Vitamin Information Center

For vitamin E, four tocopherol members are better than one.

VITAMIN E found in nature has always been superior to the vitamin E found in the common supplement pills we consume. Why? Because most vitamin E pills contain only alpha tocopherol whereas now we know that natural vitamin E gives us not one (alpha-) but four (alpha-, beta-, gamma- and delta-) tocopherol members.

It is only recently that scientists have found the long-ignored members – gamma, beta and delta tocopherols – of the vitamin E family to have important functions, some of which are different from that of alpha tocopherol. While alpha tocopherol alone does provide certain benefits, it has been found that the best benefits of vitamin E supplementation come when it contains all four tocopherol members of the vitamin E family.

A study published in the February 2005 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that the intake of a mixture of vitamin E from food sources rather than from supplements is associated with a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

“High intake of vitamin E from food (alpha-, beta-, gamma-, delta tocopherol), but not supplements (which usually contain only alpha tocopherol), is inversely associated with Alzheimer’s disease,” wrote Martha Clare Morris, ScD, PhD, from Rush Institute of healthy Aging in Atlanta, Georgia, and colleagues. “Because vitamin E is composed of four different tocopherol members (alpha-,beta-, gamma- and delta-) … and because vitamin E supplements usually consists of alpha tocopherol only, one possible explanation for the seeming inconsistency is that the effect (benefit) is not due to alpha tocopherol alone but to a combination of tocopherol members.”

Free radicals can stimulate and intensify inflammation by turning on genes that promote inflammation. Many serious degenerative conditions, including atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), various types of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, appear to be promoted by chronic inflammation.

A recent report published on Dec 21, 2004 by the Proceedings of the National Acedemy of Sciences (led by a team of scientists including Qing Jiang, formerly of Children’s Hospital and Research Centre in Oakland, California). The research had nothing against alpha-tocopherol. “Alpha tocopherol has justifiably earned a good reputation as an antioxidant,” said Jiang in a news release. Instead, she wanted to see if other members of vitamin E were promising.

Jiang, currently assistant professor of foods and nutrition at Purdue University in Indiana, US, has studied gamma tocopherol before. In 2000, she and her colleagues found that it inhibits inflammation, which has been linked to cancer. [Journal – Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (Oct 2000) ]

This time, Jiang’s team studied gamma tocopherol against human prostate and lung cancer cells. They found that gamma tocopherol inhibited the spread of prostate and lung cancer cells without hurting the healthy cells. That indicates that gamma tocopherol might be able to combat cancer without damaging unaffected cells. The results were even better when gamma tocopherol got a little help from its other team members.

Mixing other members of vitamin E – including gamma tocopherol – was even better at blocking cancer’s spread. “Combinations of different members of vitamin E may be superior to each alone,” writes the researchers.

The summary of the recent findings is that taking alpha tocopherol alone may not provide the full benefits of vitamin E.

This article is courtesy of Pahang Pharmacy. For more information, e-mail starhealth@thestar.com.my. The information provided is for educational purposes only and should not be considered as medical advice. The Star does not give any warranty on accuracy, completeness, functionality, usefulness or other assurances as to the content appearing in this column. The Star disclaims all responsibility for any losses, damage to property or personal injury suffered directly or indirectly from reliance on such information.

Increased intake of calcium and vitamin D can help prevent or slow bone loss in men, according to a pair of studies conducted by researchers from Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia.

An estimated 75 million women and men in the United States, Europe and Japan suffer from osteoporosis, a disease in which bones become thin and brittle.

Prior research has demonstrated that both calcium and vitamin D are important for the bone health of women, who are four times more likely to develop osteoporosis than men. In a 2006 study published in the journal Bone, scientists also found that older men who drank fortified milk daily experienced a 1.8 percent increase in the bone mineral density of their hip bones and a 1.5 percent increase in the density of their wrist bones.

The fortified milk contained 500 milligrams of calcium and 400 IU of vitamin D3, as well as other vitamins and minerals. The researchers noted that because the participants were given fortified milk instead of individual vitamin supplements, it was not possible to determine whether the bone density increase came from the calcium, the vitamin D, both, or some combination of those nutrients with others found in the milk.

The researchers also noted that while calcium intake was higher in participants who drank fortified milk than in control participants, this difference was not statistically significant.

In a more recent study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers followed up with 109 of the original study participants 18 months after that study’s conclusion. During that time, the participants had not been provided with fortified milk, but the bone-density improvements from the first study were still apparent.

The researchers suggested that supplementation of milk with calcium and vitamin D3, as is done in Canada, could lead to long-term bone health benefits for older men.

Large sectors of the U.S. population are deficient in vitamin B6, according to a new study conducted by researchers from Tufts University and published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The researchers warned that signs of deficiency emerged even among those meeting or exceeding the recommended dietary intake, and among those taking supplements.

“Across the study population, we noticed participants with inadequate vitamin B6 status even though they reported consuming more than the Recommended Daily Allowance of vitamin B6, which is less than two milligrams per day,” researcher Martha Savaria Morris said.

The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for vitamin B6 is 1.3 milligrams per day for people between the ages of 19 and 50, 1.5 milligrams per day for women over the age of 50 and 1.7 milligrams per day for men over 50.

Researchers analyzed blood samples from 7,822 people of all ages, down to one year old, who participated in the 20043-04 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They measured blood levels of pyridoxal 5′- phosphate (PLP), the biologically active form of the vitamin.

Eleven percent of those taking vitamin B6 supplements had PLP levels indicating deficiency, while 25 percent of those not taking supplements were vitamin deficient.

Male smokers, non-Hispanic African-American men and people of both sexes over the age of 65 were more likely to be vitamin B6 deficient. Women of childbearing age were also at increased risk for deficiency, especially those who had a history of oral contraceptive use.

Among women who did not take vitamin B6 supplements but did take oral contraceptives, 75 percent came up deficient in the vitamin.

The scientists called for more research into this connection, noting that it is possible that vitamin B6 is stored in a different way in women who take oral contraceptives, thus making blood concentration a less useful marker.

Foods rich in vitamin B6 include nuts, vegetables, whole grains and meats.

Sources for this story include: www.foodnavigator-usa.com.

A friend recently told me about how his uncle had heard that garlic could help lower his high blood pressure. So the uncle generously added garlic salt to his diet.

A little knowledge can kill you.

A similar misunderstanding appears to be spreading about vitamin D. More and more people are realizing that they are lactose intolerant. So they eliminate milk from their diets.

People also are worried about sun exposure and skin cancer, so they slop on sunscreen whenever they go out or otherwise avoid direct sunlight. And mercury is scaring folks away from eating fish.

As a result, some people are losing all sources of vitamin D. For the first time in a century, doctors are seeing a resurgence in rickets, that bone-deforming disease once endemic to wobbly-kneed child laborers in the Victorian era who never saw the light of day.

Pediatricians in Philadelphia have reported more than 150 new cases in the past three years, up from about zero. Washington, D.C., and other areas with large African-American populations are reporting the similar increases.

No formal studies have found the precise cause of the rickets — be it less milk consumption, less sun exposure, or other factors — but it does appear that Americans in general aren’t getting enough vitamin D.

Vitamin Q and A

Vitamin D is a complicated essential micronutrient. The National Institutes of Health convened a panel of experts last September to establish nutritional guidelines. As revealed in the official meeting proceedings, published in the August 2008 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, they couldn’t come to any consensus. The published overview is essentially a collective shrug of the shoulders.

Vitamin D is crucial for calcium metabolism — namely, the making of strong bones — and likely for immune function, heart health, cell proliferation and cancer and diabetes protection, at a minimum. An independent study from Johns Hopkins University, published in the current issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, associated lower levels of vitamin D in the blood with a higher risk of death.

Yet the experts couldn’t agree to any details. The current recommendation is to get 400 IU of vitamin D daily. Many say this isn’t enough, but no one knows how much more is too much.

Complicating issues further is the fact that vitamin D is the only nutrient that can be made entirely in the skin upon exposure to sunlight, yet this varies greatly with skin color and latitude. It’s hard to assess your daily dose. Few foods other than fish contain vitamin D. Milk is fortified with it, but you need four glasses to get 400 IUs.

Out of Africa

Lighter skin is more efficient at producing vitamin D. So African-Americans are at a double disadvantage for synthesizing vitamin D from sunlight — in the United States. Their darker skin blocks the ultraviolet light that triggers this chemical reaction. In their native lands, closer to the equator where sunlight is more direct, their darker skins would have enough sun exposure to synthesize vitamin D.

Peoples in high northern latitudes, such as Europeans, slowly developed lighter skin over tens of thousands of years to adapt to the weaker sunlight to generate enough vitamin D to survive. African-Americans forced migration from Africa occurred over a period of only a few hundred years.

Also, most African Americans — and most of the world, actually — are lactose intolerant and cannot digest cow milk well. So many do not drink enough milk. Natural sources of vitamin D include cod liver oil (as if anyone can stomach this, let alone find it outside their great-grandmother’s cupboard) and salmon and mackerel (tasty, but expensive).

In Philadelphia many rickets cases involve children of Black Muslims, and the culture of conservative clothing likely played a role.

Yet doctors wonder whether the African-American communities are providing a warning call for all of America, as kids of all races drink less milk, the primary albeit artificial source of vitamin D for most clothed, non-farming residents of North America.

Killer rays

More sunlight isn’t the answer. Humans evolved to frolic naked in the sun but also to live about 30 years or so in Africa. Take your fair skin better suited for Scandinavia and place it in Miami for several summers, and you’re going to get skin cancer.

Regardless, for latitudes north of New York City, and considering how people bundle up during winter, there’s not enough sunlight year-round to satisfy the daily vitamin D requirement.

Milk fortification works well. But all vitamin D supplementation and fortification is essentially created equal. Look for new vitamin D recommendations later this year that try to make sense of the ambiguous NIH report.

New knowledge of the biological and clinical importance of the steroid hormone 1alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 [1alpha,25(OH)2D3] and its receptor, the vitamin D receptor (VDR), has resulted in significant contributions to good bone health.

However, worldwide reports have highlighted a variety of vitamin D insufficiency and deficiency diseases. Despite many publications and scientific meetings reporting advances in vitamin D science, a disturbing realization is growing that the newer scientific and clinical knowledge is not being translated into better human health.

Over the past several decades, the biological sphere of influence of vitamin D3, as defined by the tissue distribution of the VDR, has broadened at least 9-fold from the target organs required for calcium homeostasis (intestine, bone, kidney, and parathyroid). Now, research has shown that the pluripotent steroid hormone 1alpha,25(OH)2D3 initiates the physiologic responses of 36 or more cell types that possess the VDR.

In addition to the kidney’s endocrine production of circulating 1alpha,25(OH)2D3, researchers have found a paracrine production of this steroid hormone in 10 or more extrarenal organs.

This article identifies the fundamentals of the vitamin D endocrine system, including its potential for contributions to good health in 5 physiologic arenas in which investigators have clearly documented new biological actions of 1alpha,25(OH)2D3 through the VDR.

As a consequence, the nutritional guidelines for vitamin D3 intake (defined by serum hydroxyvitamin D3 concentrations) should be reevaluated, taking into account the contributions to good health that all 36 VDR target organs can provide.

Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Aug 2008. 88(2), 491S-499S. PMID: 18689389, by Norman, AW. Department of Biochemistry and Division of Biomedical Sciences, University of California, Riverside, California, USA. [E-mail: anthony.norman@ucr.edu]

Experts are increasingly pushing for higher daily recommended intakes of vitamin D, saying that while current amounts may prevent signs of deficiency, they are insufficient to provide a protective benefit against cancer.

Vitamin D is an essential nutrient produced by the body when ultraviolet radiation from sunlight strikes the skin. In northern latitudes, however, when sunlight is dim for significant parts of the year, many people cannot get enough sun to synthesize sufficient levels of the vitamin. This problem is particularly pronounced among those with darker skin. Few foods are rich in vitamin D. Fish oil and fortified food sources, such as milk or non-dairy milk substitutes, provide the most common dietary sources.

The United States and Canadian governments recommend a daily vitamin D intake of 200 IU. But vitamin D and cancer experts warn that this value is far too low.

Recently, the Canadian Cancer Society advised that light-skinned people take a 1,000 IU vitamin D supplement daily during fall and winter months, and that dark-skinned people or those who regularly keep all their skin covered while outdoors take a supplement year-round.

“We’re recommending 1,000 IU daily because the current evidence suggests this amount will help reduce cancer risk with the least potential for harm,” said Heather Logan, director of the society’s Cancer Control Policy.

“I have to commend the Canadian Cancer Society,” vitamin D researcher Joan Lappe said. “They’re right out in the lead there on changing the recommendations.”

Lappe was lead researcher in a recent study that found that women taking 1,100 IU of vitamin D per day showed a 60 percent reduced risk of developing cancer than women taking a placebo. Excluding women who developed cancer during the first year of the four-year study, the risk reduction from vitamin D was 77 percent.

In a paper published in the “American Journal of Clinical Nutrition,” a group of vitamin D experts recently advised that an upper daily limit of 10,000 IU be set for vitamin D exposure, making a break with the current, more cautious, government recommendations.

April 11th 2008, Lysaker, Norway - An increased intake of vitamin K2 may reduce the risk of prostate cancer by 35 per cent, suggest results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC).

The findings, based on dietary intake from 11,319 men taking part in the EPIC Heidelberg cohort, are published in this month’s issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The study, by Katharina Nimptsch, Sabine Rohrmann and Jakob Linseisen, adds to a growing body of science supporting the potential health benefits of vitamin K2, most notable for bone and blood health.

In this recent study, dietary intake of vitamin K2 was linked to an inverse association with prostate cancer, while vitamin K1 intake did not offer any prostate benefits, report the researchers from the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg.

Dr. Anne Bjørnebye Vik, Vice President R&D for NattoPharma, says: “ The potential anti-tumor effect of vitamin K2, in this case specifically prostate cancer, adds to the great potential for NattoPharma’s natural vitamin K2, MenaQ7™, one of the more documented derivatives in the group of vitamin K2’s or the so called long-chain menaquinones. As this interesting field of nutrition and cancer now also include vitamin K2, we are excited that NattoPharma’s natural menaquione-7, branded as MenaQ7™, shows to be the optimal form of vitamin K2.”

The study has also been welcomed by leading vitamin K researcher Cees Vermeer, PhD, from the VitaK and Cardiovascular Research Institute CARIM at the University of Maastricht. Commenting on the research, Dr. Vermeer says: “the beneficial effect of the long-chain menaquinones has previously been reported for cardiovascular disease; this specific form of vitamin K2 is characterized by preferential transport (via LDL) to extra-hepatic tissues (such as prostate and arterial vessel wall), and by very long half-life times (three days versus 1.5 hours) as compared to vitamin K1 and the short-chain menaquinone-4.

“I am highly pleased by this paper, which underpins the (widely underestimated) importance of long chain menaquinones for disease prevention,” Dr. Vermeer says.

“It also supports my opinion that intake of vitamin K2 supplements may have a significant contribution to public health.”

Study details

Nimptsch, Rohrmann and Linseisen from the Division of Cancer Epidemiology at the German Cancer Research Centre state that epidemiologic studies of dietary vitamin K intakes have not been conducted in relation to prostate cancer risk.

According to the European School of Oncology, over half a million new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed every year worldwide, and the cancer is the direct cause of over 200,000 deaths. More worryingly, the incidence of the disease is increasing with a rise of 1.7 per cent over 15 years.

A food frequency questionnaire was used to assess habitual dietary intakes at the start of the study, with vitamin K intakes divided into phylloquinone (vitamin K1) and menaquinones (vitamin K2) and total and advanced prostate cancer in the Heidelberg cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.

The researchers documented 268 incident cases of prostate cancer during the 8.6 years of follow-up. Of these, 113 cases were classified as advanced prostate cancer. While no reduction in the risk of prostate cancer was observed for vitamin K1 (phylloquinone), an increased intake of all menaquinones (vitamin K2) was associated with a 35 per cent reduction in risk. However, the researchers stated that this association was “non-significant”.

Furthermore, a strong association was documented when they considered only advanced prostate cancer, with increased intake of menaquinones linked to a 63 per cent reduction in risk.

While dietary sources of menaquinones include meat and fermented food products like cheese, and natto, Nimptsch and co-workers report that menaquinones from dairy had a stronger inverse association with advanced prostate cancer than did menaquinones from meat.

“Our results suggest an inverse association between the intake of menaquinones, but not that of phylloquinone, and prostate cancer,” concluded the researchers. “Further studies of dietary vitamin K and prostate cancer are warranted.”

Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
April 2008, Volume 87, Number 4, Pages 985-992
“Dietary intake of vitamin K and risk of prostate cancer in the Heidelberg cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Heidelberg)”
Authors: K. Nimptsch, S. Rohrmann, J. Linseisen
NattoPharma, Norway offers a natural vitamin K2 under the trade name MenaQ7.

K definitions

There are two main forms of vitamin K: phylloquinone, also known as phytonadione, (vitamin K1) and menaquinones (vitamins K2). K1 is found in green leafy vegetables such as lettuce, broccoli and spinach, and makes up about 90 per cent of the vitamin K in a typical Western diet; while K2, which makes up about 10 per cent of Western vitamin K consumption, is found mainly in fermented dairy products as e.g. cheese. The Japanese food Natto (fermented soybeans) is especially rich in vitamin K2.

A synthetic form of vitamin K, known as K3, does exist but is not recommended for human consumption.

The vitamin K’s are less well known than vitamins A to E, but this increasing body of research, as well as increased marketing and advertising from supplement makers, is raising public awareness of vitamin K.

HURSDAY March 13, 2008 (Foodconsumer.org) — Vitamin D is more than more important than thought and it can prevent a range of diseases including cancers.  But a new study cautions that just because you live in a Southern state like Arizona does not mean you would get enough vitamin D through exposure to the sun. This is particularly true in blacks and Hispanics.

For the study, Elizabeth T Jacobs from University of Arizona and the Medical University of South Carolina and colleagues tested Arizonian participants of a colorectal adenoma prevention study for their serum vitamin D known as 25 hydroxyvitamin D or 25(OH)D.

They found 55.5 percent of blacks and 37.6 percent of Hispanics were more likely to have deficient 25(OH)D concentrations (<20 ng per mL) in their blood compared to 22.7 percent in non-Hispanic whites.  Sun exposure had a greater effort on 25(OH)D in whites than in blacks and Hispanics.

The researchers concluded that “Despite residing in a region with high chronic sun exposure, adults in southern Arizona are commonly deficient in vitamin D deficiency, particularly blacks and Hispanics.”

The study was published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 87, No. 3, 608-613, March 2008.

The benefits of a combined vitamin D3 and calcium for bones, reported to stop or slow bone loss, may extend for up to 18 months after stopping supplementation, suggests a new study from Australia.

The increases in bone mineral density of about 1.65 per cent observed in men after receiving vitamin D and calcium supplements were still evident 18 months after the men stopped taking the supplements, researchers report in this month’s American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The study shows that elderly men, a population that is often overlooked in bone health studies, could also benefit from daily supplements of fortified milk.

Much focus has been on the vitamin D and calcium combination for bone health in women since elderly females are four times as likely to develop osteoporosis than their male counterparts. The new study, which follows on from an earlier study in the journal Bone (doi: 10.1016/j.bone.2006.04.003), reports that elderly men benefited from daily supplements of fortified milk.

Osteoporosis is estimated to affect about 75m people in Europe, the USA and Japan. According to the International Osteoporosis Foundation, the total direct cost of osteoporotic fractures is €31.7bn in Europe, and 17.5bn in the US (2002 figure).

Robin Daly and co-workers from Deakin University in Melbourne followed 109 who had completed the earlier study for a further 18 months, during which no more fortified milk was provided.

The benefits on bone mineral density observed in the on the hip bone (femoral neck) and wrist (ultra-distal radius) at the end of the intervention of 1.8 and 1.5 per cent, respectively, were still evident 18 months later.

Furthermore, non-significant increases at the total hip of 0.8 per cent were also sustained.

“The average total dietary calcium intake in the milk supplementation group at follow-up approximated recommended amounts for Australian men older than 50 (1000 mg/d) but did not differ significantly from that in the control subjects (1021 versus 890 mg/d),” stated the researchers for clarification.

“Supplementation with calcium- and vitamin D3-fortified milk for two years may provide some sustained benefits for BMD in older men after withdrawal of supplementation,” they concluded.

The researchers reported in the earlier study in Bone that, due to the complicated nutritional mixture of the milk, it was not known whether the benefits were due to vitamin D3, calcium, or a combination of these plus other nutrients. They did state however that the results show a reduction in bone resorption in this elderly male population sample.

The fortified milk used in the initial intervention contained 500 milligrams of calcium (milk calcium salt NatraCal) and 400 International Units (IU) of vitamin D3 (DSM Nutritional Products), and was formulated by Murray Goulburn Co-operative in Brinswick, Australia.

Some countries, like Canada, already fortify their milk and a 250 ml cup provides about 90 IU of vitamin D. In the UK, where milk is not fortified, a 250 ml cup contains only a trace of the vitamin.

The 1999 USDA survey on food intakes by individuals reported that less than 15 per cent of over-sixty year-old men were meeting their recommended daily intake of calcium.

Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
March 2008, Volume 87, Number 3, Pages 771-777
“The skeletal benefits of calcium- and vitamin D3-fortified milk are sustained in older men after withdrawal of supplementation: an 18-mo follow-up study”
Authors: R.M. Daly, N. Petrass, S. Bass, C.A Nowson

SATURDAY MARCH 1, 2008 (Foodconsumer.org) — University of Cambridge researchers found those who had the highest level of vitamin C in their blood were much less likely to have a stroke, suggesting that intake of vitamin C ma help reduce the risk.

The study published in the Jan, 2008 issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed those who had the highest level (greater than 66 micromoles per liter) had a 42 percent reduced risk for stroke compared to those who had the lowest level (less than 41 micromoles per liter).

The study did not mean that increasing vitamin C intake through one’s diet or a supplement would definitely reduce the risk of stroke or increased levels of the vitamin was the cause for the reduced risk although the possibility could not be excluded either.

Phyo Myint and colleagues suggested that vitamin C in the blood may be a good biomarker of lifestyle. A high level of it indicates that one follows a healthy lifestyle, minimizing their risk for stroke.

For the study, the researchers followed 20,649 men and women participating in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer for 9.5 years to record their health status such as incidence of stroke.

Their dietary habits and other lifestyle parameters were surveyed at the entry of the study using a health and lifestyle questionnaire and vitamin C levels in the blood samples were measured. During the follow-up, 448 stroke cases were identified.

The association between the plasma vitamin C level and the risk of stroke existed after a series of other factors were considered including age, sex, smoking habits, alcohol consumption, blood pressure, cholesterol, BMI, physical activity, and use of supplements.

The researchers said the association was probably not due to the supplemental vitamin C because when those who used vitamin C supplements were excluded, the link still held, suggesting that the possible benefit could come from vitamin C-rich foods such as fruit and vegetables.

The US government recommends in dietary guidelines adults should take at least five servings of fruit and vegetables per day to maintain health. But often vitamin C supplementation is not encouraged.

The researchers said although the study did not mean to say taking vitamin C supplements would render this protective effect and trials of vitamin C supplements in preventing cardiovascular disease unlikely occur, the association was substantial and independent of known major risk factors for stroke.

Sebastian Padayatty and Mark Levine from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said in their commentary accompanying the study report that “Vitamin C is an attractive marker of fruit and vegetable intake because these foods are the primary sources of dietary vitamin C.” and the take-home message is to use five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables.

Vitamin C has proved controversial. Some experts notably Noble Prize laureate Dr. Linus Pauling had been advocating for years that people should use HIGH doses of vitamin C to prevent a whole spectrum of diseases from colds to cancer. But trials proved that vitamin C at low doses does not help prevent diseases.

Dr. Pauling had worked with a doctor to test how vitamin C affects the survival of cancer patients and they found that cancer patients subject to conventional treatments, but using high doses of vitamin C often lived a few more years than those who received only conventional treatments.

Vitamin C is non-toxic and many people use more than 5 grams per day, according to The Vitamin C Foundation, a not-for-profit organization advocating use of vitamin C.