 hours, these amounts directly provide the electrons
necessary to quench the free radicals of almost any inflammation.
Additionally, in high concentrations
ascorbate reduces NAD(P)H and therefore can provide the high-energy
electrons necessary to reduce the molecular oxygen used in the
respiratory burst of phagocytes. In these functions, the ascorbate part
is mostly wasted but the necessary high-energy electrons are provided in
large amounts.
DEFINITION AND QUALIFICATION
In this paper, the words, vitamin C, will
refer to the substance C6H8O6 used in tiny doses as a vitamin and an
electron carrier. The word, ascorbate, will mean the same substance but
when used in massive amounts for its high-energy electrons themselves.
This paper is not meant to be an
exhaustive review of the subjects of oxidation-reduction reactions, free
radical scavenging, electron-transport-chains, or oxidative
phosphorylation, etc. Many of the biochemical processes are deliberately
simplified. Some intermediate steps are omitted. Certain
generalizations are made so that the importance of a very simple but
overlooked idea can be described in terms a non-biochemist can
understand.
The overlooked idea is that massive doses
of ascorbate can actually be the source of high-energy electrons used
in the process of free radical scavenging and not just an electron
carrier used repeatedly in an electron-transport-chain resulting in free
radical scavenging.
INTRODUCTION
Clinically, a few physicians have found
massive doses of ascorbate to be effective in the treatment of a wide
variety of diseases. It was apparent to those using ascorbate in these
doses that there is some physiologic or pharmacologic action much
different from what might be expected of a mere vitamin. Nevertheless,
most physicians remained critical of these treatments and remained
convinced that the usefulness of ascorbate is only as vitamin C.
Many had recognized that one vitamin C
function is as a free radical scavenger. In this function, vitamin C
donates high-energy electrons to neutralize free radicals and in the
process becomes DHA (dehydroascorbate). DHA is either further
metabolized, releasing more electrons, or is rereduced back to vitamin C
to be used over and over again. This regeneration and repeated use of
the vitamin has led to the thought that it does not take much to do its
functions.
Other nonenzymatic free radical
scavengers such as glutathione and vitamin E function in a similar
manner. The purpose of taking the nutrients making up the free radical
scavengers is ordinarily to replace the small percentage inadvertently
lost. Much of the original work with large amounts of ascorbate was done
by Klenner who found that most viral diseases could be cured by
intravenous sodium ascorbate in amounts up to 200 grams per 24 hours.
Irwin Stone pointed out the potential of
ascorbate in the treatment of many diseases, the inability of humans to
synthesize ascorbate, and the resultant condition hypoascorbemia. Linus
Pauling reviewed the literature on vitamin C, particularly its
usefulness in the prevention and treatment of the common cold and the
flu.
Ewan Cameron in association with Pauling
described the usefulness of ascorbate in the treatment of cancer. In
1970 I noted an increasing bowel tolerance to oral ascorbic acid with
illness. In 1984 I wrote, “Based on my experience with over 11,000
patients during the past 14 years, it has been my consistent observation
that the amount of ascorbic acid dissolved in water which a patient,
tolerant to ascorbic acid, can ingest orally without producing diarrhea,
increases considerably somewhat proportionately with the “toxicity” of
his illness.
A person who can tolerate orally 10 to 15
grams of ascorbic acid per 24 hours when well, might be able to
tolerate 30 to 60 grams per 24 hours if he has a mild cold, 100 grams
with a severe cold, 150 grams with influenza, and 200 grams per 24 hours
with mononucleosis or viral pneumonia.
The clinical symptoms of these diseases
and other conditions previously described, are markedly ameliorated only
as bowel tolerance dose levels (the amount that almost, but not quite,
causes diarrhea) are approached.
This amelioration of symptoms at a high
dosage threshold combined with the knowledge that ascorbate functions as
a reducing substance suggested that the beneficial effect was achieved
only when the redox couple, ascorbate/dehydroascorbate, became reducing
in the tissues affected by the disease. It is a characteristic of
oxidation-reduction reactions that their redox potential is determined
by the logarithm of the concentrations of the substances and certain
constants.
The logarithmic effect would explain the
threshold; the redox potential would suddenly become reducing in the
diseased tissues only when a large amount of ascorbate was forced into
those tissues sufficient to neutralize most of the oxidized materials in
those tissues.
FREE RADICAL SCAVENGING
Radicals are molecules that have lost an
electron. When a radical escapes its normal location, it becomes a free
radical. These free radicals are very reactive and will seize electrons
from adjacent molecules.
Inflammations whether due to infectious
diseases, autoimmune diseases, allergies, trauma, surgery, burns, or
toxins involve free radicals. Cells injured by free radicals will spill
free radicals onto adjacent cells injuring those cells and generating
more free radicals, etc.
The body must confine these free radical
cascades with free radical scavengers. Some free radicals spontaneously
decay and others are destroyed by enzymatic free radical scavengers such
as superoxide dismutase and catalase that act on free radicals in such a
way that they neutralize themselves without the addition of extra
electrons.
The remainder must be destroyed by the
high-energy electrons carried by the nonenzymatic free radical
scavengers. Free radicals that escape all the above mechanisms cause
symptoms and damage. It is helpful to remember through all the following
descriptions that technically it is the high-energy electron that is
neutralizing the free radical, not the free radical scavenger. The free
radical scavenger carries the high-energy electron that does the
neutralizing.
HIGH-ENERGY ELECTRONS THE LIMITING FACTOR
The energy of the electrons which
neutralize free radicals comes ultimately, like all energy used by
living things on Earth, from the Sun. Plants store this energy by
photosynthesis in carbohydrates, fats, and proteins which are then eaten
by animals.
As animals metabolize these substances,
this energy is past from one molecule to another in the form of
high-energy electrons which often, but not always, are in association
with hydrogens. Together with a high-energy electron, one such hydrogen
can be called a hydride anion. As glucose is metabolized, NAD+
(nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) is reduced to NADH (the bolded H is
to emphasize the included high-energy electron).
The high-energy electron in the hydride
anion (H) is added to the NAD+. The most critical but generally
unrecognized fact here is that NAD+ can be reduced to NADH only at a
limited rate by the addition of the hydride anion with its high-energy
electron derived from the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats, or
proteins.
Therefore, this NADH is not without cost.
Moreover, the energy it carries must be shared among several other
critical functions. Most must be used in the process of oxidative
phosphorylation to make ATP (adenosine triphosphate) which is used as a
source of energy by the various tissues of the body.
When phagocytes engulf pathogens into its
vacuoles, NADPH (nicotinamide dinucleotide diphosphate, reduced form)
provides the high-energy electrons the phagocytes need to make the
oxidizing substances (radicals) with which they kill various pathogens.
The process of making the necessary oxidizing substances is called the
respiratory burst.
Paradoxically, the first oxidizing
substance, superoxide, (O2+), in the respiratory burst is made by the
reduction of molecular oxygen (O2) by NADPH. NADP+ is rereduced back to
NADPH in the hexosemonophosphate shunt. Glucose is metabolized for the
source of the high-energy electron.
This process is also rate-limited and the
glucose comes from the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.
Therefore, NADH and NADPH have a common source of energy and can be
made available only at some limited rate.
Remaining NAD(P)H can be used by the body
in regenerating free radical scavengers so that the body may protect
itself from free radicals. As NAD(P)H is used in these various
processes, it gives up the hydride anion with its extra high-energy
electron and becomes NAD(P)+ again. When the limited rate of
availability of these hydride anions is exceeded by the formation of
free radicals, then symptoms and damage caused by the free radicals
occur.
RESPIRATORY BURST LIMITED BY ACCUMULATION OF FREE RADICALS
As these high-energy electrons are used
up within the phagocytes, the phagocytes are unable to produce more
oxidizing substances within their vacuoles to kill pathogens. Some of
the previously made oxidizing substances leak from within the vacuoles
into the cytoplasm thereby becoming free radicals.
With the exhaustion of the high-energy
electrons, the nonenzymatic free radical scavengers cannot be rereduced.
The free radicals damage the phagocytes and interfere with
phagocytosis. The phagocytes bog down in their own oxidizing substances.
REDUCED GLUTATHIONE
To understand the unusual function of
massive doses of ascorbate, let us follow the most important pathway
whereby the extra electrons are passed off to the free radicals thereby
neutralizing them. Follow the high-energy electron in the hydride anion
through all this process.
Certain nutrients that could be limiting
factors in all this will be mentioned along the way. NAD(P)H reduces
oxidized flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD+), to reduced flavin adenine
dinucleotide (FADH2), and becomes NAD(P)+ again. FADH2 reduces oxidized
glutathione (GSSG) to reduced glutathione (GSH). (Part of NAD(P)H is
from vitamin B3, and part of FADH2 is from vitamin B2).
The high-energy electrons of reduced
glutathione (GSH) can directly reduce some free radicals. But also, some
reduces dehydroascorbate back to ascorbate. In the process the GSH is
oxidized back to GSSG. Two hydride anions are added to the
dehydroascorbate reducing it back to vitamin C. (The enzyme glutathione
peroxidase and its coenzyme selenium catalyze these reactions).
Ascorbate (C6H8O6 or C6H6O6H2, the bolded
and separated H2 is to emphasize the hydrogens containing the
high-energy electrons) differs from dehydroascorbate (C6H6O6) in that it
has two extra hydrogen atoms with two high-energy electrons in its
molecular structure which it can donate to reduce free radicals. The
high-energy electrons of ascorbate, C6H6O6H2, can directly quench free
radicals. But some may reduce tocopheryl quinone (an oxidized form of
vitamin E) back to à-tocopherol (vitamin E).
Some high-energy electrons are passed to
the à-tocopherol and then quench free radicals. The point I want to
emphasize is that these free radical scavengers cycle from the reduced
form carrying the hydride anion with the high-energy electron back to
the oxidized form lacking the hydride anion. Although there is a little
loss, most of the free radical scavengers are rereduced and used over
and over again.
This repeated use with only a little loss
is why it ordinarily takes a small amount of these substances to do
their electron carrying function to the maximum allowed by the
availability of the hydride anion. The limiting factor in all this, in a
well nourished person, is this rate-limited availability of the hydride
anion with its high-energy electron.
The body can make NAD(P)H available for
this purpose only at a limited rate. When the need to scavenge free
radicals exceeds this rate, then symptoms, damage, and ageing occur.
Adding more vitamins and other nutrients, even the ones noted as being
free radical scavengers, notably vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin A
(especially á-carotene), cysteine, selenium, etc. do not, under ordinary
circumstances, add much to all this.
All these free radical scavengers are
cycled several times an hour when a person is sick. The NAD(P)H keeps
rereducing these free radical scavengers so they are used repeatedly.
Taking of the usual amounts of nutrient free radical scavengers only
assures that there are no critical deficiencies that would limit this
free radical scavenging electron-transfer chain described above. Still
there is a normal limit to the free radical scavenging ability of this
system…
ASCORBATE TO THE RESCUE
Except, ascorbate, C6H6O6H2, used as the
source of electrons, not just as the electron carrier, can change all
this. The C6H6O6H2 used in massive doses substitutes for the limited
availability of the NAD(P)H. The C6H6O6 part of the C6H6O6H2 used this
way is thrown away; the C6H6O6H2 is only used for the electrons it
carries.
Amounts of 30 to 200+ grams of C6H6O6H2
provide ample high-energy electrons to directly scavenge the large
amounts of free radicals generated in disease processes and provide
enough high-energy electrons to rereduce NAD(P)+, FAD+, GSSG, tocopheryl
quinone, etc. back to their reduced forms.
Lewin pointed out that although the
C6H6O6H2/C6H6O6 redox couple is usually reduced by GSH at the
concentrations in which these substances are ordinarily present, when
C6H6O6H2 is present in large concentrations, it will reduce GSSG to GSH.
The usual direction of the redox reaction
is reversed and the C6H6O6H2 supplies the high-energy electrons
reducing the GSSG. If there was some substance that was cheaper, better
tolerated by the body, and had fewer nuisance problems associated with
its administration than sodium ascorbate, NaC6H6O6H, intravenously and
intramuscularly, or ascorbic acid, C6H6O6H2, orally, I would use it.
So far, C6H6O6H2 and NaC6H6O6H are the
premier sources of high-energy electrons and therefore the premier free
radical scavengers. The dehydroascorbate, C6H6O6, part of the ascorbate,
C6H6O6H2, used this way is excreted rapidly in the urine or metabolized
further by the body. Although the complete pathway has not been
described and involves some uncertainty, it is known that certain
breakdown products of dehydroascorbate supply even more high-energy
electrons.
Bearing in mind that it is the
high-energy electron that is doing the free radical scavenging, one can
see that animals which can synthesize ascorbate within themselves have a
higher amount of the electron carrier available and will not ever
suffer from scurvy. However, the high-energy electrons ultimately come
from the same sources as in humans.
Ascorbate producing animals still must
make the ascorbate and the high-energy electrons available by various
metabolic steps using glucose. This process is rate- limited. Comparing
the ability of a human to make C6H6O6H2 to a dog is like comparing a
human’s ability to fly in a Concorde with a humming bird. The human can
make enormous amounts of C6H6O6H2 in his chemical plants. Humans just
have to learn to use it properly.
The usefulness of ascorbate in treating
diseases involving free radicals bears no relationship to how much
vitamin C animals make or consume unless one is satisfied with achieving
only the level of health of that animal. We are using a natural
substance in an unnatural way to achieve these effects. It is the
high-energy electrons, not the ascorbate, that is most important here.
The mechanism I am describing is a
pharmacologic effect of the high-energy electrons carried by the
C6H6O6H2 that transcends the normal ability of any species of animal to
ameliorate or conquer diseases involving free radicals. Any disease
process that involves free radicals can be ameliorated by the
high-energy electrons carried by ascorbate when used properly in massive
doses.
It is true that there are certain
logistic problems involved in delivering the massive doses of C6H6O6H2
containing the enormous numbers of electrons sufficient to quench the
excessive free radicals of certain severely toxic diseases but it is
surprising what massive doses of ascorbate will accomplish.
RAPID UTILIZATION OF THE HIGH-ENERGY ELECTRONS
Calculations of the total amount of
ascorbate in a healthy person (pool size) with an intake of about 100
milligrams of vitamin C per day is roughly 2-3 grams and the turnover
half time is about 20 days (28).
When a person who when well can ingest
only 15 grams of ascorbic acid per 24 hours before it causes diarrhea,
can take over 200 grams in 24 hours when ill with mononucleosis, one
obtains a suggestion of the numbers of extra electrons involved. If 185
grams (200 minus 15) extra is used, whatever the amount of high-energy
electrons carried in that divided by the amount in 3 grams means that if
ascorbate was the only carrier of electrons (which it is not), that 3
grams of ascorbate would be rereduced about every 23 minutes.
There are so many facts such as the
amount of high-energy electrons carried by the other free radical
scavengers that this number is almost valueless. Still, it makes one
think in terms of minutes to a few hours for the rereduction of all the
free radical scavengers of the body when one is seriously ill. This
emphasizes the futility of using vitamin free radical scavengers in the
doses described in the RDA (29) to provide the necessary high-energy
electrons.
A SIMPLE ANALOGY
Suppose you had a house out in the
country that had a water well about 300 yards away. Between the house
and the well are two high fences. Your house catches on fire and your
neighbors come running with their buckets. One group sets up a bucket
brigade between the well and the first fence and pours the water through
a hole in the fence into the buckets of the second bucket brigade. The
second bucket brigade runs to the second fence to pour the water through
a hole in the second fence into the buckets of the third bucket brigade
who throw the water on the fire.
Unfortunately, the fire goes out of
control and it is not possible to pump the water out of the well at a
rate fast enough to put out the fire. The arrival of more neighbors does
no good because there are already enough for the three bucket brigades.
A couple of neighbors run from their homes with their buckets full of
water but that does not help very much. Then the fire engine roars up
and puts out the fire with hoses that draw water from the fire engine.
The firefighters do not rely on the water from the well. We have to
stretch the analogy here a little but imagine microscopic buckets with C
painted on their sides carrying the water out of the fire hose. The
little buckets are wasted. Their only function is to carry the water.
CONCLUSION
Free radical scavenging is a very dynamic
process. The nutritional free radical scavengers in the diet, including
vitamin C, are not for the purpose of providing the large number of
high- energy electrons necessary to meet the rate with which free
radicals are made. The purpose of dietary free radical scavengers is to
replace those scavengers incidentally lost. The process of reducing a
free radical does not destroy a free radical scavenger if it is
rereduced before being further broken down. The free radical scavengers
are intermediaries.
It is up to other metabolic processes to
provide the high-energy electrons with which the free radical scavengers
reduce free radicals. The rate at which free radicals are formed
becomes excessive and causes symptoms when it exceeds the rate of
reduction of those free radicals. Part of the reduction is spontaneous
and part is enzymatic. The remainder must be reduced by the high-energy
electrons carried by the nonenzymatic free radical scavengers.
Ascorbate in massive doses can perform an
unusual function. When doses of 30 to 200+ grams per 24 hours are used,
the high- energy electrons carried in on the administered ascorbate
adds significantly and decisively to the actual electrons doing the
reducing. The ascorbate is not used as the vitamin C where it is
rereduced by NAD(P)H and used repeatedly; it is used for the high-
energy electrons it carries.
In high concentrations ascorbate reduces
NAD(P)H and provides the high-energy electrons necessary to reduce
molecular oxygen used in the respiratory burst of phagocytes. In these
functions, the ascorbate part is mostly wasted but the necessary
high-energy electrons are provided in large amounts.
The opportunity to reduce the human
suffering from the free radicals of infectious diseases, autoimmune
diseases, allergies, trauma, burns, surgery, toxins, and to a degree
ageing, etc., which could be neutralized by high-energy electrons
carried by high doses of C6H6O6H2 is immense.
