Kelly stated that Pauling’s conclusions were based on rumor and one uncontrolled study. That was patently false. When I said “thousands of studies” I misspoke, meaning that he had thousands of case individuals. He did perform many studies.
After his initial book (Vitamin C and the Common Cold, which was published some time ago - I no longer have any of his books so I can’t substantiate the publishing date), critics claimed that his studies were not well controlled. In a follow-up book, the title of which I already mentioned, he refuted that criticism. His argument concerning studies performed by others was that they did not use enough C. He recommended that at the first indication of a cold, the individual should take 10 grams every two hours. I’ve used this method many times with great success. Eventually you may reach a point where you get diarrhea, but you just back off then.
As you may well be aware, Dave, the establishment for many years just ridiculed Pauling’s conclusions and stated that C was useless for the cold, but in the last few years, many studies have shown that it does reduce the severity and the length of a cold. It took the establishment 30 years to reach that conclusion.
I have no dog in this race. I’ve reported what I’ve read in Pauling’s books. Some posters are making absurd comments which I felt needed to be addressed. If you don’t want to read his “popular” books and don’t wish to believe any of his studies, it’s no skin off my teeth.
Back before many foods were fortified, vitamin deficiencies were pretty common. They’re more common in agricultural societies (as opposed to hunting and gathering, practiced by the first hominids) because you have a lot of people eating a lot of one food type. Even in the US, diseases like pellagra and rickets were common among some people. A lot of this has changed, in part thanks to my alma mater as scientists discovered what trace vitamins and minerals did for the body, and figured out how to add them to food.
There’s a John Steuart Curry mural in the biochemistry building that’s supposed to show the wonders of biochemistry. One one side, you have diseased animals, plants, and people (showing symptoms of vitamin or mineral difficiencies). On the other side is all healthy stuff. I googled for quite a while, but couldn’t find a picture.
Hence my advice to avoid the “all Twinkies and Buzz Cola” diet!
Thanks for the clarification. I’d forgotten about the fortification in modern foods. This raises an interesting side issue, regarding people who insist that we should eat only “natural” foods, unadulterated by meddling chemists. But that’s probably material for another thread, at another time.
Well, as long as you eat a wide variety of “natural” foods, you should be just fine. But if you eat just one type of food that would be bad. There’s archeological evidence of nutritional deficiencies in Native American tribes that subsisted mostly on corn, because it’s deficient of some essential amino acids.
In my line of work herbal medicines are common. But its a scary world out there. Vitamins and prescription drugs interact. For example a person taking Kava Kava and Xanax would wind up in a coma. Also, read the ingredients, some vitamins contain brain matter from pigs as filler. This is not to mention the rash of deaths in sports from enhancements. Consult your doctor and remember too many vitamins could be harmful or lethal.