PAULING THERAPY: The Secret of Long Life and Healing Revealed with Dr. Linus Pauling

Free Consultation on Dr. Linus Pauling Therapy plus free samples.

Dr. Linus Pauling
Founder, Institute of Orthomolecular Medicine, USA
Author, "How To Live Longer and Feel Better" and other books
Two-Time Nobel Prize Winner
Voted One of the 20 Greatest Scientists of the 20th Century with Albert Einstein by the magazine "New Scientist"

(Source: Dr. Linus Pauling's book, chapter 20, "How To Live Longer and Feel Better")

It is known that many stressful conditions cause destruction of Vitamin C and consequently low concentration of the vitamin in the blood and other tissues, unless it is replaced by a high intake of the vitamin. Among these conditions are infectious diseases, cancer, heart disease, surgery, injury, cigarette smoking, and mental and emotional stress. The low level of Vitamin C is called "hypoascorbemia" by Irwin Stone or "anascorbemia" by Cathcart. Unless rectified, it leads to exacerbation of the trouble affecting the person. There is possibility that the mechanism of increased morbidity or mortality of men and women following death of a spouse is destruction of Vitamin C by the stressful situation. This may be explained by extra demand of ascorbic acid in the adrenal glands for manufacture of stress hormone, adrenaline.

Of all the organs in the human body, the brain is the most sensitive to its molecular composition. The proper functioning of the brain is known to require the presence of many different kinds of molecules in the right concentrations. This is the physical, the molecular environment of the mind...We must ask then what part of the molecular environment of each mind plays in establishing the singularity of each individual's personality...Deficiencies in the supply or synthesis of crucial molecules may manifest themselves in symptoms diagnosed as psychosis of one kind or another to be treated by attempts to modify the patient's behavior or personality.

Much information about nutrition in relation to mental disease is given in the 31 articles by 37 authors in the 1973 book "Orthomolecular Psychiatry: Treatment of Schizophrenia ... While walking along Main Street in the small town of Cambria, on the coast of California, Dr. Linus Pauling was approached by a passing car. The driver got out and ran back to him. She said, "Dr. Pauling, I owe my life to you. I am 26 years old. Two years ago, I was contemplating suicide. I had suffered miserably from schizophrenia for 6 years. Then I learned about vitamins when someone told me about your paper on orthomolecular psychiatry. The vitamins have saved my life."

(Source: an article from healingdaily.com)

Dr Linus Pauling, often referred to as the "Father of Vitamin C" and twice awarded the Nobel Prize, declared that large intakes of vitamin C each day aids anti-cancer activity within the body.

Pauling was largely ridiculed for making these declarations, but today, large doses of Vitamin C are used by many practitioners for cancer patients in nutritional therapies, who believe Pauling was right and that vitamin C is indispensable to the body in its fight to regain health from cancer.

Linus Pauling wrote the book, "How to Live Longer and Feel Better". (He also wrote "Vitamin C and the Common Cold") . I had heard of Linus Pauling and since living longer and feeling better sounded desirable, I bought the book. I was captivated. Pauling presents the case for Vitamin C supplementation so well and backs it up with so much evidence that this is a book I highly recommend.

To find out what Linus Pauling, 2-time Nobel Prize laureate, thought about vitamin C supplementation, let's look at an excerpt from an interview with Linus Pauling and Tony Edwards for QED BBC Television.

Q: What do you feel about the major criticism that anything over 100mg of vitamin C is a waste of money and goes down the drain because it's eliminated by the body?
A: The evidence shows that this is just not true. I myself, 20 years ago or more, read this statement, probably made by Fred Stare, professor then at Harvard School of Public Health, and I decided to check. I was taking 10 grams per day of vitamin C. I collected my urine for 24 hours and analyzed it myself for the vitamin C content.

Instead of nearly 10,000mg being eliminated in the urine, 9850mg, I found only 1,500mg, 15% of the dose that I was taking during this trial, so the statement just is not true. Of course, some of the ingested ascorbate remains in the intestinal contents and doesn't get into the blood stream. It may be as much as 1/3.

Some evidence indicates that perhaps as much as 1/3 remains in the intestinal contents. Well, this does good, protecting the lower bowel against cancer by destroying carcinogens that are present in the fecal material and also does good because of the laxative effect of bringing water into the bowel so that the volume of the waste material is larger.

There's also a smaller surface area which helps speed up the process of elimination of this material. The rest of it, 2/3 perhaps 6.5 grams when I was taking 10 grams a day, gets into the blood stream but only 1.5 grams is eliminated in the urine.

So we can ask what happens to the other 5 grams? The answer I'm sure, in fact we have direct experimental evidence for it, is that vitamin C is rapidly converted into other substances, oxidation products and these other substances, these oxidation products have been shown to have greater value against cancer than vitamin C itself.

So if you take large doses of vitamin C you produce large amounts of these other substances, the value of which is still under investigation. We have been studying it for fifteen years.

Q: How do you decide how much vitamin C is right for you and, if you take 3 grams should it be split throughout the day?
In my opinion adults should be taking at least 2 grams a day. There is much evidence about increased health with 2 grams a day, and of course even more with 4 or 6 grams a day. Even an extra 60mg had been shown to add value in cutting down the death rate from heart disease, cancer and other diseases. Now my feeling is as people grow older they ought to be increasing their vitamin C and perhaps they should follow the policy that I have followed of increasing the intake.

It can be either one chunk, one dose in the morning, or even better 3 doses throughout the day, increasing the intake until a laxative effect is observed, speeding up the rate of elimination of waste material from the bowel. So my suggestion is every person who wants to have the best of health should increase the intake of vitamin C to somewhat less than the amount that causes significant looseness of the bowel.


Scientific studies and vitamin C

Are there any studies out there which actually show that vitamin C is beneficial? As the following studies demonstrate, vitamin C can enhance the immune function in a number of ways:

Healthy adults: In a 1981 study, healthy adults received 1 gram of vitamin C intravenously. One hour later, the neutrophil motility (how fast your white blood cells can move) and leukocyte transformation in the subjects' blood had increased significantly. Other studies support the finding that vitamin C enhances the leukocyte function. Vitamin C has also been shown to decrease bacteriological activity.(1)

Chronically ill adults: Recent studies indicate that vitamin C has a positive effect on patients suffering from a variety of chronic disorders. In one large study, 260 patients with viral hepatitis A took 300 mg of vitamin C/day for several weeks. The researchers, who studied immune indicators, such as serum immunoglobulin and neutrophil phagocytosis (how well your white blood cells can engulf and digest foreign bodies), concluded that vitamin C "exerts a remarkable immuno-modulating action."(2) - that's a complicated way of saying your immune system functions better because of it.

Vitamin C and heart disease

French and German researchers found that vitamin C appeared to keep cells in the blood vessel wall from dying. They believe this protection from cell death could explain previous study findings which suggest that vitamin C benefits blood vessel function in people with congestive heart failure.(3)

A study found that long-term administration of vitamin C reverses endothelial vasomotor dysfunction in patients with coronary artery disease. Researchers instructed patients with documented coronary artery disease to take a single oral dose of either 2 g vitamin C or a placebo. The dose of vitamin C improved dilation of the brachial artery, as assessed by a high-resolution vascular ultrasound done 2 hours later. The researchers reported that the effect was sustained among patients who subsequently took 1/2 gram of vitamin C daily for 30 days.(4)

Vitamin C and the risk of stroke

Individuals with high blood levels of vitamin C have significantly reduced risk of stroke, according to a recently published long-term study (5). "To my knowledge, this is the first prospective study to make the correlation between vitamin C in the bloodstream and incidence of stroke," says author Tetsuji Yokoyama, M.D., research associate in epidemiology at the Medical Research Institute of Tokyo Medical and Dental University. The risk of stroke was inversely related to vitamin C in the bloodstream in this study.

It is important to realize that ideally we should get our vitamin C from the foods we eat. Using supplements as a substitute for whole foods and expect to get healthy is delusional. You must consume whole unprocessed foods to maximize your health. Good sources of vitamin C are green leafy vegetables, citrus fruits, tomatoes, berries, guavas, melons, papayas, etc.

Can vitamin C help to prevent or treat cancer?

Over the years, many studies have found that vitamin C is an effective anti-cancer agent. Vitamin C works in the following ways to help the body fight cancer cells:

Studies suggest that vitamin C's antioxidant mechanisms may help to prevent cancer in several ways. Vitamin C combats the peroxidation of lipids, for example, which has been linked to degeneration and the aging process. One study of elderly people found that 400 mg of vitamin C per day (for a one-year period) reduced serum lipid peroxide levels. Vitamin C can also work inside the cells to protect the DNA from the damage caused by free radicals. In several studies, report the researchers Gaby and Singh, vitamin C reduced the level of potentially destructive genetic alterations or chromosome aberrations.(6)

Many of the pollutants which now pervade our environment can cause carcinogenic, toxic or mutagenic effects. Vitamin C may be able to combat these harmful effects, in part by stimulating detoxifying enzymes in the liver. In another study, vitamin C was shown to block the formation of fecal mutagens.(7)

Finally, vitamin C can reduce the development of nitrosamines from nitrates, chemicals which are commonly used in processed foods. Once formed, nitrosamine can become carcinogens. In several human studies(8), in which the subjects consumed a nitrosamine precursor, the urinary levels of nitrosamines were significantly reduced by vitamin C.

As far back as the 1940s, researchers began to note a connection between the incidence of cancer and low blood levels in the body or a dietary deficiency of vitamin C. Studies conducted in the past 10 years have confirmed that link. According to 2 studies from the early 1980s, 2 to 5 grams of vitamin C per day can correct these low serum levels and, in some patients, improve the defenses put up by the immune system.(9)

Based on numerous studies, it seems clear that there is a strong relationship between a person's vitamin C intake and cancer risk. In 1991, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition conducted a comprehensive analysis of some 45 studies on vitamin C's protective effects against various types of cancer. Of these, 32 studies reported a significant link between vitamin C intake and the incidence of cancer. In fact, a high intake of vitamin C offered twice the protection of a low intake. Many of these studies defined a "high intake" as a daily dosage of 160 mg or more per day; a "low intake" generally was less than 70 mg.(10)

Vitamin C to prevent cataracts?

Cataracts are a leading cause of blindness in the U.S. Cataracts occur more frequently and become more severe as people get older. Decreased vitamin C levels in the lens of the eye have been associated with increased severity of cataracts in humans. Some, but not all, studies have observed increased dietary vitamin C intake (11) and increased blood levels of vitamin C (12) to be associated with a decreased risk of cataracts.



Resources

CLINICAL GUIDE TO THE USE OF VITAMIN C
Dr. Frederick Klenner, MD

THE HEALING FACTOR: VITAMIN C AGAINST DISEASE
Dr. Irwin Stone

Doctors' FAQ about Vitamin C

References

(1). S.K. Gaby and V.N. Singh, "Vitamin C," – Vitamin Intake and Health: A Scientific Review, S.K. Gaby, A. Bendich, V. Singh and L. Machlin (eds.) Marcel Dekker, N.Y. 1991 p. p. 120-121.

(2) V.S. Vasil'ev, V.l. Komar and N.l. Kisel, "Humoral and Cellular Indices of Nonspecific Resistance In Viral Hepatitis A and Ascorbic Acid, Ter-Arkh; 1989 61(11); p. 44-6.

(3) Circulation October 30, 2001;104

(4) Circulation June 29,1999;99:3234-3240.

(5) Stroke October, 2000; 31: 2287-94.

(6). S.K. Gaby and V.N. Singh, "Vitamin C," – Vitamin Intake and Health: A Scientific Review, S.K. Gaby, A. Bendich, V. Singh and L. Machlin (eds.) Marcel Dekker, N.Y. 1991, p. 108.

(7). S.K. Gaby and V.N. Singh, "Vitamin C," – Vitamin Intake and Health: A Scientific Review, S.K. Gaby, A. Bendich, V. Singh and L. Machlin (eds.) Marcel Dekker, N.Y. 1991, p. 108 & 110.

(8). S.K. Gaby and V.N. Singh, "Vitamin C," – Vitamin Intake and Health: A Scientific Review, S.K. Gaby, A. Bendich, V. Singh and L. Machlin (eds.) Marcel Dekker, N.Y. 1991, p. 109.

(9). S.K. Gaby and V.N. Singh, "Vitamin C," – Vitamin Intake and Health: A Scientific Review, S.K. Gaby, A. Bendich, V. Singh and L. Machlin (eds.) Marcel Dekker, N.Y. 1991, p. 109.

(10). Gladys Block, "Vitamin C and Cancer Prevention: The Epidemiologic Evidence," American Journal of Clinical Nutrition; 1991; 53:270S-82S.

(11). Jacques PF, Chylack LT, Jr., Hankinson SE, et al. Long-term nutrient intake and early age-related nuclear lens opacities. Arch Ophthalmol. 2001;119(7):1009-1019. (PubMed)

(12). Simon JA, Hudes ES. Serum ascorbic acid and other correlates of self-reported cataract among older Americans. J Clin Epidemiol. 1999;52(12):1207-1211. (PubMed)