"Expensive Urine" Argument against High Dose Vitamin C

Someone asked me if I could address this before debate on other threads I've posted on the benefits of high dose Vitamin C gets too confrontational. Again, I am not a doctor and there are many in the medical community who can more definitively explain this much better than I can. And I certainly respect others’ opinions and their right to disagree. The information is out there and I would encourage everyone to research the topic themselves and draw their own conclusions. With that in mind, I will give it my best shot.

In my opinion, the "expensive urine" argument actually supports the necessity for high doses of Vitamin C rather than oppose it. I think we would all agree that Vitamin C is essential for good health. Human Beings and Guinea Pigs are the only "known" animals that do not produce their own Vitamin C and require supplementation through diet or other means. God or Nature (whatever you believe) would not have given animals this ability if Vitamin C was not important. Why humans can't is a matter of debate, but the most logical reason is that our early diets made it unnecessary and we evolved out of it. But over time, our diets and our soil became less nutrient-rich, over-processed, and full of preservatives, etc and we are now desperate for that long lost ability to produce our own Vitamin C. If this wasn't true, there would be no market for organic foods. Again, don't take my word for it. The information is available to judge for yourself.

All other animals produce the equivalent of 1,000-5,000mg of Vitamin C for a 180lb adult male. This amount is 100% absorbed in other animals. I have seen posts here and theories posted elsewhere that only 10% of supplemental Vitamin C is absorbed by humans and the rest is excreted. Whether that is true or not is highly debatable, but for our purposes, let's assume that this true. If all other animals produce the equivalent of 1,000mg-5,000mg and this is essential to sustain life, it would stand to reason that a healthy adult male weighing 180lbs would require this amount as well. That would mean under the 10% rule, this male would need to ingest 10,000mg to get the required 1,000mg at the lower end of the scale. Remember all other animals are constantly in danger from exposure to the elements and perpetual contact with bacteria and viruses from their surroundings. How do they survive without perscription plans and hand sanitizer?

The example above would be completely plausible if the 10% theory was a fixed number and the lower end of the scale was sufficient. But many Vitamin C proponents do not agree. They believe that absorption rate improves with every subsequent dose. Your first dose may be 10%; the second dose may be 20% and so on. The theory being that the body recognizes multiple doses are entering the system at short regular intervals and for lack of a better term, takes advantage of its new found good fortune. How can we prove this? Simple. Monitor the color of your urine. If the 10% were a fixed number, your urine would be the same shade of yellow after every dose. As you experiment with high dose Vitamin C you may be pleasantly surprised to find that your urine lightens through the course of the day. The Recommended Daily Allowance for Vitamin C is 60mg. If this was all that was required by the body and the rest was waste, it would stand to reason that if you ingested 60mg of Vitamin C, your urine should be crystal clear. Again, feel free to experiment on your own.

There are many studies available that prove other animals produce MORE Vitamin C when they are injured or sick. Again, God or Nature has engineered this ability in every other animal on the planet because it is pivotal to sustain life in the face of physical crisis. With that in mind, it would stand to reason that a sick 180lb male would also need more Vitamin C than a healthy one. What that level would be depends on the illness. So a sick 180lb male would need to ingest more than 10,000mg (using the 10% rule) to fight off an infection or disease just like all other animals AND maintain the 1,000mg required to sustain normal life.

Finally, the idea that Vitamin C excreted as urine is a waste. Again, this is not necessarily so. Before the Linus Paulings of the world, high doses of Vitamin C were readily used to treat...(drum roll)...Urinary Tract infections! Why? Because many of the time and now believe that Vitamin C running through your urinary system is coating and fighting infections in that system as it passes through, just like it would for any other system in your body. Linus Pauling actually suffered from a severe kidney condition BEFORE he became a champion of high dose Vitamin C. His kidneys were already damaged, yet he took 18,000mg of Vitamin C a day and lived until he was 93!

I hope I was able to provide a relatively coherent explanation. Again, the information is out there. I am not a doctor, VMS expert, or alternative medicine guru. I'm just a regular guy with a computer and internet access who likes to do my homework before I try anything. But the ultimate proof is in the results. If you take high doses of Vitamin C for MM and your symptoms subside or go away completely, that is infinitely more valuable than anything stated above. Personal experience trumps any and all medical or scientific reasoning. Again, just my opinion.

Carnyard

 

carnyard

Very informative regarding vitamin C. Did some quick reading on Linus? He is indeed a special person.

Thanks

 

Carnyard, well I am an "alternative medicine guru" and your post is right on! Thanks for stating it so eloquently.

 

Thanks for the post. Very informative.

 

Do you symptoms get better immediately when you reach your bowel intolerance vitamin C amount, or does it take a while? I just started with upper cervical treatments so maybe I should wait and see if that helps before taking the maximum dose of C. I already take about 4000 mgs a day. Carole

 

"Personal experience trumps any and all medical or scientific reasoning".

Really? So people should stop wasting their time going to the doctor (and in fact, why have doctors at all) and just figure out how to treat themselves through trial and error? And Googling?

 

Personal experience trumps any and all medical or scientific reasoning.

Carnyard -- thanks for your write up but like INS, this bit requires comment. This statement is just such a MASSIVE logical fallacy and is just incorrect. I can honestly understand why people think this, but it is simply not true and is an illusion.

Our brains are not reliable in so many ways and neither is intuition which most people think trumps everything as well. Sure, we are correct many times; it's obviously not smart to walk through a dark parking lot at night by yourself in a questionable part of a city for example but there are just so many examples of how we are not able to make a good call on so many things -- especially treatment for disease.

We've already been down this road to death now and I won't bore you with a long-winded reply but I always go back to the example of those thousands of Americans in the early 1920s who were treating themselves with radioactive tonics. They were all the rage in the United States before people really understood what the health implications of radioactivity were. They claimed to feel well again and that it cured their ailments and made them feel full of vitality just like we hear all the time today from so many other alt treatments right here. Most are innocuous and inexpensive thankfully and some are just plain water (homeopathy) and wouldn't harm a fly but the point is the people taking the dangerous radioactive stuff were actually killing themselves all the while banging on about how great they felt. If this were 1920, you might be saying exactly the same thing about Radium only you wouldn't realise you were destroying your body.

So what does that tell you about personal experience trumping medical and scientific reasoning? We cannot escape confirmation bias; we all do it. For that reason and a whole list of others we need the scientific method to tease out what is really going on.

 

Scott,

There is actually sound reasoning behind why you shouldn't walk alone through an unattended car park in a questionable part of town. Sure, there's a bit of intuition (dark = scary) but the rest is all sound reasoning.

1) If you're alone you've got no-one to help you if you get attacked
2) If it's dark you are less able to see an attacker, they have more ability to hide and generally there are less people around (to either help you or call the cops) at night
3) A car park provides plenty of places for an attacker to hide
4) A car park could be a crime "hot spot" if there is a lot of car theft in the area, or if the car park is known to be frequented by junkies etc
5) A "questionable" part of town is by definition an area for which there is evidence (crime stats) of crime and the nature of that crime.

All of those points give you sound reason to not be in that car park. Intuition is a tiny part and is overwhelmed by all the other stuff which is demonstrably true.

As for personal experience trumping medicine and science. Well, how do you explain this? Last time I got a cold I decided to keep breathing. AMAZINGLY a few days later, after breathing the whole time, I was better. Now, if this were a "one off" I'd dismiss it but I told a bunch of my friends to give it a try and it worked for them too. EVERY TIME.

 

As an experimental scientist, i agree with this; however, there does appear to be quite a bit of scientific evidence in favor of the statements he is making about Vitamin C. It would be useful if the scientific community as a whole took VMS more seriously and spent more time and energy experimenting on their benefits, etc. Unfortunately, and i know this from personal experience even in my field, the grant money comes from people/agencies with agendas, many who are looking to make profit.

 

Surely companies selling VMSs are looking to make a profit?

 

I have tried the following treatments since I started having symptoms: Diuretics and low-salt diet (I was already on a diuretic and low-salt diet for hypertension for over a year when I started having MM symptoms. They did nothing to prevent my symptoms or reduce them. Also of note: I saw three ENTs, one neurologist, two neuroTogists, and the predominant inner ear/balance specialist in New Jersey. Did not have a firm diagnosis for 4 years and spent thousands of dollars); Steriods (No change in symptoms); histamines (made symptoms worse. Doctor took me off the histamines after 2 weeks); JOH regimen (No vertigo, slight dizziness but manageable, slight reduction in fullness and tinnitus for six months. Caught the flu earlier this year and symptoms returned. Have continued on regimen); Chiropractic (significantly reduced duration and frequency of vertigo attacks, no change in fullness/hearing/tinnitus); Acyclovir (symptom-free after 6 days and maintained for 1 month. Caught a cold and symptoms returned); High dose Vitamin C (symptom-free to present). On a separate note, since I started taking some other vitamins recommended by JOH and others I have connected with in my research, I have been off my diuretic since the beginning of the summer as I no longer have high blood pressure. I did not take my own blood pressure. I went to a doctor who monitored my blood pressure for three weeks without a diuretic and just vitamins and he made the decision that I no longer needed the diuretic.

Again, my experience has been posted here in detail multiple times with full disclosure. I followed the same Vitamin C protocol as the moderator and benefactor of this website and acheived the same success. I am not a doctor. Everyone should do their own research and make informative choices. But let's cut to the chase. This is not only for those of you who are interested/not interested in alternative treatments. Hopefully this goes out to everyone who is a member of this forum. You have people who are symptom-free and have resumed their normal lives like myself and JOH and Solari and others who openly share their research and experiences and let you make your own choices. And then you have people who are are still suffering or worse yet, DO NOT HAVE MENIERE'S DISEASE, telling you what to do, what not to do, how to think, that only doctors that agree with their point of view are credible (Every reference I have posted regarding the merits of Vitamin C has a PhD or MD after their name including the only person to ever win two solo Nobel Prizes) and the right way to get better.

 

Either it works or it doesn't, either it is safe or it is not. What you call it and who favors it doesn't matter. Don't just read the promotions or assume it can't hurt you because your dr prescribed it or it is 'natural'. No matter what you take, everything can and usually does have side effects, drug interactions and be aware that a substance that might be fine for one person might be dangerous for another. Put your personal safety first. Good luck, hope you all find the right answer for your particular problems.

 

Yes, this is true and probably not a very good example. Intuition provides us with/ creates beliefs that we cannot necessarily justify and most can justify avoiding a dark carpark, that is if you weren't raised in the jungle and had no idea about city life.

 

June,

Very sound advice. Natural hooks a lot of people because it sounds all warm and fuzzy yet natural applies to snake venom, ricin and tobacco. All three can kill you. There's no guarantees even with prescribed meds but at least we have some clinical trials behind them and can be fairly certain we won't wind up dead.

 

Are they? Compare the costs of 1 gram of ascorbic acid compared to one gram of just any prescription drug. Find me one that's less than a penny a gram.

You can't support giant replicated double-blind clinical studies for cheap VMSs. For expensive drugs, yes. You are attempting to compare apples and oranges.

--John of Ohio

 

Studio34, surely you write your last post in jest. Thousands of people end up dead every year from prescription drugs. Iatrogenic death rates in the USA are staggering, yet most blindly trust "science".

 

Good point. I'd also be interested in seeing what sort of pressure Big Pharma would put on medical research facilities if VMS companies started to fund them for these types of studies.

 

I.V. Vitamin C Saves NZ Man with Flu Damaged Lung

http://healthfreedoms.org/2010/01/06/intravenous-vitamin-c-saves-nz-man-with-flu-damaged-lung/

If this person and his family settled for medical and scientific reasoning, he'd be dead. I'm sure he would be interested in your parked car analogy.

 

Trinity,

As I started increasing my dosage every day working up to bowel tolerance, I experienced a relief in symptoms, followed by a spike, then relief again. When I reached bowel tolerance, my tinnitus actually got worse for about a day or two then it went away completely and has not returned. In a previous thread, I theorized that my tinnitus did not actually get louder, but the fluid in my inner ear actually drained and cycled properly so I could hear my tinnitus better.

Carnyard

 

I'm glad to hear that a spike is normal, because starting last night i've been feeling horrid again. I thought it was the weather... who knows? Anyway, that's a good thing to hear.