Thank you, chachazoom, for posting the link to the article. It is a most interesting read, with some rather worrying implications.
The views of these alternative healers, as summarized by authors Thomas S. Cowan, MD and Sally Fallon in their recent book The Fourfold Path to Healing (2004) is that the real vitamin C is "actually a complex of nutrients that includes bio-flavonoids, rutin, tyrosine, copper and other substances known and unknown." (Cowan and others 2004 p. 21)
Ascorbic acid, which has been vitamin C since at least 1937, has only a supporting role, according to Cowan and Fallon, who write that ascorbic acid is only present in plants "as a preservative for this complex, serving to keep it together in the plant tissue, preserving its integrity, freshness and color." (Cowan and others 2004 p. 21)
Cowan and Fallon even go so far as to say in this book that "ascorbic acid is not a food for us; that which it preserves is our food." (Cowan and others 2004 p. 21) Too much "synthetic" ascorbic acid is harmful, the naturalists assert, especially when not accompanied by the vitamin C-complex.
This is an attack on a substance that people can employ by themselves to improve their own health, reasserting their own responsibility for their health. No wonder ascorbic acid is being attacked in this way. Big Pharma are losing money hand over fist if people are getting better by themselves using a widely available and inexpensive substance.
The scientific literature is so voluminous that few would be capable of digesting it.
This is one of the problems facing anyone who wants to understand ascorbic acid. However, as the author of the article points out:
What experiments have been conducted, and where is science about the C-complex published, and how could Linus Pauling, Sherry Lewin, Steve Hickey, Hiliary Roberts, Irwin Stone, Thomas Levy and others have missed this important information?
The previously mentioned book entitled Fourfold Path to Healing (2004), by Thomas Cowan, MD, with Sally Fallon and Jaimen McMillan, is remarkable for the number of false or unsupported assertions these authors make concerning vitamin C. Every sentence in the vitamin C section on pages 20 and 21 is either unsupported, or contains misleading or false information which they present as fact. The message these authors are trying to convey is that the natural vitamin C-Complex not only exists, but it is required, lest consumers risk clogged arteries and DNA damage.
Considering that the C-complex has never been identified, and in fact sounds rather like a figment of these authors’ imagination, this book appears to be rather dangerous.
Fortunately for humanity, synthetic vitamin C is inexpensive, offering the hope of better health to everyone. Vitamin C researcher Ralph Lotz points out that the 100 mg of the "natural vitamin C complex" sold by one company is 1,315 times more costly than synthetic vitamin C.
Here we see another motive for the ascorbic acid versus C-complex debate – profit.
Patrick Holford expands on this version of the vitamin C isn't really a vitamin argument, and explains how the animals make their ascorbate.
"Vitamin C isn't a vitamin at all. It isn't a necessary component of diet, at least for all mammals with the exception of guinea pigs, fruit eating bats, the red vented bulbul bird and primates - which includes us. All other species make their own.
This they do by converting glucuronic acid derived from glucose into ascorbic acid (C6H8O6). Three enzymes are required to make this conversion. One of these enzymes, or part of the enzyme system, is missing in primates. Irwin Stone proposed, in 1965, that a negative mutation may have occurred in these species so as to lose the ability to produce vitamin C. In primates this is thought to have occurred in the region of 25 million years ago." (Holford 1994)
Hmmm . . . perhaps this ‘mutation’ occurred 309,000 years ago? Making sure that humans don’t receive enough ascorbate in their diet is an easy way of reducing immune system effectiveness and increasing stress. Irwin Stone suggested that a more appropriate name for ascorbic acid is the ‘missing stress hormone’.
Consider that idea in relation to the PTB’s agenda for mass depopulation, as described in a recent SoTT ‘Connecting The Dots’:
Mass Depopulation on its way and the Secret Team’s Management of the World.
The DNA of most animals encodes for both CoQ10 and ascorbate. The amount of CoQ10, synthesized by animals can be compared with the amount of ascorbic acid synthesized to estimate the human requirement for vitamin C. The amount of ascorbic acids that animals make is roughly ten times more than the CoQ10 they make by weight. Using this ratio, after adjusting for body weight, an orthomolecularist might predict the need for 5000 mg of ascorbate daily in human blood and tissue. To obtain this level, we might have to ingest more than 10,000 mg of ascorbic acid by mouth. (Pauling and Lewin determined that about 1/2 the ascorbate taken orally is broken down before reaching the cells and becomes biologically unavailable.) (Pauling 1986, Lewin 1976)
So we may have to double our intake of ascorbic acid.
And here’s the reason for the attack on ascorbic acid, clearly explained:
Royal Lee and Standard Process
The basis of the naturalist view comes from the writings of Royal Lee who guided the formation of Standard Process. Royal Lee's ideas on natural vitamins is generally credited with originating the naturalist school of vitamin complexes. Lee's ideas cannot be ignored. He popularized the belief that foods supply the vitamins in the best and right amounts. It is the notion that a divine force, or human evolution, created foods with the ideal contents and proportions that lead to optimal health for human beings
There is little doubt of the sincerity of Royal Lee, or his naturalist followers. There is certainly some truth in their assertions. After an animal loses its ability to produce a given molecule, it must eat plants that produce it, or the animal species will become extinct. However, intentions aside, the followers of Lee are mistaken about the ascorbic acid and the vitamin C-complex, and probably wrong about natural vitamin-complexes in foods as well.
The Vast Pharmaceutical Conspiracy - Kooks or Dupes?
The Vitamin C Foundation verified that almost all Standard Process's vitamin C products do, in fact, use synthetic ascorbic acid. It then began investigating the origin of the "natural vitamin C" and "vitamin C-complex" articles that appear widely on the Internet. At first we thought that spreading the natural C-complex misinformation among naturalists who are prone to believe was a clever ploy to make these well intentioned nutrition advocates appear unscientific in the eyes of allopathic medical doctors. As we have documented elsewhere, there is a stream of media stories, disguised as news, that deliberately distort the science behind vitamins in favor of prescription drugs. One obvious purpose of such media propaganda is to encourage conventionally trained physicians to dismiss alternative claims regarding vitamin C.
However, given the stature and convictions of some of the nutrition authorities involved, who should know better, we now wonder if there is more to this. It is not inconceivable that the spread of the "Vitamin C isn't Vitamin C" idea is more than a marketing ploy or merely an attempt to make the naturalists appear kooky. As far fetched as this seems to any student of Linus Pauling, if the "Vitamin C isn't Vitamin C" idea somehow became generally accepted, then the FDA might be able to strictly regulate ascorbic acid under current law.
All vitamins are currently protected as foods by the Federal Dietary Supplements Health Education Act (DSHEA) that was passed soon after the new Congress arrived in 1994. This law protects ascorbic acid from FDA interference or regulation as a prescription drug on the basis that ascorbic acid is vitamin C. That which prevents the vitamin C deficiency disease scurvy. However, should the notion that the "real" vitamin C is the ill defined C-complex found in plants prevail, then it, the C-complex, not ascorbate, would enjoy the protection afforded vitamins and foods by DSHEA
Just another plank in the coffin of real, affordable human health.
The article states that the human body does not distinguish between biologically identical molecules and their naturally occurring counterparts. If we take this as true, as many researchers agree, then general acceptance of the idea that bio-identical molecules are not food (whether based in real science or not) would give the FDA and other ‘authorities’ the excuse they need to control the availability and dosage of synthetic vitamins and minerals. As we know, with the depletion of soil nutrients by agri-business farming, and the addition of antibiotics, growth hormones and so on to the diets of animals, the food we eat is severely lacking in the nutrients necessary for human health.
So I think that this article is, amongst other things, alerting us to yet another attack on human health, an insidious and subtle twist directed against the use of manufactured substances such as ascorbic acid, which are known to provide health benefits.
We know how the pathological type works, by twisting the truth. In this case it looks like the naturalist view, as described in The Fourfold Path to Health, is the vehicle the pathologicals are using to twist the truth about bio-identical substances which really do promote and improve human health. After all, nature can only go so far – she is, in a sense, blind. Ideally, human beings should be her eyes and ears and be dedicated to improving on natural processes whilst basing their work in respect for and understanding of nature.
Regarding Royal Lee, you can read about him here: _http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/lee.html
Although he seems to have been a ‘quack’ and was certainly regarded as such during his lifetime, due in no small part to his several brushes with the law, he does seem to have the germ of an idea here and there. Compare these two claims made by Lee:
"Arthritis and tooth decay are caused by the eating of cooked foods"
"Some 700,000 people a year die of preventable and curable heart disease caused by deficiency of natural vitamins."
So it seems that the originator of the ‘natural vitamins are always best’ idea my not have really known what he was talking about. Reminds me somewhat of
Bechamp and Pasteur.
edit: changed 'Consider these two claims . . . ' to 'Compare these two claims . . .'
