Drug addicts, like other humans, are born carrying a defective gene for the synthesis of the liver-enzyme protein, L-gulonolactone oxidase (GLO). This birth defect (Stone, 1966) causes a potentially fatal, but now readily correctable (Stone, 1967) genetic liver-enzyme disease, Hypoascorbemia (Stone, 1966a). This “inborn error of carbohydrate metabolism” has destroyed the capability of the human liver to synthesize ascorbate from blood glucose, and thus deprives mankind of this important mammalian mechanism for combatting stresses. The normal mammalian response to stress is to increase liver-synthesis of ascorbate as an antistressor and detoxicant to maintain biochemical homeostasis within the body (Stone, 1972).
Most mammals carry the intact gene for GLO and normally produce, under conditions of little stress, about 10 to 20 g of ascorbate per day per 70 kg body weight to take care of their daily physiological needs. A biochemical feedback mechanism evolved in the early mammals (Stone, 1972a) which increased daily ascorbate production possibly three to fivefold under a variety of chemical and physical stresses. Humans, among the very few mammals deprived of this homeostatic protective mechanism, suffer more physiological damage from equivalent stresses unless exogenous ascorbate is supplied. Thus a daily intake of 10 to 20 g of ascorbate by a relatively unstressed adult human is not excessively high, but well within the normal mammalian range. Under stress humans require about 30 to 100 g or more a day to maintain health. The therapeutic use of mega levels of ascorbate has met with great success in the treatment of the viral diseases (Klenner, 1974; Cathcart, 1976), cancer (Stone, 1976), and many other pathologies. The sub-subsistence, “homeopathic” daily intakes of ascorbate, recommended for the past 40 years by the nutritionists as “vitamin C” for humans, would barely suffice to keep the other mammals alive and certainly not in good health. The wide acceptance of this erroneous nutritional hypothesis by modern Medicine has only led to the continued persistence of chronic subclinical scurvy (CSS Syndrome) (Stone, 1972b; Stone, 1977) as our most widespread and insidious human disease at present.
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On drugs, the addicts lose their appetite for food. Food deprivation or restriction leads to severe protein and vitamin malnutrition. All the chronic addicts tested suffer from hypoaminoaciduria. This has led us to regard a confirmed addict as suffering from a Hypoascorbemia-Kwashiorkor type of syndrome, and our treatment procedure was designed as an intensive holistic approach for the full correction of these genetic and multimalnutritional dysfunctions. The procedure is completely orthomolecular, and no foreign substance or toxic narcotic or drug is used.