Charting The Terrain

Abstract

Vitamin C (ascorbic acid or ascorbate) is essential for human health. It cannot be synthesized by humans, and must be obtained from dietary sources, primarily vegetables and fresh fruits. In human beings deprived of vitamin C, the life-threatening nutritional deficiency disease scurvy develops. That ascorbic acid is the essential nutrient for the prevention and treatment of scurvy has been accepted medical wisdom since the 1930s, when Albert Szent-Gyorgyi was awarded the Nobel Prize for its discovery and isolation. But very little else about this contentious substance has achieved such unanimity of medical opinion.

What this country needs is a good five-cent pill! — some ‘magic’, easy-to-swallow little pellet that can slow aging, minimize heart disease, aid recovery from dozens of infectious and degenerative ailments, and inoculate us against countless health problems that stem from emotional stress and environmental pollutants.

THE GOOD NEWS

Happily, such a thing exists — in pill form, as supplemental powders, and, of course, in a number of foods... We are speaking of vitamin C...

THE BAD NEWS

More often than not, all the good news about all the things that vitamin C can do gets drowned in a sea of confusion. The real truth gets held hostage while a philosophic tug-of-war rages between adherents of two extreme positions: those who claim vitamin C can do everything and those who claim it does nothing. While this unfortunate slugging match takes place, a vast middle ground of solid scientific information is overlooked....

Dr Emanuel Cheraskin et al., The Vitamin C Connection

(Cheraskin et al. 1983)