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Old October 1st 04, 08:22 PM
Todd Gastaldo
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Ooops...

Oooops... When I calculated total mean peak Vit C in the bloodstream
following oral administration...

I forgot to multiply by 134.8 micromol/L (see below)...

Doing the rough multiplication...

It appears that 1.25 grams of Vit C orally yields a mean peak of roughly 0.1
grams of Vit C in the bloodstream total...

So, regarding the humorous criticism that "Vit C pill takers" are "just
making expensive urine"...

Unless I still have my math wrong, Vit C user stool is still more way more
expensive than Vit C user urine.

I think making expensive stool and urine may be well worth it health-wise -
but it's just a guess.

Saw your reply, Anth - thanks.

"Todd Gastaldo" wrote in message
nk.net...
Ummmm....

(see below)

"Anth" wrote in message
...
http://www.askbillsardi.com/sdm.asp?pg=vitc_calam
Recently published scientific studies now confirm that high-dose vitamin
C taken throughout the day may dramatically reduce major health risks.
But funny thing, nobody noticed. Even though the data was published in
the Annals of Internal Medicine in the early months of 2004, doctors paid
no attention. [Annals Internal Medicine, April 6, 140: 533-37, 2004] The
news media also appears to be oblivious to the report. It should have
been a major headline. But worse yet, government researchers who
conducted the study failed to alert the public or the news media.
Countless millions of Americans could avoid cataracts, aneurysms,
gallstones, cancer and heart disease with this knowledge.

For the past eight years, National Institutes of Health scientists have
been telling the public and the news press that consumption of more than
200 milligrams of vitamin C is of worthless value because amounts beyond
that are readily excreted. Vitamin C-pill takers were incorrectly
ridiculed for producing nothing more than expensive urine.



I think I'll stick to my ascorbate health insurance ;-)

Anth


I too think oral megadose vitamin C may dramatically reduce major health
risks, but it's still a "may," right?

I didn't see any mention of cataracts, aneurysms, gallstones or heart
disease in the PubMed abstract of the knowledge/article cited...

Note, the knowledge/article cited used HEALTHY volunteers. See the PubMed
abstract below.

It's cool that mean peak plasma concentration of Vit C reached 134.8 +/-
20.6 micromol/L after oral administration of 1.25 grams...

Hmmmm....

A "mole" is the molecular weight expressed in grams, right?

And a "micro" mole is a millionth of a mole right?

Vit C's molecular weight is said to be 176.12...
http://www.positivehealth.com/permit...tion/vitc3.htm

So a mole of the stuff would have a mass of 176 grams - and a micromol
would be 0.000176 grams.

In an average healthy adult, the volume of blood is about one-eleventh of
the body weight. Most sources state the volume of blood in an average
human adult, who is between 150 to 160 pounds, as between 4.7 and 5
liters, although the more recent sources state the volume of blood in an
average adult as 4.7 liters.
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/LanNaLee.shtml

Assuming 5 liters of blood times (say) 0.0002grams - then taking 1.25
grams puts roughly one thousandth of that amount in the bloodstream -
0.001 grams total at mean peak concentration.

(I hope I've done my math right.)

Quoting the article cited...

Vitamin C-pill takers were incorrectly ridiculed for producing nothing
more than expensive urine.


Even if megadose Vit C has no beneficial health effect (which I doubt), it
truly is incorrect to ridicule Vitamin C-pill takers for producing nothing
more than expensive urine - i.e. (correct me if I am wrong but) - it looks
like the stool of Vitamin C-pill takers is way more expensive than their
urine.

Megadose Vit C expert Robert Cathcart, MD indicates that when we are very
sick, free radicals are changing Vit C into dehydroascorbate which "has a
half-life in the body of only a few minutes"...

"Free radicals are molecules that have lost an electron and they are very
reactive because they want an electron in the worst way...When ascorbate
gives up 2 electrons to neutralize 2 free radicals, it becomes
dehydroascorbate...Dehydroascorbate has a half-life in the body of only a
few minutes..."
http://www.orthomed.com/explain.htm

So perhaps stool and urine become less expensive as Vit C does its
work...as the body needs more Vit C to keep quenching the voracious
electron thirst of free radicals?

Anyway, here's the relevant PubMed abstract.


Ann Intern Med. 2004 Apr 6;140(7):533-7. PubMed abstract

Vitamin C pharmacokinetics: implications for oral and intravenous use.

Padayatty SJ, Sun H, Wang Y, Riordan HD, Hewitt SM, Katz A, Wesley RA,
Levine M.

National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the
National Cancer Institut, and the Clinical Center, National Institutes of
Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-1372, USA.

BACKGROUND: Vitamin C at high concentrations is toxic to cancer cells in
vitro. Early clinical studies of vitamin C in patients with terminal
cancer suggested clinical benefit, but 2 double-blind, placebo-controlled
trials showed none. However, these studies used different routes of
administration. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether plasma vitamin C
concentrations vary substantially with the route of administration.
DESIGN: Dose concentration studies and pharmacokinetic modeling. SETTING:
Academic medical center. PARTICIPANTS: 17 healthy hospitalized volunteers.
MEASUREMENTS: Vitamin C plasma and urine concentrations were measured
after administration of oral and intravenous doses at a dose range of
0.015 to 1.25 g, and plasma concentrations were calculated for a dose
range of 1 to 100 g. RESULTS: Peak plasma vitamin C concentrations were
higher after administration of intravenous doses than after administration
of oral doses (P 0.001), and the difference increased according to dose.
Vitamin C at a dose of 1.25 g administered orally produced mean (+/-sd)
peak plasma concentrations of 134.8 +/- 20.6 micromol/L compared with 885
+/- 201.2 micromol/L for intravenous administration. For the maximum
tolerated oral dose of 3 g every 4 hours, pharmacokinetic modeling
predicted peak plasma vitamin C concentrations of 220 micromol/L and 13
400 micromol/L for a 50-g intravenous dose. Peak predicted urine
concentrations of vitamin C from intravenous administration were 140-fold
higher than those from maximum oral doses. LIMITATIONS: Patient data are
not available to confirm pharmacokinetic modeling at high doses and in
patients with cancer. CONCLUSIONS: Oral vitamin C produces plasma
concentrations that are tightly controlled. Only intravenous
administration of vitamin C produces high plasma and urine concentrations
that might have antitumor activity. Because efficacy of vitamin C
treatment cannot be judged from clinical trials that use only oral dosing,
the role of vitamin C in cancer treatment should be reevaluated.

Dr. Cathcart writes...

The Third Face of Vitamin C
Robert F. Cathcart, M.D.
Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, 7:4;197-200, 1993.
Copyright (C), 1994 and prior years, Dr. Robert F. Cathcart. Permission
granted to distribute via the internet as long as material is
distributed in its entirity and not modified.

ABSTRACT
Bowel tolerance to orally ingested ascorbic acid increases with the
toxicity of diseases. Bowel tolerance with a disease such as mononucleosis
may reach 200 or more grams per 24 hours without it producing diarrhea. A
marked clinical amelioration or cure is achieved in many disease processes
when threshold doses near bowel tolerance are given. In a sense, it is the
reducing equivalents carried by free radical scavengers that quench free
radicals, not the free radical scavengers themselves. Ascorbic acid can be
dramatically useful in quenching free radicals because it is usually
tolerated in amounts necessary to provide the reducing equivalents
necessary to quench almost all the free radicals generated by severe
disease processes. Vitamin C functions are incidental at these dose
levels; the benefit is from the reducing equivalents carried. To the
extent that free radicals are either essential to the perpetuation of a
disease or just part of the cause of symptoms, the disease will be cured
or just ameliorated. These effects are even more dramatic from intravenous
sodium ascorbate.


Keywords: vitamin C, ascorbate, acute induced scurvy, bowel tolerance,
titrating to bowel tolerance, the ascorbate effect, free radical
scavengers, reducing equivalents.

INTRODUCTION
A clinical experience prescribing doses of ascorbic acid up to 200 or more
grams per 24 hours to over 20,000 patients during the past 23 year period
has revealed its clinical usefulness in all diseases involving free
radicals. The controversy continues over the value of vitamin C mainly
because inadequate doses are used for most free radical scavenging
purposes. Paradoxically, the non controversial use of minute doses of
vitamin C in the prevention and treatment of scurvy has set the minds of
many against more creative uses.

I have found vitamin C exceptionally useful in a very high dose range. Its
usefulness is in three such distinct realms that I will describe them as
the three faces of vitamin C.


1. vitamin C to prevent scurvy
(up to 65 mg/day.)
2. vitamin C to prevent acute induced scurvy
and to augment vitamin C functions
(1 to 20 grams/day.)
3. vitamin C to provide reducing equivalents
(30 to 200 or more grams/day.)


One might criticize the wisdom of my use of these massive doses but
Klenner had successfully utilized them previously. The works of Irwin
Stone, Linus Pauling, and Archie Kalokerinos have supported many of my
observations. It was apparent that in all the studies yielding negative or
equivocal results, inadequate doses were used. In some studies, doses
barely bordering on adequate, tease the investigator with statistically
significant but not very impressive beneficial results.

My early discovery was that the bowel tolerance to ascorbic acid of a
person with a healthy GI tract was somewhat proportional to the toxicity
of their disease. Bowel tolerance doses are the amounts of ascorbic acid
tolerated orally that almost, but not quite, cause diarrhea. A patient who
could 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 had a
mild cold, 100 grams with a severe cold, 150 grams with influenza, and 200
grams or more per 24 hours with mononucleosis or viral pneumonia (1, 2).
Marked clinical benefits in these conditions occur only at the bowel
tolerance or higher levels. I named the process whereby the patient
determined the proper dose as titrating to bowel tolerance. These
increases in bowel tolerance in the vast majority of patients normally
tolerant to ascorbic acid (perhaps 80% of patients) are invariable. The
marked clinical benefits are noted only when a threshold dose, usually
close to the bowel tolerance dose, is consumed. I call this benefit the
ascorbate effect.

Most patients are started at first with hourly doses of ascorbic acid
powder dissolved in small amounts of water. Later, after the patient has
learned to accurately estimate the dose necessary to achieve the ascorbate
effect, comparable doses of tablets or capsules are also used. Where
patients are intolerant to adequate amounts of ascorbic acid orally and
the severity of the disease warrants it, intravenous sodium ascorbate is
used.

Failures are related to individual difficulties in taking the proper
adequate doses. I now have had 22 years to gather clinical experience and
to reflect on this phenomenon.

I want to emphasize the importance of this increasing bowel tolerance with
increasing toxicities of diseases. The sensation of detoxification one
experiences at these doses is unmistakable.

The effect is so reliable and dramatic in the tolerant patient as to make
obvious the fact that something very important, that has not been widely
appreciated before, is going on.


THE THREE FACES
Vitamin C probably always functions by being an electron donor. At the
lowest dose level (the first face), it is necessary as a vitamin to
prevent scurvy. It is essential for certain metabolic functions which are
well described and mostly non controversial.

At a second level (the second face) vitamin C is still used as a vitamin
but larger doses are necessary to maintain its basic vitamin C functions
because the vitamin is destroyed rapidly in diseased or injured tissues
where there is an overabundance of free radicals. I described the
resulting state of deficiency, if the vitamin C is not replaced, as acute
induced scurvy (1, 2). There is ample evidence of this depletion of
vitamin C by stress and disease as recently reviewed in the literature.

Additionally, the recent extensive research on vitamin C has concerned
itself with certain functions that may be augmented by higher than minimal
doses of vitamin C (20). Strangely, any usefulness of these larger than
minimal doses of vitamin C remain mostly neglected by clinicians. This
level is from about 1 to 20 grams a day. Benefits vary from person to
person.

At this second level, as in studies reviewed by Pauling (11) and more
recently by Hemil" (20), there may be expected a slight decrease in the
incidence of colds but a more significant reduction in the complications
and the duration of colds. Personally, I am impressed by the number of
patients (but certainly not all) who tell me that they have not had a cold
for years since reading Pauling's book and taking vitamin C. Patients with
chronic infections frequently have those infections cured for the first
time. Antibiotics work synergistically with these doses. A surprising
number of elderly persons benefit from doses of this magnitude and may
indeed have what Irwin Stone described as chronic subclinical scurvy (10).

The third level of doses (the third face) is virtually undiscussed in the
literature but is the most interesting. These doses range usually from 30
to 200 grams or more per 24 hours. The most important concept to
understand is that while incidentally at these dose levels the vitamin C
performs all the functions of levels one and two, it is mostly thrown away
for the reducing equivalents it carries (3). With these doses it is
possible to saturate the body with reducing equivalents, neutralize the
excessive free radicals, and drive a reducing redox potential into
involved tissues. Inflammations mediated by free radicals can be
eliminated or markedly reduced. In many instances patients with allergies
or autoimmune disease have their humeral immunity controlled while their
cellular immunity is augmented (19). To the extent that free radicals are
either essential to the perpetuation of a disease or just part of the
cause of symptoms, the disease will be cured or just ameliorated.

The list of diseases involving free radicals continue to grow. Infections,
cardiovascular diseases, cancer, trauma, burns both thermal and radiation,
surgeries, allergies, autoimmune diseases and aging are now included. It
is more difficult to think of a disease that does not involve free
radicals. Progressive nutritionists routinely give vitamin C, vitamin E,
beta carotene, selenium, NAC, etc. to counter free radicals. I certainly
agree with this practice. However, there is one important concept
neglected.

In the spirit that if you throw a bucket of water on a fire, it is the
water that puts the fire out, not the bucket; it is the reducing
equivalents carried by the free radical scavengers that quench the free
radicals, not the free radical scavenger itself.

Most of the reducing equivalents utilized by non enzymatic free radical
scavengers do not come from the ingested free radical scavengers but come
through glycolysis, the citric acid cycle, NADPH, FADH2, glutathione, etc.
Dietary free radical scavengers carry in on ingestion only a small
percentage of the total reducing equivalents carried by those scavengers
during their lifetime in the body. After their first pass neutralizing
free radicals, the free radical scavenger must be recharged with reducing
equivalents made available in the mitochondria.

Consider the following: Early in this study a 23-year-old, 98-pound
librarian with severe mononucleosis claimed to have taken 2 heaping
tablespoons every 2 hours, consuming a full pound of ascorbic acid in 2
days without it producing diarrhea. She felt mostly well in 3 to 4 days,
although she had to continue about 20 to 30 grams a day for about 2
months. Subsequently, all my young mononucleosis patients with excellent
GI tracts have responded similarly and have had equivalent increases in
bowel tolerance during the acute stage of the disease.

I believe that the loose stools caused by excessive doses of ascorbic acid
orally ingested is due to a resulting hypertonicity of ascorbate in the
rectum. Water is attracted into the rectum by the increased osmotic
pressure and results in a benign diarrhea. With toxic illnesses, the
ascorbate is destroyed rapidly in the involved tissues resulting in a
rapid absorption from the gut. Of the ascorbate, what does not reach the
rectum, does not cause diarrhea. Intravenous sodium ascorbate does not
cause diarrhea and, in fact, increases bowel tolerance to orally ingested
ascorbic acid while the IV is running. With hypertonicity of the ascorbate
both in the blood and in the rectum, the osmotic pressure of the ascorbate
is more equal on both sides of the bowel wall so no diarrhea results. If
the diarrhea was cause by other metabolic processes, diarrhea would be
caused by intravenous ascorbate.

It should be noted that in some cases of pathological diarrhea, ascorbic
acid stops the diarrhea. Presumably in these cases some of the increased
destruction of ascorbate is from free radicals in the bowel. However, in
most toxic systemic diseases there is no reason to believe that the
destruction of the additional ascorbate occurs directly in the bowel, so
it is a safe hypothesize that this increased destruction occurs in the
interior of the body.

The increased tolerance to ascorbic acid orally provides an interesting
and somewhat useful measure of the toxicity of a disease. Probably it is
somewhat a measure of the free radicals involved in a disease. I describe
a cold that at its maximum makes it possible for a patient to just
tolerate 100 grams of ascorbic acid orally without diarrhea, a "100 gram
cold." Patients, appearing to be well, who have a tolerance over 20 to 25
grams per 24 hours probably have some subclinical condition which is being
hidden by their own free radical scavenging system.

Patients with chronic infections (and a normally strong stomach) can
ingest enormous amounts of ascorbic acid. One of my chronic fatigue
patients is functional only because of his ingestion of 65 pounds of
ascorbic acid in the past 12 months. In 22 years, I, personally, have
ingested approximately 361 kilos ( 797 lbs ) ( 4.3 times my body weight )
of ascorbic acid because of chronic allergies and perhaps chronic EBV.

Considering the reducing equivalents carried by such amounts of ascorbic
acid, one can only guess at the turnover rate of the non enzymatic free
radical scavengers in a patient acutely ill with a 200 gram mononucleosis.
However, one gains the impression that all the non enzymatic free radical
scavengers would have to be rereduced many times a day.

AN ANALOGY
Suppose you owned a farm and on one end of the property there was a barn
and on the other end of the property there was a water well. One day the
barn catches fire and neighbors come with buckets to set up a bucket
brigade between the water well and the barn and are putting out the fire
when the well goes dry.

My use of ascorbate is like thousands of neighbors coming from miles
around, each with a bucketful of their own water, throwing their own water
on your fire once, and then leaving.

CONCLUSION
Because of the invariable (in patients tolerant to ascorbic acid)
increasing bowel tolerance to ascorbic acid in patients roughly in
proportion to the toxicity of their disease, there has to be something
happening to ascorbate in the sick patient other than its being used as
vitamin C in the classic sense. The amelioration or sometimes cure of
different diseases appears related to the importance of free radicals in
the perpetuation of the paticular disease.

The sudden marked benefit in many disease processes which is achieved at
doses near to the bowel tolerance level suggests that a reducing redox
potential is forced into the affected tissues only at those dose levels.
This ascorbate effect only at the high dose levels is also suggestive that
something other than classic functions of vitamin C is involved. This
ascorbate effect is more compatible with principles of redox chemistry.

Only a small percentage of the total reducing equivalents donated by non
enzymatic free radical scavengers to neutralize free radicals, come in on
the ingested nutritional free radical scavengers. Ascorbate is unique in
that the body can tolerate doses adequate to supply the necessary reducing
equivalents to quench the free radicals generated by severely toxic
disease processes. The vitamin C is thrown away for the reducing
equivalents it carries. Only in this way can the large amounts of free
radicals generated by the most toxic disease processes be rapidly
quenched.

REFERENCES

1. Cathcart RF. The method of determining proper doses of
vitaminC for the treatment of disease by titrating to bowel
tolerance. J Orthomolecular Psychiatry 1981; 10: 125-32.

2. Cathcart RF. Vitamin C: titrating to bowel tolerance,
anascorbemia, and acute induced scurvy.
Medical Hypotheses 1981; 7:1359-76.

3. Cathcart RF. A unique function for ascorbate.
Medical Hypotheses 1991; 35: 32-7.

4. Klenner FR. Virus pneumonia and its treatment with vitamin C.
J. South. Med. and Surg. 1948; 110: 60-3.

5. Klenner FR. The treatment of poliomyelitis and other virus
diseases with vitamin C.
J. South. Med. and Surg. 1949; 111:210-4.

6. Klenner FR. Observations on the dose and administration of
ascorbic acid when employed beyond the range of a vitamin in
human pathology. J. App. Nutr. 1971; 23: 61-88.

7. Klenner FR. Significance of high daily intake of ascorbic
acid in preventive medicine.
J. Int. Acad. Prev. Med. 1974; 1:45-9.

8. Stone I. Studies of a mammalian enzyme system for producing
evolutionary evidence on man.
Am. J. Phys. Anthro. 1965; 23:83-6.

9. Stone I. Hypoascorbemia: The genetic disease causing the human
requirement for exogenous ascorbic acid.
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 1966; 10: 133-4.

10. Stone I. The Healing Factor: Vitamin C Against Disease.
Grosset and Dunlapp, New York, 1972.

11. Pauling L. Vitamin C and the Common Cold.
W.H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1970.

12. Pauling L. Vitamin C, the Common Cold, and the Flu.
W.H.Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1976.

13. Pauling L. How to Live Longer and Feel Better.
W.H. Freeman and Company, New York, 1986.

14. Kalokerinos A. Every Second Child.
Keats Publishing, Inc., New Canaan, 1981.

15. Cathcart RF. Clinical trial of vitamin C. Letter to the
Editor, Medical Tribune, June 25, 1975.

16. Cathcart RF. Vitamin C in the treatment of acquired
immunedeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
Medical Hypotheses 1984; 14(4): 423-33.

17. Cathcart RF. Vitamin C: the nontoxic, nonrate-limited,
antioxidant free radical scavenger.
Medical Hypotheses 1985; 18:61-77.

18. Cathcart RF. HIV infection and glutathione (Letter to editor
concerning Vitamin C tolerance in AIDS).
Lancet 1990; 335(8683);235.

19. Cathcart RF. The vitamin C treatment of allergy and the
normally unprimed state of antibodies.
Medical Hypotheses 1986;21(3): 307-21.

20. Hemil H. Vitamin C and the common cold.
Br J Nutr 1992; 67:3-16.
__________________________________________________
Robert F. Cathcart, M.D.
Allergy, Environmental, and Orthomolecular Medicine
Orthopedic Medicine
127 Second Street, Suite 4, Los Altos, California, USA
Telephone: 650-949-2822
Fax: 650-949-5083
http://www.doctoryourself.com/cathcart_thirdface.html

END Cathcart article...


"Because of the invariable (in patients tolerant to ascorbic acid)
increasing bowel tolerance to ascorbic acid in patients roughly in
proportion to the toxicity of their disease, there has to be something
happening to ascorbate in the sick patient other than its being used as
vitamin C in the classic sense..."

Hmmm... Perhaps my interpretation is too loose but it appears that the
sicker you are - the more your bowel can take before diarrhea hits...

Interesting.

Todd

Dr. Gastaldo




  #2  
Old October 1st 04, 08:54 PM
Anth
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Off the top of my head the book also shows theoretical concentrations from
oral doses calculated from the NIH data *I think*
This was contradictory to their stated saturation levels and they didn't
even spot it!
Not sure how your calcualtions would apply in the real world.
Anth

"Todd Gastaldo" wrote in message
k.net...
Oooops... When I calculated total mean peak Vit C in the bloodstream
following oral administration...

I forgot to multiply by 134.8 micromol/L (see below)...

Doing the rough multiplication...

It appears that 1.25 grams of Vit C orally yields a mean peak of roughly
0.1 grams of Vit C in the bloodstream total...

So, regarding the humorous criticism that "Vit C pill takers" are "just
making expensive urine"...

Unless I still have my math wrong, Vit C user stool is still more way more
expensive than Vit C user urine.

I think making expensive stool and urine may be well worth it
health-wise - but it's just a guess.

Saw your reply, Anth - thanks.

"Todd Gastaldo" wrote in message
nk.net...
Ummmm....

(see below)

"Anth" wrote in message
...
http://www.askbillsardi.com/sdm.asp?pg=vitc_calam
Recently published scientific studies now confirm that high-dose vitamin
C taken throughout the day may dramatically reduce major health risks.
But funny thing, nobody noticed. Even though the data was published in
the Annals of Internal Medicine in the early months of 2004, doctors
paid no attention. [Annals Internal Medicine, April 6, 140: 533-37,
2004] The news media also appears to be oblivious to the report. It
should have been a major headline. But worse yet, government researchers
who conducted the study failed to alert the public or the news media.
Countless millions of Americans could avoid cataracts, aneurysms,
gallstones, cancer and heart disease with this knowledge.

For the past eight years, National Institutes of Health scientists have
been telling the public and the news press that consumption of more than
200 milligrams of vitamin C is of worthless value because amounts beyond
that are readily excreted. Vitamin C-pill takers were incorrectly
ridiculed for producing nothing more than expensive urine.



I think I'll stick to my ascorbate health insurance ;-)

Anth


I too think oral megadose vitamin C may dramatically reduce major health
risks, but it's still a "may," right?

I didn't see any mention of cataracts, aneurysms, gallstones or heart
disease in the PubMed abstract of the knowledge/article cited...

Note, the knowledge/article cited used HEALTHY volunteers. See the
PubMed abstract below.

It's cool that mean peak plasma concentration of Vit C reached 134.8 +/-
20.6 micromol/L after oral administration of 1.25 grams...

Hmmmm....

A "mole" is the molecular weight expressed in grams, right?

And a "micro" mole is a millionth of a mole right?

Vit C's molecular weight is said to be 176.12...
http://www.positivehealth.com/permit...tion/vitc3.htm

So a mole of the stuff would have a mass of 176 grams - and a micromol
would be 0.000176 grams.

In an average healthy adult, the volume of blood is about one-eleventh of
the body weight. Most sources state the volume of blood in an average
human adult, who is between 150 to 160 pounds, as between 4.7 and 5
liters, although the more recent sources state the volume of blood in an
average adult as 4.7 liters.
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/LanNaLee.shtml

Assuming 5 liters of blood times (say) 0.0002grams - then taking 1.25
grams puts roughly one thousandth of that amount in the bloodstream -
0.001 grams total at mean peak concentration.

(I hope I've done my math right.)

Quoting the article cited...

Vitamin C-pill takers were incorrectly ridiculed for producing nothing
more than expensive urine.


Even if megadose Vit C has no beneficial health effect (which I doubt),
it truly is incorrect to ridicule Vitamin C-pill takers for producing
nothing more than expensive urine - i.e. (correct me if I am wrong but) -
it looks like the stool of Vitamin C-pill takers is way more expensive
than their urine.

Megadose Vit C expert Robert Cathcart, MD indicates that when we are very
sick, free radicals are changing Vit C into dehydroascorbate which "has a
half-life in the body of only a few minutes"...

"Free radicals are molecules that have lost an electron and they are very
reactive because they want an electron in the worst way...When ascorbate
gives up 2 electrons to neutralize 2 free radicals, it becomes
dehydroascorbate...Dehydroascorbate has a half-life in the body of only a
few minutes..."
http://www.orthomed.com/explain.htm

So perhaps stool and urine become less expensive as Vit C does its
work...as the body needs more Vit C to keep quenching the voracious
electron thirst of free radicals?

Anyway, here's the relevant PubMed abstract.


Ann Intern Med. 2004 Apr 6;140(7):533-7. PubMed abstract

Vitamin C pharmacokinetics: implications for oral and intravenous use.

Padayatty SJ, Sun H, Wang Y, Riordan HD, Hewitt SM, Katz A, Wesley RA,
Levine M.

National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the
National Cancer Institut, and the Clinical Center, National Institutes of
Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-1372, USA.

BACKGROUND: Vitamin C at high concentrations is toxic to cancer cells in
vitro. Early clinical studies of vitamin C in patients with terminal
cancer suggested clinical benefit, but 2 double-blind, placebo-controlled
trials showed none. However, these studies used different routes of
administration. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether plasma vitamin C
concentrations vary substantially with the route of administration.
DESIGN: Dose concentration studies and pharmacokinetic modeling. SETTING:
Academic medical center. PARTICIPANTS: 17 healthy hospitalized
volunteers. MEASUREMENTS: Vitamin C plasma and urine concentrations were
measured after administration of oral and intravenous doses at a dose
range of 0.015 to 1.25 g, and plasma concentrations were calculated for a
dose range of 1 to 100 g. RESULTS: Peak plasma vitamin C concentrations
were higher after administration of intravenous doses than after
administration of oral doses (P 0.001), and the difference increased
according to dose. Vitamin C at a dose of 1.25 g administered orally
produced mean (+/-sd) peak plasma concentrations of 134.8 +/- 20.6
micromol/L compared with 885 +/- 201.2 micromol/L for intravenous
administration. For the maximum tolerated oral dose of 3 g every 4 hours,
pharmacokinetic modeling predicted peak plasma vitamin C concentrations
of 220 micromol/L and 13 400 micromol/L for a 50-g intravenous dose. Peak
predicted urine concentrations of vitamin C from intravenous
administration were 140-fold higher than those from maximum oral doses.
LIMITATIONS: Patient data are not available to confirm pharmacokinetic
modeling at high doses and in patients with cancer. CONCLUSIONS: Oral
vitamin C produces plasma concentrations that are tightly controlled.
Only intravenous administration of vitamin C produces high plasma and
urine concentrations that might have antitumor activity. Because efficacy
of vitamin C treatment cannot be judged from clinical trials that use
only oral dosing, the role of vitamin C in cancer treatment should be
reevaluated.

Dr. Cathcart writes...

The Third Face of Vitamin C
Robert F. Cathcart, M.D.
Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, 7:4;197-200, 1993.
Copyright (C), 1994 and prior years, Dr. Robert F. Cathcart. Permission
granted to distribute via the internet as long as material is
distributed in its entirity and not modified.

ABSTRACT
Bowel tolerance to orally ingested ascorbic acid increases with the
toxicity of diseases. Bowel tolerance with a disease such as
mononucleosis may reach 200 or more grams per 24 hours without it
producing diarrhea. A marked clinical amelioration or cure is achieved in
many disease processes when threshold doses near bowel tolerance are
given. In a sense, it is the reducing equivalents carried by free radical
scavengers that quench free radicals, not the free radical scavengers
themselves. Ascorbic acid can be dramatically useful in quenching free
radicals because it is usually tolerated in amounts necessary to provide
the reducing equivalents necessary to quench almost all the free radicals
generated by severe disease processes. Vitamin C functions are incidental
at these dose levels; the benefit is from the reducing equivalents
carried. To the extent that free radicals are either essential to the
perpetuation of a disease or just part of the cause of symptoms, the
disease will be cured or just ameliorated. These effects are even more
dramatic from intravenous sodium ascorbate.


Keywords: vitamin C, ascorbate, acute induced scurvy, bowel tolerance,
titrating to bowel tolerance, the ascorbate effect, free radical
scavengers, reducing equivalents.

INTRODUCTION
A clinical experience prescribing doses of ascorbic acid up to 200 or
more grams per 24 hours to over 20,000 patients during the past 23 year
period has revealed its clinical usefulness in all diseases involving
free radicals. The controversy continues over the value of vitamin C
mainly because inadequate doses are used for most free radical scavenging
purposes. Paradoxically, the non controversial use of minute doses of
vitamin C in the prevention and treatment of scurvy has set the minds of
many against more creative uses.

I have found vitamin C exceptionally useful in a very high dose range.
Its usefulness is in three such distinct realms that I will describe them
as the three faces of vitamin C.


1. vitamin C to prevent scurvy
(up to 65 mg/day.)
2. vitamin C to prevent acute induced scurvy
and to augment vitamin C functions
(1 to 20 grams/day.)
3. vitamin C to provide reducing equivalents
(30 to 200 or more grams/day.)


One might criticize the wisdom of my use of these massive doses but
Klenner had successfully utilized them previously. The works of Irwin
Stone, Linus Pauling, and Archie Kalokerinos have supported many of my
observations. It was apparent that in all the studies yielding negative
or equivocal results, inadequate doses were used. In some studies, doses
barely bordering on adequate, tease the investigator with statistically
significant but not very impressive beneficial results.

My early discovery was that the bowel tolerance to ascorbic acid of a
person with a healthy GI tract was somewhat proportional to the toxicity
of their disease. Bowel tolerance doses are the amounts of ascorbic acid
tolerated orally that almost, but not quite, cause diarrhea. A patient
who could 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
had a mild cold, 100 grams with a severe cold, 150 grams with influenza,
and 200 grams or more per 24 hours with mononucleosis or viral pneumonia
(1, 2). Marked clinical benefits in these conditions occur only at the
bowel tolerance or higher levels. I named the process whereby the patient
determined the proper dose as titrating to bowel tolerance. These
increases in bowel tolerance in the vast majority of patients normally
tolerant to ascorbic acid (perhaps 80% of patients) are invariable. The
marked clinical benefits are noted only when a threshold dose, usually
close to the bowel tolerance dose, is consumed. I call this benefit the
ascorbate effect.

Most patients are started at first with hourly doses of ascorbic acid
powder dissolved in small amounts of water. Later, after the patient has
learned to accurately estimate the dose necessary to achieve the
ascorbate effect, comparable doses of tablets or capsules are also used.
Where patients are intolerant to adequate amounts of ascorbic acid orally
and the severity of the disease warrants it, intravenous sodium ascorbate
is used.

Failures are related to individual difficulties in taking the proper
adequate doses. I now have had 22 years to gather clinical experience and
to reflect on this phenomenon.

I want to emphasize the importance of this increasing bowel tolerance
with increasing toxicities of diseases. The sensation of detoxification
one experiences at these doses is unmistakable.

The effect is so reliable and dramatic in the tolerant patient as to make
obvious the fact that something very important, that has not been widely
appreciated before, is going on.


THE THREE FACES
Vitamin C probably always functions by being an electron donor. At the
lowest dose level (the first face), it is necessary as a vitamin to
prevent scurvy. It is essential for certain metabolic functions which are
well described and mostly non controversial.

At a second level (the second face) vitamin C is still used as a vitamin
but larger doses are necessary to maintain its basic vitamin C functions
because the vitamin is destroyed rapidly in diseased or injured tissues
where there is an overabundance of free radicals. I described the
resulting state of deficiency, if the vitamin C is not replaced, as acute
induced scurvy (1, 2). There is ample evidence of this depletion of
vitamin C by stress and disease as recently reviewed in the literature.

Additionally, the recent extensive research on vitamin C has concerned
itself with certain functions that may be augmented by higher than
minimal doses of vitamin C (20). Strangely, any usefulness of these
larger than minimal doses of vitamin C remain mostly neglected by
clinicians. This level is from about 1 to 20 grams a day. Benefits vary
from person to person.

At this second level, as in studies reviewed by Pauling (11) and more
recently by Hemil" (20), there may be expected a slight decrease in the
incidence of colds but a more significant reduction in the complications
and the duration of colds. Personally, I am impressed by the number of
patients (but certainly not all) who tell me that they have not had a
cold for years since reading Pauling's book and taking vitamin C.
Patients with chronic infections frequently have those infections cured
for the first time. Antibiotics work synergistically with these doses. A
surprising number of elderly persons benefit from doses of this magnitude
and may indeed have what Irwin Stone described as chronic subclinical
scurvy (10).

The third level of doses (the third face) is virtually undiscussed in the
literature but is the most interesting. These doses range usually from 30
to 200 grams or more per 24 hours. The most important concept to
understand is that while incidentally at these dose levels the vitamin C
performs all the functions of levels one and two, it is mostly thrown
away for the reducing equivalents it carries (3). With these doses it is
possible to saturate the body with reducing equivalents, neutralize the
excessive free radicals, and drive a reducing redox potential into
involved tissues. Inflammations mediated by free radicals can be
eliminated or markedly reduced. In many instances patients with allergies
or autoimmune disease have their humeral immunity controlled while their
cellular immunity is augmented (19). To the extent that free radicals are
either essential to the perpetuation of a disease or just part of the
cause of symptoms, the disease will be cured or just ameliorated.

The list of diseases involving free radicals continue to grow.
Infections, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, trauma, burns both thermal
and radiation, surgeries, allergies, autoimmune diseases and aging are
now included. It is more difficult to think of a disease that does not
involve free radicals. Progressive nutritionists routinely give vitamin
C, vitamin E, beta carotene, selenium, NAC, etc. to counter free
radicals. I certainly agree with this practice. However, there is one
important concept neglected.

In the spirit that if you throw a bucket of water on a fire, it is the
water that puts the fire out, not the bucket; it is the reducing
equivalents carried by the free radical scavengers that quench the free
radicals, not the free radical scavenger itself.

Most of the reducing equivalents utilized by non enzymatic free radical
scavengers do not come from the ingested free radical scavengers but come
through glycolysis, the citric acid cycle, NADPH, FADH2, glutathione,
etc. Dietary free radical scavengers carry in on ingestion only a small
percentage of the total reducing equivalents carried by those scavengers
during their lifetime in the body. After their first pass neutralizing
free radicals, the free radical scavenger must be recharged with reducing
equivalents made available in the mitochondria.

Consider the following: Early in this study a 23-year-old, 98-pound
librarian with severe mononucleosis claimed to have taken 2 heaping
tablespoons every 2 hours, consuming a full pound of ascorbic acid in 2
days without it producing diarrhea. She felt mostly well in 3 to 4 days,
although she had to continue about 20 to 30 grams a day for about 2
months. Subsequently, all my young mononucleosis patients with excellent
GI tracts have responded similarly and have had equivalent increases in
bowel tolerance during the acute stage of the disease.

I believe that the loose stools caused by excessive doses of ascorbic
acid orally ingested is due to a resulting hypertonicity of ascorbate in
the rectum. Water is attracted into the rectum by the increased osmotic
pressure and results in a benign diarrhea. With toxic illnesses, the
ascorbate is destroyed rapidly in the involved tissues resulting in a
rapid absorption from the gut. Of the ascorbate, what does not reach the
rectum, does not cause diarrhea. Intravenous sodium ascorbate does not
cause diarrhea and, in fact, increases bowel tolerance to orally ingested
ascorbic acid while the IV is running. With hypertonicity of the
ascorbate both in the blood and in the rectum, the osmotic pressure of
the ascorbate is more equal on both sides of the bowel wall so no
diarrhea results. If the diarrhea was cause by other metabolic processes,
diarrhea would be caused by intravenous ascorbate.

It should be noted that in some cases of pathological diarrhea, ascorbic
acid stops the diarrhea. Presumably in these cases some of the increased
destruction of ascorbate is from free radicals in the bowel. However, in
most toxic systemic diseases there is no reason to believe that the
destruction of the additional ascorbate occurs directly in the bowel, so
it is a safe hypothesize that this increased destruction occurs in the
interior of the body.

The increased tolerance to ascorbic acid orally provides an interesting
and somewhat useful measure of the toxicity of a disease. Probably it is
somewhat a measure of the free radicals involved in a disease. I describe
a cold that at its maximum makes it possible for a patient to just
tolerate 100 grams of ascorbic acid orally without diarrhea, a "100 gram
cold." Patients, appearing to be well, who have a tolerance over 20 to 25
grams per 24 hours probably have some subclinical condition which is
being hidden by their own free radical scavenging system.

Patients with chronic infections (and a normally strong stomach) can
ingest enormous amounts of ascorbic acid. One of my chronic fatigue
patients is functional only because of his ingestion of 65 pounds of
ascorbic acid in the past 12 months. In 22 years, I, personally, have
ingested approximately 361 kilos ( 797 lbs ) ( 4.3 times my body weight )
of ascorbic acid because of chronic allergies and perhaps chronic EBV.

Considering the reducing equivalents carried by such amounts of ascorbic
acid, one can only guess at the turnover rate of the non enzymatic free
radical scavengers in a patient acutely ill with a 200 gram
mononucleosis. However, one gains the impression that all the non
enzymatic free radical scavengers would have to be rereduced many times a
day.

AN ANALOGY
Suppose you owned a farm and on one end of the property there was a barn
and on the other end of the property there was a water well. One day the
barn catches fire and neighbors come with buckets to set up a bucket
brigade between the water well and the barn and are putting out the fire
when the well goes dry.

My use of ascorbate is like thousands of neighbors coming from miles
around, each with a bucketful of their own water, throwing their own
water on your fire once, and then leaving.

CONCLUSION
Because of the invariable (in patients tolerant to ascorbic acid)
increasing bowel tolerance to ascorbic acid in patients roughly in
proportion to the toxicity of their disease, there has to be something
happening to ascorbate in the sick patient other than its being used as
vitamin C in the classic sense. The amelioration or sometimes cure of
different diseases appears related to the importance of free radicals in
the perpetuation of the paticular disease.

The sudden marked benefit in many disease processes which is achieved at
doses near to the bowel tolerance level suggests that a reducing redox
potential is forced into the affected tissues only at those dose levels.
This ascorbate effect only at the high dose levels is also suggestive
that something other than classic functions of vitamin C is involved.
This ascorbate effect is more compatible with principles of redox
chemistry.

Only a small percentage of the total reducing equivalents donated by non
enzymatic free radical scavengers to neutralize free radicals, come in on
the ingested nutritional free radical scavengers. Ascorbate is unique in
that the body can tolerate doses adequate to supply the necessary
reducing equivalents to quench the free radicals generated by severely
toxic disease processes. The vitamin C is thrown away for the reducing
equivalents it carries. Only in this way can the large amounts of free
radicals generated by the most toxic disease processes be rapidly
quenched.

REFERENCES

1. Cathcart RF. The method of determining proper doses of
vitaminC for the treatment of disease by titrating to bowel
tolerance. J Orthomolecular Psychiatry 1981; 10: 125-32.

2. Cathcart RF. Vitamin C: titrating to bowel tolerance,
anascorbemia, and acute induced scurvy.
Medical Hypotheses 1981; 7:1359-76.

3. Cathcart RF. A unique function for ascorbate.
Medical Hypotheses 1991; 35: 32-7.

4. Klenner FR. Virus pneumonia and its treatment with vitamin C.
J. South. Med. and Surg. 1948; 110: 60-3.

5. Klenner FR. The treatment of poliomyelitis and other virus
diseases with vitamin C.
J. South. Med. and Surg. 1949; 111:210-4.

6. Klenner FR. Observations on the dose and administration of
ascorbic acid when employed beyond the range of a vitamin in
human pathology. J. App. Nutr. 1971; 23: 61-88.

7. Klenner FR. Significance of high daily intake of ascorbic
acid in preventive medicine.
J. Int. Acad. Prev. Med. 1974; 1:45-9.

8. Stone I. Studies of a mammalian enzyme system for producing
evolutionary evidence on man.
Am. J. Phys. Anthro. 1965; 23:83-6.

9. Stone I. Hypoascorbemia: The genetic disease causing the human
requirement for exogenous ascorbic acid.
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 1966; 10: 133-4.

10. Stone I. The Healing Factor: Vitamin C Against Disease.
Grosset and Dunlapp, New York, 1972.

11. Pauling L. Vitamin C and the Common Cold.
W.H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1970.

12. Pauling L. Vitamin C, the Common Cold, and the Flu.
W.H.Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1976.

13. Pauling L. How to Live Longer and Feel Better.
W.H. Freeman and Company, New York, 1986.

14. Kalokerinos A. Every Second Child.
Keats Publishing, Inc., New Canaan, 1981.

15. Cathcart RF. Clinical trial of vitamin C. Letter to the
Editor, Medical Tribune, June 25, 1975.

16. Cathcart RF. Vitamin C in the treatment of acquired
immunedeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
Medical Hypotheses 1984; 14(4): 423-33.

17. Cathcart RF. Vitamin C: the nontoxic, nonrate-limited,
antioxidant free radical scavenger.
Medical Hypotheses 1985; 18:61-77.

18. Cathcart RF. HIV infection and glutathione (Letter to editor
concerning Vitamin C tolerance in AIDS).
Lancet 1990; 335(8683);235.

19. Cathcart RF. The vitamin C treatment of allergy and the
normally unprimed state of antibodies.
Medical Hypotheses 1986;21(3): 307-21.

20. Hemil H. Vitamin C and the common cold.
Br J Nutr 1992; 67:3-16.
__________________________________________________
Robert F. Cathcart, M.D.
Allergy, Environmental, and Orthomolecular Medicine
Orthopedic Medicine
127 Second Street, Suite 4, Los Altos, California, USA
Telephone: 650-949-2822
Fax: 650-949-5083
http://www.doctoryourself.com/cathcart_thirdface.html

END Cathcart article...


"Because of the invariable (in patients tolerant to ascorbic acid)
increasing bowel tolerance to ascorbic acid in patients roughly in
proportion to the toxicity of their disease, there has to be something
happening to ascorbate in the sick patient other than its being used as
vitamin C in the classic sense..."

Hmmm... Perhaps my interpretation is too loose but it appears that the
sicker you are - the more your bowel can take before diarrhea hits...

Interesting.

Todd

Dr. Gastaldo






  #3  
Old October 2nd 04, 04:09 AM
Anth
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

You have your figures and then add on top of that what ascorbate is in your
body from the previous dose, and any other factors to achieve a steady dose.
Anth

"Todd Gastaldo" wrote in message
k.net...
Oooops... When I calculated total mean peak Vit C in the bloodstream
following oral administration...

I forgot to multiply by 134.8 micromol/L (see below)...

Doing the rough multiplication...

It appears that 1.25 grams of Vit C orally yields a mean peak of roughly
0.1 grams of Vit C in the bloodstream total...

So, regarding the humorous criticism that "Vit C pill takers" are "just
making expensive urine"...

Unless I still have my math wrong, Vit C user stool is still more way more
expensive than Vit C user urine.

I think making expensive stool and urine may be well worth it
health-wise - but it's just a guess.

Saw your reply, Anth - thanks.
[snip]



 




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