In 1958 Dr. Linus Pauling published his book, No More War. Today, if Dr. Pauling were still alive, he would probably write a sequel to that book entitled No More War Against Vitamin C. There is a renaissance in vitamin C supplementation underway. A series of events is unfolding so fast it is difficult to stay current on this topic.

It’s a resurgence that would cause Dr. Linus Pauling to be elated, having started one of these revivals in 1970 with the publication of his book, Vitamin C and the Common Cold. The consumption of vitamin C is reported to have jumped then by 300% and a dramatic drop in the mortality rate from coronary heart disease followed (public health authorities failed to report this). Dr. Pauling went on to write other books on vitamin C in 1986 and 1993 regarding cancer and longevity. During that era, before angioplasty, statin drugs or aspirin therapy were being touted, the number of annual deaths per 100,000 Americans due to coronary heart disease dropped from nearly 500 to about 250. [NIH Data]

The impetus to take vitamin C pills dwindled in 1992 when National Institutes of Health researchers, employing studies of no more than 15 people, and measuring blood levels 12 hours after consumption, errantly concluded high-dose vitamin C, beyond 200 milligrams per day, was worthless. The government researchers claim excesses of vitamin C are excreted in the urine. But in April of 2004 researchers published a paper that escaped public attention. Not only did researchers find that intravenous vitamin C could reach concentrations in the blood circulation 140 times greater than oral consumption and should be re-evaluated as a treatment for cancer (recall now, Dr. Pauling successfully employed intravenous vitamin C to treat cancer, but his work was discredited by the Mayo Clinic), but vitamin C pills can elevate blood levels three times greater than what was previously thought possible. [Annals Internal Medicine 2004 Apr 6; 140 (7):533–7] High-dose vitamin C wasn’t going to waste. For unexplained reasons, this landmark report never caught the attention of the major news media nor the National Institutes of Health which continues to mistakenly maintain that more than 200 milligrams of vitamin C per day is a waste of money.

Then a landmark report published in the British Medical Journal this past July revealed that blood vessels at the back of the eyes begin to narrow before high blood pressure develops. [British Medical Journal 2004 Jul 10; 329(7457):79] Any doctor with an ophthalmoscope can directly visualize these retinal vessels. Patients with narrowed retinal blood vessels can’t be placed on drugs because their blood pressure isn’t elevated yet. Modern medicine had made a great discovery that could lead to the prevention of millions of strokes and heart attacks, but it didn’t have a therapy in place.

However the report came to the attention of Sydney J Bush, PhD, Doctor of Optometry, Hull Contact Lens Clinic, in East Yorkshire near London. Dr. Bush, a devotee of Dr. Pauling, wrote two letters (July 23 and Nov 26) to the British Medical Journal citing his experience snapping digital photographs of the blood vessels at the back of the eyes while patients were on a daily regimen of supplemental vitamin C. Dr. Bush unequivocally shows narrowing of the blood vessels at the back of the eyes (and presumably throughout the body) can be reversed with 3,000 to 10,000 milligrams of daily vitamin C. The before-and-after photos below demonstrate the reversal effect of vitamin C. On the left, a photograph taken in 2002 shows retinal arteries have narrowed and some have dropped from view. The photo on the right taken in 2004 shows the arteries have widened and in some places reappeared. The public should begin to request photos like these from their eye doctors so they can evaluate the effect of supplemental vitamin C over time.