Vitamin C, I.V. 5-150 grams to kill viruses and other things?

[yoyoman]

taken from:
http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/198x/smith-lh-clinical_guide_1988.htm

Interesting.. IV ascorbic acid 5-150 grams? wow (they mention salts like sodium ascorbate etc.. neutral ph), this sounds interesting.. any take on this?

How does it work: as an oxidizing agent massive amounts, i.e., 5-150 grams, intravenously, for certain pathological conditions, if allowed to run in rapidly (20 gauge needle), acts as a “Flash Oxidizer” and may correct the condition in minutes. It can be a reducing agent. It neutralized toxins, viruses and histamine. The more serious the condition, the more C is required.

It appears that Vitamin C acts as a reducing agent, an oxidizing agent, an anti-clotting agent, an antihistamine, and as an anti-infective agent.

He summarized the function of C in poliomyelitis:

1. Virus destruction.
2. Dehydrates the brain and the spinal cord safely.
3. Supports and normalized the stressed adrenal glands.
4. It preserves the lining of the central canal and maintains more regular spacing and less crowding of ependymal cells (surface cells of the spinal cord).

Ascorbic acid enters all cells. It “proceeds to take up the protein coats being manufactured by the virus nucleic acid, thus preventing the assembly of new virus units.” Cells expand, rupture and die, but there is no virus particles available to enter and infect new cells. If a virus has invaded a cell, the Vitamin C contributes to its breakdown to adenosine deaminase, which converts adenosine to inosine. Purines are formed which are catabolized (broken down) and cannot be used to make more virus nucleic acid.

 

[paradoxcycle]

In general, Vitamin C is a water soluble vitamin. The body uses or is capable of using only so much of it in any given period of time; a day, for instance. Water soluble vitamins, when taken in excess, are not generally dangerous unless there is some problem with renal (kidney) function. Under normal circumstances, the body would excrete excess via the urine and there would be no difficulty (and also no benefit) derived from high doses.

Any dose of a vitamin higher than the recommended daily dose is potentially harmful and the megadoses often touted as cures for all sorts of ailments have certainly caused abnormal liver function in many patients.

 

[bigmac74]

5 - 150 grams seems like an awfully large dose and range for injection. Surely they mean 5 - 150 milligrams?

 

[Ximot]

5 grams is a dose you can safely take orally, though I wonder whether it is good to do that daily. Nobel laureate Linus Pauling recommended using Vitamin C in doses up to 18g/day for all sorts of ailments, as well as pretty high doses of vitamins E and A ... but his claims have been sharply criticised by some... only one way to find out... try it for yourself (ORALLY!!!!!), read up on it... I have read in some other book that too many free-radical scavengers isn't so good for the body... at doses over 4g of Vit. C you might find yourself feeling more sluggish than before... but maybe the dose where the downside outweighs the benefits is different for everyone...

in order to protect your kidneys, you might want to use a mineral ascorbate rather than ascorbic acid, as it is more readily absorbed and not acidic...

You will know when your ascorbic acid dose is too high, becaise it is a laxative in when used in excess

 

[hugo24]

"the body would excrete excess " This is the heart of the matter,how much is excess?People often confuse "excess gets excreted" with "fast excretion".High doses result indeed in fast excretion,but so do small doses.But higher doses show up as higher plasma levels and show different measurable effects.

 

[BilZ0r]

I'll say it again, that webpage is full of shit... well the webpage isn't, but the citations are. There are almost no actual clinical trials cited, just reports of some fucking whack job doctor, (who would be in so much fucking trouble if he started doing that shit these days) saying "look I injected this guy was some crap and he got better!) That's not science, that's just observation. Clinical trials have to be double blind and have to be placebo controlled or they have no merit.

To quote what the best review on vitamin C treatment said: (Cochrane)

REVIEWERS' CONCLUSIONS: The failure of vitamin C supplementation to reduce the incidence of colds in the normal population indicates that routine mega-dose prophylaxis is not rationally justified for community use. But evidence shows that it could be justified in persons exposed to brief periods of severe physical exercise and/or cold environments. Also, the consistent and statistically significant small benefits on duration and severity for those using regular vitamin C prophylaxis indicates that vitamin C plays some role in respiratory defence mechanisms. The trials in which vitamin C was introduced at the onset of colds as therapy did not show any benefit in doses up to 4 grams daily, but one large trial reported equivocal benefit from an 8 gram therapeutic dose at onset of symptoms.