Does anyone have any personal experience with the therapeutic use of Vitamin C?
Vitamin C is needed in the diet to prevent scurvy. It also has a reputation for being useful in the treatment of colds and flu. The evidence to support this idea, however, is ambiguous, unless the studies are divided by dose size and dosing regime. When that is done, it is remarkable that most of the studies showing little or no effect employ quite small doses of ascorbate such as 100 mg to 500 mg per day ("small" according to the vitamin C advocates). The Vitamin C foundation (1) recommends 8 grams of vitamin C every half hour in order to show an effect on the symptoms of a cold infection that is in progress. ...A minority of medical and scientific opinion sees vitamin C as being a low cost and safe way to treat viral disease and to deal with a wide range of poisons. The large doses, in the tens of grams per day, put ascorbic acid in a different class to almost all other therapeutic agents. It has been suggested that ascorbic acid is really a food group in its own right like carbohydrates and protein and should not be seen as a pharmaceutical or vitamin at all.
Some vitamin C advocates hold that the wider adoption of vitamin C for therapeutic use is hindered by the fact that it cannot now be patented. This means that pharmaceutical companies are unwilling to fund research or promotion of a substance in which they stand to make little profit and which will compete with some of their own patented medicines in which they have invested large sums.
Does anyone know more about this?
I dont have a lot of scientific insight on it but I do use capsules containing 500% of the daily recommended dosage every day any time I'm sick. I also take it every once in a while. I'm not a sickly person but if I compared using Vitamin C to using virtually any perscription I've ever taken, I'd say the results are very comparable if not better with vitamin C for a variety of illnesses. (Mostly colds & bronchitis) I also use concetrated vitamin A for skin problems (such as acne when i was a teen) and that seemed to help but you CAN overdose on Vitamin A so .... dont take too much ;) Maybe we should make it a perscription since it has the potential to be over used... j/k
I also take large doses of C when I'm sick, around 2000-3000mg maybe three or four times a day. But I also drink quite a bit of water at the same time. I understand that your body can get rid of vitamin C fairly easily, but only if it has enough water in which to dissolve it.
Without enough water to enable your kidneys to dispose of the excess, you run the risk of literally raising your body's PH, which I bet would be a bad thing.