Vitamin C (link)
Vitamin C Complex (found only in whole food) = Ascorbic Acid + Bioflavinoid Complexes + Tyrosinase + P Factors + J Factors + K Factors.
The Vitamin C Complex (including the ascorbic acid wrapper)
Ascorbic Acid – the antioxidant wrapper for the vitamin C complex. Accounts for about five percent of vitamin C activity in the human. Most vitamin C supplements sold are entirely ascorbic acid. They rarely contain any of the following factors that can only be found in the vitamin C complex in whole foods.
Ascobigen Bioflavinoid Complexes – are known to have anti-metastatic, antiproliferative and cytotoxic activities
Tyrosinase – this enzyme helps activate the adrenal glands
P factors – help with vascular integrity. Patients deficient in P factors have a tendency to bruise easily or bleed in their gums while brushing their teeth. P factors are the cure for scurvy.
K factor – is a clotting factor and keeps you from bleeding to death. It also is important to maintain strong bones.
J factor – increases the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood.
Since ascorbic acid is such a tiny portion of the natural Vitamin C Complex, any ascorbic acid product cannot possibly be natural. The reason is simple, too get sufficient quantities of ascorbic acid from nature, the other portions of the whole Vitamin C Complex would be so large as to make a single 500 mg “natural” ascorbic acid pill the size of a tennis ball. Since there is no “natural” ascorbic acid, it is the combination of nutritive factors found in the whole Vitamin C Complex that do the healing, not the ascorbic acid.
Dr. Szent-Gyorgyi won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of Ascorbic Acid in 1937:
In “Nature” July 4, 1936, p. 27“Vitamin P : Flavanols as Vitamins” he wrote:
“Various chemical and clinical observations have led to the assumption that ascorbic acid is accompanied in the cell by a substance of similar importance and related activity. In absence of both substances, the symptoms of lack of ascorbic acid (scurvy) prevail and conceal symptoms of the deficiency of the second substance.
“…we have found that in certain pathological conditions characterized by an increase permeability or fragility of the capillary wall, ascorbic acid is ineffective, while the condition can readily by cured by the administration of Hungarian red pepper or lemon juice.”
“…Spontaneous bleeding ceased, the capillary walls lost their fragility towards pressure differences and more plasma protein left the vascular system on increase venous pressure… We propose to give the name “vitamin P” to the substance responsible for the action on vascular permeability”
In “Oxidation” Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore, 1939 page 73-74 (2 years after he received the Nobel Prize for Vitamin C) Dr. Szent Gyorgyi Wrote:
“I am talking in such detail about this substance [ascorbic acid] because of a small accident that happened to us at that time. I had a letter from and Austrian colleague who was suffering from a severe hemorahagic diathesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleeding_diathesis). He wanted to try ascorbic acid in his condition. Possessing at that time no sufficient quantities of crystalline ascorbic acid, I sent him a preparation of paprika that contained much ascorbic acid and the man was cured by it.
Ascorbic Acid Info:
New Your Times Thursday April 9th, 1998, Study Finds Peril in Taking high dose Vitamin C Supplement “…team of British researchers who found that a supplement of 500 milligrams a day [ascorbic acid] could damage people’s genes” “In contrast, vitamin C naturally present in food, he said, has no oxidizing effects.
40th Annual conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention, San Diego, CA. March 1-4, 2000. “Vitamin C [ascorbic Acid] Supplements Intake and Progression of Carotid Atherosclerosis:” The Los Angeles Atherosclerosis Study
“Vitamin C supplements may promote atherosclerosis”
Mar 3, 2000 (Reuters Health)
Vitamin C supplements [ascorbic acid] appears to promote intima-media thickness* in a dose-dependent manner.
Men who took 500 mg of vitamin C daily had an increase in *intima-media thickness progression that was 250% greater than men who did not use supplements.
“adverse effect was not demonstrated for vitamin C from food, but those taking vitamin C pills [ascorbic acid] had accelerated thickening of the walls of the big arteries in their necks*. In fact, the more they took, the faster the buildup.”
*increased intima-media and carotid artery thickness have both been shown to be risk factors for heart attacks”
Doctors Warns Against Big Dose of Vitamin C [ascorbic acid] During Cancer Treatment
Source; Cancer Research September 1999 March 27 2000
The concern is based on the discovery that some cells actually contain large amounts of vitamin C [ascorbic acid] which appears to protect them from oxygen damage. Dr. David Golde, physician in chief at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, warned against too much vitamin C in a presentation Monday at a meeting of the American Cancer Society. They found that an oxidized form of vitamin C called dehydroascorbic acid enters cells through the same opening used by sugar. Once inside, it is immediately converted back to vitamin C [ascorbic acid]. He said a key feature of many cancers is they have many more of these sugar openings than do ordinary cells. This allows them to take in the energy they need to grow. But he said cancer cells often also have very high concentration of vitamin C. The exact function of the vitamin inside cancer is unknown.
Summary:
- Ascorbic Acid causes oxidative genetic damage to DNA (500mg)
- Ascorbic Acid quickens carotid atherosclerosis, hastening coronary heart disease.
- Ascorbic Acid was known by its discoverers not to cure scurvy.
- Ascorbic Acid in high amounts found in tumors.