User:ImperfectlyInformed/OM

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[edit] Vitamin C

McCormick and Klenner, respectively, first used vitamin C, preferably intravenously. Both reported success in treating a wide variety of illnesses. McCormick theorized that vitamin C could play a role in cancer and heart disease.^[1][2] Irwin Stone postulated, based on the fact that most animals synthesize large amounts of vitamin C, that humans genetically suffer from hypoascorbemia.^[3] This conclusion seems to be accepted by many orthomolecular practitioners today.^[4] Linus Pauling claimed that vitamin C was effective in preventing and treating the cold and cancer.

Linus Pauling published Vitamin C and the Common Cold,^[5] followed by a paper reviewing the evidence for vitamin C and the cold.^[6] Subsequently, Pauling began to research vitamin C with oncologist Ewan Cameron, and the two published several papers, the most significant of which was a trial of 100 cancer patients treated intravenously with 10/g of ascorbate for 10 days and then orally thereafter.^[7] This trial was restudied based on some concerns raised over the first, with similar, and actually more significant, results.^[8] Cameron and Pauling published Cancer and vitamin C in 1979, a collection of their papers. In response to their work the Mayo Clinic conducted two randomized controlled trials on vitamin C and cancer, which were published in The New England Journal of Medicine.^[9] Pauling attempted to publish a rebuttal in the same journal, but it was rejected.^[10] Instead, Pauling published his response in Chemistry in Britain, now called Chemistry World.^[11]

A recent review of vitamin C and the common cold by Douglas and Hemila conducted for the Cochrane Collaboration found that vitamin C had a small but significant effect in reducing the duration of colds when ingested prior to sickness by 8% in adults and 14% in children, but 50% for athletes and soldiers in cold environments. No effect was seen when vitamin C was administered after the onset of symptoms.^[12][13] This review was criticized for ignoring literature which indicates that previous studies have been flawed by their reliance upon oral dosages, when intravenous dosages are generally administered by advocates.^[14] Douglas and Hemila responded by stating that they do not believe their review is conclusive, and that they look forward to incorporating intravenous trials in the future, although they do not believe such trials will necessarily show greater benefits.^[15]

Interest in vitamin C and cancer has been renewed, beginning with the discovery that intravenous vitamin C can achieve plasma concentrations up to 70-fold higher than oral vitamin C.^[16] A 2005 paper in the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences noted that vitamin C selectively killed cancer cells in vitro. This paper noted that, although the original observational studies of vitamin C were based on intravenous administration, the subsequent double-blind placebo-controlled studies used oral ascorbate.^[17] In 2007, the researchers demonstrated how vitamin C in vivo could possibly kill cancer cells.^[18] A recent historical study of the past ten years has found three patients whose tumors shrank after receiving intravenous vitamin C along with other alternative and conventional treatments. The authors of the study claimed that the case studies "only signficant treatment" for these patients was vitamin C.^[19][20] However, this is far from conclusive, and studies are currently planned at the McGill University.^[21]

[edit] Niacin

The Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, founded as the Journal of Schizophrenia in 1967, was first founded on the basis of Drs. Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond's reported success in treating acute schizophrenia with niacin. Mainstream medicine has responded to these claims with skepticism.

[edit] References