Posted on 11/10/2008 2:14:06 PM PST by yankeedame
Stephen Barrett, M.D.
Linus Pauling, Ph.D. (1901-1994), was the only person ever to win two unshared Nobel prizes. He received these awards for chemistry in 1954 and for peace in 1962. He contributed greatly to the development of chemical theories. His impact on the health marketplace, however, was anything but laudable.
Pauling is largely responsible for the widespread misbelief that high doses of vitamin C are effective against colds and other illnesses. In 1968, he postulated that people's needs for vitamins and other nutrients vary markedly and that to maintain good health, many people need amounts of nutrients much greater than the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs). And he speculated that megadoses of certain vitamins and minerals might well be the treatment of choice for some forms of mental illness.
He termed this approach "orthomolecular," meaning "right molecule." After that, he steadily expanded the list of illnesses he believed could be influenced by "orthomolecular" therapy and the number of nutrients suitable for such use. No responsible medical or nutrition scientists share these views.
Vitamin C and the Common Cold
In 1970, Pauling announced in Vitamin C and the Common Cold that taking 1,000 mg of vitamin C daily will reduce the incidence of colds by 45% for most people but that some people need much larger amounts [1]. (The RDA for vitamin C is 60 mg.) The 1976 revision of the book, retitled Vitamin C, the Common Cold and the Flu, suggested even higher dosages [2].
A third book, Vitamin C and Cancer (1979) claims that high doses of vitamin C may be effective against cancer. Yet another book, How to Feel Better and Live Longer (1986), stated that megadoses of vitamins "can improve your general health . . . to increase your enjoyment of life and can help in controlling heart disease, cancer, and other diseases and in slowing down the process of aging." [3]
Pauling himself reportedly took at least 12,000 mg daily and raised the amount to 40,000 mg if symptoms of a cold appear [4]. In 1993, after undergoing radiation therapy for prostate cancer, Pauling said that vitamin C had delayed the cancer's onset for twenty years.
This was not a testable claim. He died of the disease in August 1994.
Scientific fact is established when the same experiment is carried out over and over again with the same results. To test the effect of vitamin C on colds, it is necessary to compare groups which get the vitamin to similar groups which get a placebo (a dummy pill which looks like the real thing). Since the common cold is a very variable illness, proper tests must involve hundreds of people for significantly long periods of time.
At least 16 well-designed, double-blind studies have shown that supplementation with vitamin C does not prevent colds and at best may slightly reduce the symptoms of a cold [5].
Slight symptom reduction may occur as the result of an antihistamine-like effect, but whether this has practical value is a matter of dispute. Pauling's views are based on the same studies considered by other scientists, but his analyses are flawed.
The largest clinical trials, involving thousands of volunteers, were directed by Dr. Terence Anderson, professor of epidemiology at the University of Toronto [6-9]. Taken together, his studies suggest that extra vitamin C may slightly reduce the severity of colds, but it is not necessary to take the high doses suggested by Pauling to achieve this result. Nor is there anything to be gained by taking vitamin C supplements year-round in the hope of preventing colds.
Another important study was reported in 1975 by scientists at the National Institutes of Health who compared vitamin C pills with a placebo before and during colds. Although the experiment was supposed to be double-blind, half the subjects were able to guess which pill they were getting.
When the results were tabulated with all subjects lumped together, the vitamin group reported fewer colds per person over a nine-month period. But among the half who hadn't guessed which pill they had been taking, no difference in the incidence or severity was found [10]. This illustrates how people who think they are doing something effective (such as taking a vitamin) can report a favorable result even when none exists...
[The lenghty excerpted section deals with vitamin C and cancer and cancer treatment.]
Other Questionable Activities
During the mid-1970s, Pauling helped lead the health-food industry's campaign for a federal law that weakened FDA protection of consumers against misleading nutrition claims. In 1977 and 1979, Pauling received awards and presented his views on vitamin C at the annual conventions of the National Nutritional Foods Association (the major trade association of health-food retailers, distributors and producers).
In 1981, he accepted an award from the National Health Federation (NHF) for "services rendered in behalf of health freedom" and gave his daughter a life membership in this organization.
NHF promotes the gamut of quackery. Many of its leaders have been in legal difficulty and some have even received prison sentences for various "health" activities. Pauling also spoke at a Parker School for Professional Success Seminar, a meeting where chiropractors were taught highly questionable methods of building their practices. An ad for the meeting invited chiropractors to pose with Pauling for a photograph (which presumably could be used for publicity when the chiropractors returned home).
In 1981, after learning that Pauling had donated money to NHF (for his daughter's life membership), I asked whether he knew about NHF's shady background and the fact that it was the leading antifluoridation force in the United States. I also asked whether he cared that the money might be used to help fight fluoridation.
In a series of letters, he replied that he:
He also sent me a profluoridation statement he had issued in 1967 [25]. His claim that he had spoken out for fluoridation surprised me. Although I have read thousands of documents related to Pauling's views and activities, I had never encountred any other indication that he had publicly supported fluoridation.
In 1983, Pauling and Irwin Stone testified at a hearing on behalf of Oscar Falconi, a vitamin promoter charged by the Postal Service with making false claims for several products. Pauling supported Falconi's contentions that vitamin C was useful not only in preventing cancer, but also in curing drug addicts and destroying both viruses and bacteria.
The Administrative Law Judge concluded that Pauling could not substantiate his claims [26].
Pauling also testified in 1984 before the California Board of Medical Quality Assurance in defense of Michael Gerber, M.D., who was accused of improperly administering to patients.
-- One was a 56-year-old woman with treatable cancer who—the Board concluded—had died as a result of Gerber's neglect while he treated her with herbs, enzymes, coffee enemas, and chelation therapy.
-- The other patients were three-year-old twin boys with ear infections for which Gerber had prescribed 70,000 or more units of vitamin A daily and coffee enemas twice daily for several weeks.
Gerber lost his license to practice medicine as a result of the hearings. He now practices in Nevada under a homeopathic license.
A flyer distributed in 1991 by the Linus Pauling Institute recommended daily doses of 6,000 to 18,000 mg of vitamin C, 400 to 1,600 IU of vitamin E, and 25,000 IU of vitamin A, plus various other vitamins and minerals. These dosages have no proven benefit and can cause troublesome side effects.
Today's Linus Pauling Institute
After Pauling died, fundraising appeals expressed concern that his death would make it more difficult to raise funds to continue the institute's operations. In 1996, the assets of the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine were used to establish the Linus Pauling Institute (LPI) as a research institute at OSU to investigate the function and role of micronutrients, phytochemicals and microconstituents of food in maintaining human health and preventing and treating disease; and to advance the knowledge in areas which were of interest to Linus Pauling through research and education [27].
The LPI Web site has excellent articles about the function and role of many nutrients. Except for vitamin E, the LPI's recommended nutrient levels are in line with prevailing scientific opinions.
One article notes that Pauling's vitamin C recommendations were based on "theoretical arguments" and that we now have much more scientific information upon which to base recommendations [28]. This certainly is true but glosses over the fact that Pauling's meganutrient theories were absurd and were maintained even after scientific studies refuted them. Overall, however, the LPI is now a respectable education and research facility.
The Bottom Line
Although Pauling's megavitamin claims lacked the evidence needed for acceptance by the scientific community, they have been accepted by large numbers of people who lack the scientific expertise to evaluate them. Thanks largely to Pauling's prestige, annual vitamin C sales in the United States have been in the hundreds of millions of dollars for many years.
Pauling also played a role in the health food industry's successful campaign to weaken FDA consumer protections laws.
The Linus Pauling Institute that bears his name has evolved into a respectable organization. But Pauling's irrational advice about supplements continues to lead people astray.
He was off by one letter of the alphabet...vit D is anti microbial.
When I'm stopped up, a good dose of hot salsa always drains and opens up my sinuses.
“Vegetarians die of cancer too.”
Yeah, but at least we know where all the good Chinese and Indian deliveries are so we can have better food in hospice.
Would that be hotspice in hospice? Or carry out and curry before carry out and bury? Or.....no, that’s enough, I have to get up bright and early at noon. Nite.
You’ll still have them but you’ll be sweating like a dog in heat.
Not mutating so constantly, actually. There’s about 130 colds out there, and once you’ve had each one, you don’t likely get the same one again. That’s why the number of colds the average person gets declines dramatically as get older.
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