Why vitamin C won't 'boost' your immune system against the coronavirus

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"Collagen likely is not much of a factor, but vitamin C can get depleted easily during an infection. The stronger the infection, the more vitamin C is lost - especially if inflammation is involved." When vitamin C is depleted (for whatever reason) collagen is involved and the potential for scurvy and other diseases increases. Injections might be required to avoid the immediate effects. Others here have already reported on the many other effects that Vitamin C might have, the medical community's skepticism notwithstanding. Linus Pauling was a leader in promoting vitamin C for good health and he suffered the disdain of the medical community. That said, the ad hoc virtues and effects of ascorbic acid need clinical study.
 
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In the 1970's in the ancient of days before Robert Rodale gave himself a stroke by overdosing anticoagulant nutritional supplements I took alot of vitamin C. The general drift at the time was that the minimum dose for causing hyperactive blastophenia of macrophages was 5 grams per day, so it seems nonsensical to hope for any significant immune boosting effects from less, though more than 10 grams a day causes intolerable diarrhea and is generally weakening and dehydrating... the only diarrhea properly treated with enormous quantities of food with the fluid.

So the macrophages "blastophenia" came at amounts that make 0.2g (200mg) per day a "why bother?" Since the article seems based around this joke amount... hmm. Not allowed on this forum to say that.
Vitamin C is generally useless for cancer and may just make many cancers harder, more dense and more difficult to penetrate by immune cells. Since they don't generally get marked for removal by antibodies, macrophages hyperactivity is effectively meaningless in their treatment unless one should first render them dead... then macrophages will eat them. Alas! This has always been the difficulty.

As regards augmenting immunity to stimulate production and activity of the Natural Killer T cells known to mitigate both cancer y Covid-19 by means of substances readily available at the store, $$$$$$$$$$$ conflicts of interest appear to have made the entire subject taboo on this forum, which leaves me to recommend that you try to find a doctor who won't kill you obviously and outright... preferably one you can beat armwrestling( there's that predatory personality trait associated with extreme genetically conferred arm strength, this... psychiatrists and at least some doctor's with this "bet you can't open the jar he just tightened" genetics characteristic (was it an excessive multiple copies of creatine kinase gene?) that it's best to avoid to keep living and not be lobotomized. In any event... there was a LiveScience article that included advice to take probiotics. It said nothing about large doses of probiotics enhancing dendritic cell output of interleukin 15 thus activating Natural Killer T cells into action. Vitamin C is your own lookout. Dexamethasone appears to enhance survival in those with COVID 19 though I've seen articles that advise against it because later it may make you feel bad??? I'd say beats the alternative (Bob Hope was funny!)
 
Vinnie.. If I understand your comment (and I may not), you seem to recommend doses of Vitamin C somewhere between 200 mg and less than 10,000 mg a day...say 500 mg to 1000 mg?....to stay healthy, or to do what? Certainly, no sudden increase in any vitamins will have any effect on a disease like the Covid-19 once you contract it. But in the absence of clinical studies, it might help to boost an immune system. Cancer is a totally different situation.
 
Actually for general health outside of a challenge situation like Covid-19 100mgs per day is fine. For stimulating macrophages activity 5000mgs is the optimal dose. This also appears to reduce inflammatory infiltration of eosinophils and assists with quicker maturation of T cells in senescent thymus glands, according to the Pub Med and NCBI posts I read after posting this morning on LiveScience. The eosinophil infiltration inhibition may reduce inflammation from Covid-19 cytokine storms, while interfering with the effectiveness of aspects of cancer treatment dependent on inflammation from such things as eosinophils and alpha TNF to work. Also, the improved T cell maturation times can be helpful, although it appears at first glance from the studies I read this morning that T1 cells are thus assisted more than the T2 cells helpful against Covid-19.

I long ago advised dexamethasone as the likely steroid of choice in COVID 19 treatment and epidemiology has since borne my guess correct.

Theupshot of my comment was: the 0.2 g mean dose of the studies cited in this article is as inappropriately tiny for the purposes of establishing immune enhancement as would be similarly a 100 microgram dose daily would be toward the treatment of scurvy. One way to prove a falsehood, such as the supposed uselessness of vitamin C in the treatment of scurvy, or the prevention and treat me not of at least certain viral infections is to use small token doses... such as those suggested in the article here.
I also alluded to something else that has also been deliberately mis-studied in a similar fashion: probiotics.
My third allusion was toward the 1000 years secret that many doctors, psychiatrists and their historical predecessors have genetic characteristic giving them powerful arms beyond human capacities, allowing them to seal jars so nobody else can open them, meaningfully armwrestle only each other... and they all share then a character disorder that causes them to orgasm when they kill or lobotomize that otherwise appears to be like combined narcissistic/borderline personality disorder. They refer to themselves in their secret society as Friends of the Devil or some such. Thus, virtually all psychiatrists and their mothers/sisters are incredibly dangerous, and dad may have found his way into the menu a la by Oedipus, followed by convenient adolescents drawn by mom until she got too old and was replaced by the sister of a fellow Friend. So do you know doctor's whose mothers somehow stubbornly continued to live across the street from them through and even after med school? Blood, flesh and bone. Her room is dressed in red.
 
I haven't seen anything clinical that would suggest harm to someone trying to boost their immune system by taking larger doses of vitamin C ...up to 1000 mg. per day. Just the strengthening of connective tissue collagens in immune system tissues might help.

As for well-kept secrets among physicians opening jars??? Those with masks on and shaking rattles to scare a virus away? Irrelevant. :)
 
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I haven't seen anything clinical that would suggest harm to someone trying to boost their immune system by taking larger doses of vitamin C ...up to 1000 mg. per day. Just the strengthening of connective tissue collagens in immune system tissues might help.

There is potential harm from increased risk of kidney stones. Not a frequent occurrence, but still possible. Also some people still get abdominal issues even at 1000 mg / day.

I would like to see any papers that suggest 5000 mg is optimal for macrophage function in humans. As far as I know, this doesn't exist but I am willing to yield to evidence.
 
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I haven't seen anything clinical that would suggest harm to someone trying to boost their immune system by taking larger doses of vitamin C ...up to 1000 mg. per day. Just the strengthening of connective tissue collagens in immune system tissues might help.

As for well-kept secrets among physicians opening jars??? Those with masks on and shaking rattles to scare a virus away? Irrelevant. :)
The thing I like is that the FBI reads my posts because I invited them to, and investigates my every scientific and criminal allegation. The once enormous authority of Pharma, medicine, the AMA, both APAs et al. are now beyond doubt in doubt. The authoritarian stranglehold on information held by what has been revealed now to law enforcement as actually a pack of serial killers is broken. When such doctors are shown powerful evidence of substances that help humanity when properly used, the best expected reaction is for them to "fail to see it." Such things threaten the love of watching people die while feigning to help... the great holy grail of narcissistic borderline allopathy and the promise of eternal exploitive profitability to those consortia of pharmaceutical companies commonly regarded as "Pharma".

Fortunately, few indeed now take seriously those who recite the official policy of the AMA. It is the official policy of the AMA that nutritional elements are only of value in the treatment of their associated deficiency disease. In the case of vitamin C this would refer to the connective tissue disorder alluded to by the physician commenting: scurvy. It is the official policy of the RICO organization called the AMA that no naturally occurring substance is of value in the prevention or treatment of any disease. Their Pharma profit/love of death Sugarplum Fairy image is of every person able to pay consuming an artificial soup of pharmaceutically produced chemicals so the pockets of the poor and wealthy alike can be emptied on the way to the grave by the consortia of RICO organizations refered to in Toto as "Pharma".
 
Agree that most physicians accept their own RMD, recommended Vitamin C dose to prevent scurvy. There is, however, a difference between AMA and "Pharma". The latter has to spend money on pharmaceutical drug research, much of which never turns out to be something the FDA might approve or that the AMA can recommend. The AMA spends little or nothing on drug research. No company (the government excluded) can operate for very long without a profit on the totality of their products.
 
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Risk of kidney stones?? There is potential harm in doing anything. Life is unpredictable...eat dessert first?

Kidney stones are documented in at least two (possibly three) studies in association with vitamin C supplementation. However, that doesn't say why kidney stone risk goes up. My guess is that it's not the vitamin C that's the problem, it just exposing a problem that already exists.
 
It appears from reading back through this entire thread that there is little risk of toxicity, morbidity, in taking large amounts of vitamin C, orally or by injection. Of course, common sense should tell us not to overdo what has been clinically overdone to prove that.
 
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Nicoletta Lanese stated that free radicals are 'charged particles': they can be, but not all are! Some FRs have the same numbers of protons in the nucleus as there are electrons surrounding the nucleus; i.e. they are electrically neutral. These FRs have an odd number of both protons and electrons, but the SAME number!: e.g. irrespective of which isotope is being considered, a chlorine atom has 17 protons and 17 electrons. In which case, not all of the electrons are paired, which is why neutral FRs are reactive. Which is also why a chlorine atom might be written as CL. with the 'dot' as a superscript (which I can't reproduce here!) The oxygen radicals to which she is alluding ARE charged; e.g. peroxyl radical, O2. (in which the 2 should be a subscript and the dot again a superscript. This IS a charged particle, with a molecular structure, but consisting of a total number of protons = 16, but a total number of electrons of, effectively, 15. I appreciate, that in the context of the article, it's impossible to introduce a discussion on the structure of radicals, but this is how misconceptions are often seeded!
 
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May I ask why and I quote...
“The medical profession still doesn't know exactly how to influence the immune system, despite what supplement products may claim," Julie Stefanski, a registered dietitian nutritionist and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics, told The Washington Post.

If the doctors and scientists “don’t know why” I respectfully suggest that consultwith the many M.D.s that have switched to integrative, orthomolecular and functional medicine. One would have to be living under a rock to not understand the fundamental value of vitamin C as well as zinc. In fact “they” call them vitamins for a reason. All vitamins are vital to health and life. That is a fact and not opinion
 
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If the doctors and scientists “don’t know why” I respectfully suggest that consult with the many M.D.s that have switched to integrative, orthomolecular and functional medicine. One would have to be living under a rock to not understand the fundamental value of vitamin C as well as zinc. In fact “they” call them vitamins for a reason. All vitamins are vital to health and life. That is a fact and not opinion

There is a combination of scientific evidence, medically-relevant information, evidence from practice, and bureaucracy all at play when dealing with interactions with MDs. Each MD has their own set of these variables to contend with to treat a patient. Because of this, many (but not all) MDs focus only on solutions to immediate problems, not preventative approaches. For prevention, other approaches are required - and not often a part of standard medical school doctrine.

Free radicals are reactive and potentially destructive. The superoxide dismutases are offsetting. The Fe, Cu-Zn, Fe,Mn are effective at various levels of oxygen.

Free radicals are a consequence of life, and also necessary depending on the case. You can't make very many blanket statements about them - they all have their unique properties.

Also, reactive oxygen/nitrogen/sulfur species are not all free radicals, making things even more complicated.
 
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There is a combination of scientific evidence, medically-relevant information, evidence from practice, and bureaucracy all at play when dealing with interactions with MDs. Each MD has their own set of these variables to contend with to treat a patient. Because of this, many (but not all) MDs focus only on solutions to immediate problems, not preventative approaches. For prevention, other approaches are required - and not often a part of standard medical school doctrine.



Free radicals are a consequence of life, and also necessary depending on the case. You can't make very many blanket statements about them - they all have their unique properties.

Also, reactive oxygen/nitrogen/sulfur species are not all free radicals, making things even more complicated.
It is impossible to not be skeptical of the medical establishment. They are all about the symptom at hand , as you've mentioned. Root cause is rarely if ever addressed, but that is precisely what needs to be addressed. Symptom management leads to chronic disease! The tide is turning though. It's just a shame that after all their education and sacrifice, M.D.'s opt for Band-Aids®
 
It is impossible to not be skeptical of the medical establishment. They are all about the symptom at hand , as you've mentioned. Root cause is rarely if ever addressed, but that is precisely what needs to be addressed. Symptom management leads to chronic disease! The tide is turning though. It's just a shame that after all their education and sacrifice, M.D.'s opt for Band-Aids®
In many situations, all you can do is treat symptoms.
 
@Caralyn : modern medicine arose out of an authoritarian, inquisitional yet secular, response to supposed hucksterism. And all outside allopathy constituted hucksterism. Nao! Where's da S[ci]ence in thaht??

@hellopunyhumans : peoples of non-Western cultures long used mints, herbs, and spices to prevent varmints of any sort. Silver, too. Silver has shortened my down times, including from bad food.
 
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I recommend you to take 500mg of vitamin C twice a day to prevent cold as it is championed as a cold cure decades ago. There’s some evidence that it may help with certain symptoms that develop in critically ill patients with COVID-19. But, I can't say that vitamin C will completely cure viral infections.

Covid-19 cannot be cured without proper treatment. If anyone had been affected by this virus. You should consult the doctor near by and get treated.
 
Vitamin C was "championed" decades ago, but not as a cure for the common cold. As a preventive. The former is easy to test and the results have not been positive. The latter very difficult because you can't prove a negative.
 
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Vitamin C was "championed" decades ago, but not as a cure for the common cold. As a preventive. The former is easy to test and the results have not been positive. The latter very difficult because you can't prove a negative.

Totally - I mean just to start: What is the common cold?

See this blog post I wrote on the topic 5 years ago. Needs updating, for sure.
 
People forget ingested materials must metablize for the body to use. That means vitamins classify as food. And each of us must pay attention to the effects on our body. Vitamin C in fairly small amounts makes me onery. (Spices affect me the same.)
 
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A couple quick comments:
There are NO published clinical trials on IV vitamin C and coronavirus(es). The trials in China are ongoing, so it's hard to say things are working until you apply a proper scientific analysis (again, press releases are not scientific evidence)

Do I want the studies on IV vitamin C to work? Absolutely. Let's give them a chance - heck, let's do them here in the US!

Oranges have about 50-60mg of vitamin C each, depending on the variety. Tangerines have much less. Bell peppers have much more.

Vitamin C is destroyed by heat, light, and oxygen. Don't expect to get much from cooked vegetables or meat.

Check these links for IVC

View: https://youtu.be/pHhLYqF85EA


Since you are from USA



Eating Raw would be Better

Hervé Vaucheret and Yves Chupeau

A recent study demonstrated that
𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗥𝗡𝗔𝘀 acquired orally
through food intake
𝗱𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 in animals after migration through the plasma and delivery to specific organs.

𝗦𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗥𝗡𝗔𝘀 can also be 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗲𝗱 in 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝘆
exogenous nucleic acids
𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘃𝗶𝗿𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘀, 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗮, 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀, 𝗲𝘁𝗰 4. Under these circumstances,
𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗥𝗡𝗔𝘀 𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗺𝘀 by directing the 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿.

𝗪𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗲 𝗘𝗮𝘁
The micro RNAs bind to Chromosomes and
𝗔𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀.
The micro RNAs molecules ( miRNA ) which are in the Food We Eat
are Picked up by our Digestive System
( miRNAs Are Not broken down but Remain intact )
are Transferred to our Own Cells and Regulate our Own Genetics.
We 𝗔𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝘁
𝗯𝘆 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝘄𝗲 𝗘𝗮𝘁.
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝗘𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲.
The miRNA does not Break down even if you heat it or Freeze it.
The Food We Eat has a Profound
INFLUENCE on our Biology , Health and Genetics.