Acute Hepatitis
Treated with High Doses of Vitamin C:Calleja et al, Ohio State Medical Journal, June 1960
“We used 5 grams of vitamin C ... in 1000 cc. of 5 per cent glucose in water
given intravenously in four to five hours daily for 24 days.
“The salutary effects from this treatment were dramatic. The anemia was corrected;
the leukocyte count and differential returned to normal; the ascites disappeared; the
patient gained weight, and his appetite improved. A feeling of general well-being was
evident after the first few days of treatment.
“The liver function tests which were deranged prior to treatment returned to normal
except ... [an] abnormality ... consistent with his moderate
portal cirrhosis. The absence of neutrophilic infiltration in the last liver biopsy done
immediately after the termination of treatment with vitamin C was striking.”
[AscorbateWeb Editorial: As of February 2003 there is
no known effective vaccine or other treatment for hepatitis C. No published accounts
of ascorbate treatment of HepC have surfaced, although anecdotal communications have been
sent to AscorbateWeb.
At least one orthomolecular practitioner (on shaky ground with their local licensing
board) has been administering ascorbate-based HepC treatment; meanwhile the mainstream
profession continues its adherence to the latest glamorous, costly and profitable
patent antivirals — to no apparent long-term patient benefit.]
“...these long-stay psychiatric [patients’ diets] had been
unsatisfactorily low in vitamin C content. This had led to a deficiency
state—subscurvy—having quite definite psychiatric symptoms, the most important
of which are marked depression and irritability...
“...psychiatric patients have greater demands for ascorbic acid than normal
subjects...states of depression and anxiety associated with psychiatric disorders are
probably accentuated by an inadequate intake of ascorbic acid. The administration of
synthetic ascorbic acid to psychiatric patients would seem to be indicated.”
[AscorbateWeb Editorial: This study demonstrated the
proven utility of ascorbate in improving the state of psychiatric patients; the improving
but still atrocious and obviously unsuitable institutional diets of the era were also
criticized. It was also remarkable in that it employed a single-blind, placebo-controlled
protocol, the simpler predecessor of the double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that has
since become the Gold Standard (deservedly or not) for evaluating treatments. Oddly —
or maybe not — no mention is made of Abram Hoffer and his introduction of
such protocols in the 1950s, nor of his reporting of the benefits of niacin and other
orthomolecular nutrients in psychiatry.
Milner’s introduction of the concept of subscurvy and its clearly observable
effects was apparently ignored by all but the orthomolecular-minded community. Irwin Stone
and others have of course identified “subclinical scurvy” as a
widespread phenomenon in psychiatry and beyond.]
“The replacement of the present vitamin C theory regarding the etiology of scurvy ... provides new rationales for the use of high levels of ascorbic acid in normal physiology and in the therapy of clinical entities other than scurvy.”
[AscorbateWeb Editorial: The author clearly calls for the elimination of the long-standing but nevertheless mistaken notion that ascorbate is a vitamin, i.e. necessary only in minute quantities for the prevention of scurvy. Ætiology/Etiology: the study of causation or of causes of disease.]
“Man, some monkeys, guinea pigs and an Indian fruit eating bat... are the only mammals known to be unable to produce ascorbic acid in their livers. These few species are the only mammals that can contract and die of scurvy if deprived of exogenous ascorbic acid.”
[AscorbateWeb Editorial: In the early 1960s the theory of Mankind’s suffering from this genetic disease was developed. The author explores the implications of fully “correcting” this widespread chronic human deficiency of ascorbate.]
© August, 2005 AscorbateWeb