Must see video

Just come across this video regarding a New Zealand guy who the doctors had given up on and advised the family the man should be unhooked from the life machine and allowed to die. The family insisted that he be given one last chance by giving him high dose Vitamin C and the results can only be discribed as miraculous. The x-rays taken before and after taking Vit C are unbelievable, just two day apart. I would advise to watch the video all the way thru as there also is a very important statement about Leukemia at the end.

I know this could be regarded as off topic but if Vit C does what I believe it does then the general benifits it gives must lighten the burden on the body as afibbers fight the never ending battle with AF.

What amazes me is that I read the BBC news online every day and never saw anything about this. The New Zealnd Health authorities have also 'pulled' info from the internet claiming some copywrite rule or similar. I have done a quick check back on the posts to September and have seen no reference here on the BB hence my posting.

Whatever the case, to us users of suppliments it appears a major battle win against the entrenched mental atitude of the medical proffesion and BIG PHARM of today.

Copy, paste and google.....

Videos for 60 minutes nz vitamin C

Barry G. No AF since ablation No 4 done in Bordeux July 2009

Barry – thanks for the reminder. Last year, I listened to an impressive and enlightening teleconference with Dr. Thomas Levy on his approach to using Liposomal Vitamin C…especially useful when one doesn’t have access to IV vitamin C or as a daily preventive measure. The liposomal form allows for large doses and does not have the same problem that typical oral vitamin C does… ie, the bowel flush and inability to achieve the high therapeutic doses needed. Not everyone will have access to IV vitamin C or be able to argue a case for its use should a dire situation arise, so knowing about this liposomal form is important.

The literature on Lypo-Spheric Vitamin C is very interesting. I haven’t tried it yet, but plan to do so soon, not only as a remedy but more of a preventive measure and to see what other overall benefits or improvements show up - like improved energy and vision.

Here’s the source for Liposomal C… and a video clip with Dr. Levy presenting.
[www.livonlabs.com]

[www.tomlevymd.com] (at this website, there is the same NZ H1N1 video clip.

[www.doctoryourself.com]
His book: Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins by Thomas E. Levy, M.D., J.D.

From the literature:
Traditional forms of vitamin C have restricted access to the blood stream. (as opposed to IV vitamin C or the liposomal). All water-soluble forms of ingested vitamin C require an active transport to move the nutrients from the small intestines into the blood. New research now shows that at least two different transport molecules are needed to ‘unlock’ the intestinal receptor sites that permit vitamin C’s passage into the blood stream. That means the actual amount of vitamin C that gets into the blood is limited by the number of receptor sites and the number of transport molecules present.

Published studies show that less than 2000mg of a 12,000mg oral dose of vitamin C will actually get into the blood. Because of the precipitous drop in bioavailability as dose size increases, it is doubtful whether much more than 2000 mg of water-soluble forms of vitamin C regardless of dose size – can pass into the blood stream at any given time.

The Lipo-Spheric Vitamin C – Lyposomal Nano-Spheres provide 100% bioavailability and can slip through the intestinal barrier without restriction. So… there is nearly 100% intact delivery to liver and blood stream. No digestive irritation.


Jackie

Thank you for posting this interesting information.

Do you know if there is any research that shows the Lipo-Spheric Vit. C can get rid of tumors and cleanse the lymph nodes? I ask because I had my yearly breast cancer check up Wed. and my Oncologist found a small nodule on the outside of my remaining breast, near my lymph nodes. I am anxiously awaiting the results of the mammorgram and trying to find any information I can on treating this naturally instead of the possiblity if another mastectomy or chemotherapy.

Also, what is the product GSH they recommend using with the Vit. C? I read their product information but I still don't understand what it is. Is it possible that using this form of Vit. C could prevent afib by lowering inflammation?

Just wondering if anyone has any answers to these questions! Thanks, I am not in a real good place right now and am looking for anything that will help with the possibility of treating cancer and afib together. Also, if I had to have surgery and treatment, it will increase my risk of having afib and I need to do whatever I can to prevent that.

Thank you

christy

Apparently the position of the farmer was changed at the same time as the Vit C injections. He was moved into a prone position which helped clear his lungs, and it believed that this may have caused his improvement.

In the event it is impossible to know what might have caused the improvement, it could have been the Vit C, it could have been the change of position, it could have been something else.

However don't let this get in the way of a good story....the TV reporter obviously didn't!

Mark

Mark , I am biting my lip till it bleeds as I write.

Do you really believe that changing this guys position from on his back to the prone position created the dramatic change in the guys situation. If so the answer is very clear ie. if nothing else works turn the guy on his tummy, works every time - get real.

Barry Gordon AF veteran and winner, 5 ablations under the belt, religeous taker of high level Vit C to ensure I was in good nick when I beat this curse, which I have to date. Can now outwalk/jog out gym any normal guy of 30 with no questiuon and I'm 61 next week.

Try looking out side to box.

PS Do you work for Glaxso Cline?????

Christy,

I could go on for hours about Vit C which surprisingly I dont sell or have any shares in its manufacture.

Simply google Vitamin C Foundation and read what you will following the links. I do accept without reservation that as far as I know Vit C made no change to my AF burden, as such, I never expected it to after my research.

I did hope that Vit C, Magnesium, potassium, Lysine, and just lately Q10 in the form of Ubiquinol from Hans iHerb store would aid my recovery from 5 ablations.

All seems to have worked out such that tomorrow I am on a four hour walk around these hills in Hong Kong and I fully expect to bring back one of the 30 years old on my shoulder, fireman stye and Im 61 next week.

It is not just a battle with AF, you must be ready to move forward when you beat this hideaous affliction by keeping everything else in tip top condition - which I did.

Barry

Barry G.

Hi Jackie, please don't take this as critisism,

as always you come up with the facts and figures and I would never dare to dispute your posts which can get very technical and are well respected.

I as a layman take a different approach ie. what I see I believe.

On giving my Vit C story to a guy from South Carolina the guy told me after taking the Vit C at around 6000mg per day for three weeks his hard skin on his elbows and forearms had disappeared to be as smooth as a babies bottom, I have seen the results and the guys wife wanted me to buy some more, for her, Vit C fromn Hans's store which I did and must be on record with Hans. This tale is in the achives.

This to me is real in your face reality and it confuses me why there is so much doubt on this subject.

If the Major Vit C pushers are con merchants it would appear to me that BIG PHARM could crush them with facts if indeed there were any facts. Why not the showdown????????

Barry

Barry,

For more on the many benefits of vitamin C click here:

[www.yourhealthbase.com]

Hans

Christy - if you can listen to some of the Levy presentations, it may become clear to you how the liposomal delivery differs for just oral vitamin C. When I first heard him, it was during the first wave of the flu season with all the hype about mass vaccines for flu. He and the other physicians supporting his findings (in his book)... were saying that if you came down with the flu, then it would be smart to have the Liposomal C on hand or better yet to start taking it as a preventive measure.

Jackie

Barry - there is nothing to say that what you do for yourself with your preferred source of vitamin C is not good for you or that it doesn't work well.

I was offering the liposomal version information because it's known that the body can't absorb large doses and much of what's taken in is wasted. The special delivery system offers another path (and more convenient than IV delivery) and more success for those who can't tolerate high dose C... I'm one of them. I can't do more than 2,000 daily...never could; still can't.

Based on the research and science behind the liposomal delivery, I think it makes sense to consider it as an option. Additionally, Dr. Levy is focusing on liposomal glutathione which is proving to be extremely beneficial.

The presentation I referenced was by a Board Certified Cardiologist... Thomas Levy, MD JD. Here's his CV
[www.tomlevymd.com]

Jackie

Barry,

If you are so gullible to take everything at face value, then go right ahead. I'm not sure why you needed 5 ablations if you think Vit C is such a miracle cure.

I prefer to look at the evidence. And there is just not the evidence in this case. Just a very biased news report where the objective is to get publicity not be objective.

There is no good scientific evidence from double blind trials that high levels of Vit C work.

Why has this case not been written up in the medical literature? Could it be that there is a huge conspiracy by doctors or could it just be that this case was not actually that remarkable, and some people just recover from the situation he was in. He had pneumonia, people do get over it.

And no I'm not connected to GSK or any other drug manufacturer. I'm just sceptical of all claims for wonder cures from whichever side they come from.

Mark

Cristy I don't have the answers to your questions but was viewing this article from life extension and thought perhaps you could get some benefit from it. [www.lef.org]

Good health

Adrian

Hi Barry,

You know, nothing surprises or shocks me anymore, but there's entertainment - as Mark in the role of testy devil's advocate. Otherwise this could be a good opportunity for a look at the science of Vitamin C: Linus Pauling would not be at all surprised that this man was brought back to health. The cultural deficiency of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is so profound that most are in a state of 'sub-clinical scurvy'! Look it up.

It's interesting (neutral word) to reflect on an individual's, and a culture's, mindset while reflecting on Kuhn’s 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'. Takes a lot for minds to open.

How come we need to supplement this molecule so essential to life? How did we humans lose the ability to synthesize ascorbic acid, or did we ever have it? For almost all other animals ascorbate is a hormone: “Ascorbate (an ion of ascorbic acid) is required for a range of essential metabolic reactions in all animals and plants. It is made internally by almost all organisms; notable mammalian group exceptions are most, or all, of the order chiroptera (bats), and one of the two major primate suborders, the Anthropoidea (Haplorrhini) (tarsiers, monkeys and apes, including human beings).” [en.wikipedia.org]

So our kin, the great apes, also do not synthesize ascorbic acid; apparently a plant diet provides for their needs. There was a mind-bending, life-changing, humanity-shrinking ‘event’ 73,000 years ago: [www.andaman.org] Could that be the reason we meet our daily C requirement at the vitamin store?

“It has been estimated that only 40 to 600 females (which translates into a total population of less than 3,000 persons) came through the bottleneck. Another estimate arrived at 500 to 3,000 females. The highest estimate so far has 10,000 females of reproductive age as the minimum. Even if the highest estimate is accepted, we are talking about the entire human race numbering no more than the population of one small country town today.”

Out of Africa we all came, unable to synthesize vitamin C. The apes stayed home, and to this day do not supplement.

Erling

Barry, many thanks for this video, and its important lessons. Lots to think about - like the oftentimes unbelievable nature of medical practice: I'm so pleased his wife fought and prevailed. Vitamin C is absolutely essential for health, indeed for life -- learning the optimal amount is an awakening. Just one example, a brief excerpt from:

Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, 7:4;197-200, 1993.

"A clinical experience prescribing doses of ascorbic acid up to 200 or more grams per 24 hours to over 20,000 patients during the past 23 year period has revealed its clinical usefulness in all diseases involving free radicals. The controversy continues over the value of vitamin C mainly because inadequate doses are used for most free radical scavenging purposes. Paradoxically, the non controversial use of minute doses of vitamin C in the prevention and treatment of scurvy has set the minds of many against more creative uses."

Erling

From [www.internetwks.com]

"The additional amount of vitamin C in the diet that leads to the best of health in humans is controversial. �The amount of ascorbic acid that other species synthesize can be used as a model.� When adjusted for body weight,� it has been determined that the amount of ascorbate produced by mammals ranges� from an estimated 3,000 mg to more than 13,000 mg daily (Pauling, 1986).� Nearly all species manufacture these copious amounts 24/7 out of the sugar glucose, and they make more vitamin C under stress.� Glucose is present in the blood as carbohydrates are broken down during digestion into sugars.

"Gorillas, like man, must obtain their vitamin C from the foods they eat.� In 1970, the world-renowned scientist Linus Pauling argued that the vitamin C requirement of primates is an indicator of the level of vitamin C required for optimal health in humans.� Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Pauling cited studies which determined that the gorillas would obtain 4.5 grams (4,500 mg) of vitamin C in the 40 to 50 pounds of food that they eat daily in their natural habitat (Pauling, 1970)."

It is too bad that Erling has to resort to name-calling when someone has a different outlook than he has, "a testy devil's advocate", they say when someone resorts to that level they have lost their credibility.

George H.J. Weber is a swiss businessman and an independent scholar, I don't think he is the last word.

As Jackie has said we cannot use a large amount of Vit. C, we will only excrete it. Large amounts of Vit. C gave me problems, Dr. Andrew Weil also says not to take large amounts of Vit. C.

L

Thanks for the post, Barry. The more people who see this message and follow it up, the more people will be encouraged to try Vit C (and maybe other vitamins).
Nothing speaks louder than experience - not all the scientific papers in the world will convince someone who's life has been saved or improved by vitamin therapy that it doesn't work!
I challenge the sceptics to approach vitamin therapy with the same 'openmindedness' they display for orthodox medicine and medical procedures which can (and do!) kill thousands of people a year.
Mark, you said "There is no good scientific evidence from double blind trials that high levels of Vit C work." I don't know where you are looking or what you class as 'good scientific evidence' but if you google 'pioneers of vit c research' you will get a lot of highly respected names you can attempt to discredit. Good luck. You sound just like the majority of doctors who have such a blind spot about complementary or alternative medicine that they have not availed themselves of knowlege that could have saved a patient or two.
I don't know anything about Liposomal Vit C and my cynical instinct is to check whether this is a patented (money making) delivery system, because Vit C itself can't be patented. HOWEVER, I would most certainly check it out for myself before dismissing it. Thanks for the information and links, Jackie.
BTW, great to read that you are feeling so well, Barry - that's excellent news
Emmie

Hi Christy, hope this information about a book and its authors might be of some value to you. It was important information for me when first published.

Linus Pauling, a brilliant chemist, was awarded Nobel prizes in Chemistry and Peace, researched and wrote extensively on Vitamin C, and ‘molecular medicine’ in general. He founded (with colleagues) the Linus Pauling Institute. With physician Ewan Cameron he researched and published the important book ‘Cancer and Vitamin C’. About Dr. Cameron:

“In 1971, Cameron began corresponding with Dr. Linus Pauling. He completed many scientific studies in conjunction with the institute, and published Cancer and Vitamin C with Pauling in 1979. After retirement from Vale of Leven Hospital in 1982, Cameron was invited to become Medical Director and Senior Research Professor at the Linus Pauling Institute, where he worked closely with Pauling on many research topics.” [en.wikipedia.org]

The book: 'Cancer and Vitamin C: A Discussion of the Nature, Causes, Prevention, and Treatment of Cancer With Special Reference to the Value of Vitamin C'

[www.amazon.com]

A reader’s review:

“As a medical professional I have used this book to perform vitamin C therapy on cancer patients. A friend of mine was diagnosed with brain tumor and experienced a complete remission after following the guidelines in this book. Funny how the doctor who saved his life was severely reprimanded for performing vitamin C infusions! I still don't believe it and neither did the neuro surgeons.

This book explains why the A.M.A., and how the A.M.A. discredits vitamin C trials and their results by pointing out the discrepancies in testing, misleading language, and a total lack of objectivity, which should always be prevalent in any scientific discussion. Really, if a therapy is safe, cheap, and provides hope, what's the big objection? A real eye opener! Extremely informative! A must for all cancer patients!”

Christy, about GSH – glutathione – it is an extremely important substance to know about. I will write a separate post a bit later.

Wishing you the best!

Erling

Emmie - when you get into reading about the liposomal delivery form, the whole concept will make sense to you ..... much more vitamin C can be delivered... just like IV delivery only convenient and highly beneficial.

Jackie

Hi to all.

just a few comments on the above posts.

Mark, I am not so gullible to take anything at face value, I have spent the last 4+ years trying to beat this curse and went down every blind alley out there to cross reference everything I read. I would suggest however that you appear to take things at face value by possibly buying in on the fact that these docs cured the bloke by turning him onto his tummy. Either what I believe happened or what you are implying happened is right, one or the other.
If the tummy turning is a well observed trick to cure people then why were the docs wanting to turn the machine off in the first place when he was on his back.

If you read my post at face value you may reason that I found out about Vit C AFTER I started my AF career.

Is there a conspiracy here by all the doctors etc??????
I would just mention the name Barry Marshall of Western Australia the guy who struggled against the Medical Establishment and BIG PHARM to prove the existance of a bug living in the hostile enviroment of the human stomache which he claimed created stomache ulcers. He won the Noble Prize for his findings - 20 years later if I remember correctly. The Helibactor Pylori scandal is worth checking out if only as a matter of interest. In his frustration Dr Marshall took a concoction to give him peptic ulcers and then cured himself in two weeks and still they wouldn't listen to him - conspiracy???

Apologies Jackie, my post must have come across a bit skewed. My aim was to highlight that basic Vit C from Hans store has provided the results I have seen, not just the guy from S. Carolina. The main point being we can all afford the basic Vit C.
I hear what you are saying about Vit C tolerance but for any Newbies I must state that Vit C must be taken throughout the day to get the benifits ie. one dose in the morning of 10 grammes will mostly be wasted and pass thru the body unused. I used to take one gramme every two hours on the dot 8.00am to 8.00pm at the height of my Vit C frenzy.

Hans I will check your links along with Erlings and Jackies this week as I have plenty of time on my hands at the moment.

Many thanks for your posts Erling we can only spread the message.

Hi Emmie lovely to hear from you, hope all is well.
Yes to date I am feeling in tip top shape and have had not one blip of AF since ablation number 4 in July 2009. I may have sounded unduly boostful about 'winning' this AF battle but that is only to give hope and inspiration to any newbies reading in ( I know to my cost how stating one has beaten this curse can backfire dramatically so really I am taking a big risk in doing so). I believe from the many emails I have recieved over these last four+ years that my outlook and extensive writings regarding my AF story has lifted certain readers a little when they were getting a bit battle weary. Most of my posts are written a little tongue in cheek as most regulars will know.

Regards to all.
Barry
PS I didn't actually finish up carrying one of the 30 year olds yesterday but one had to tail off the hills and catch a taxi at the three hour mark;-)

Barry, Erling, Emmie, Jackie and co,

I always knew I would be walking into the dragon's den by daring to criticise supplements on this forum!

Actually I don't mind being called a "testy devil's advocate", as that's one description of what I prefer to call taking a sceptical view of any medical claim, which is what science is about.

What I object to is the automatic assumption that supplements must be good, traditional medicine and big pharma bad that appears in too many posts on this board.

Concerning the "miracle recovery", maybe Vit C does have something to do with it, but I suspect it doesn't on the basis of a single media report whose whole raison d'etre is to take an unbalanced view of story and report only one side.

I think the Wiki entry on Vit C megadosage gives a balanced review:
[en.wikipedia.org]
which includes the sentence "There is a strong advocacy movement for such doses of vitamin C, despite a prolonged lack of conclusive medical evidence or large scale, formal trials in the 10 to 200+ grams per day range."

It also mentions Pauling and Cameron's trial of 100 patients in 1976 which appreared to show an increase in lifespan due to Vit C. However 3 large placebo trials that followed did not find a positive effect from Vit C. Pauling and Cameron's trial was then reanalysed and it was found that the control groups were not adequately randomised with the Vit C group starting off less sick.

Does this mean that I reject all supplements? No, I think there are benefits to Vit D3 and K2, particularly as I take warfarin. Otherwise I think we can get all the nutrients we need through a balanced diet.

Do I accept all the big pharma research at face value? No way. For instance the recent research on dabigatran which was based on a single large trial. There has been a dearth of critical reviews of the trials. I don't think dabigatran is either cost effective or more effective in patients who have well controlled INR (and not the 50% average time in range which is usually achieved).

Can the medical establishment be too wedded to their old ways? Yes. Barry mentions a classic case. I would also mention from personal experience the view of anti-coagulant teams to my taking Vit K.

Mark

Barry,

You may be interested in my report on the Helicobacter pylori story:

[www.yourhealthbase.com]

It begins thus:

"Perhaps the greatest scam ever perpetrated by the pharmaceutical industry upon an unsuspecting and uninformed public involves a small, spiral-shaped bacterium named Helicobacter pylori. "

Hans

Mark, I don't wish to drag this tread out so I will make this my last to you on the subject but I would say I am no tree hugging, raving suppliment dragon and the others you mention do not appear to be also.
I am possibly a sceptic overall but I do believe what I see especially when the result goes as planned as was clearly indicated in the video.

In my post above I clearly state that after my research I expected no decrease in AF because I was taking Vitamin C. By all accounts AF is a nervous dispostion whereas Vit C is a body tissue repair kit amongst a host of other things.

You mention a bias one sided report but I strongly suspect that the hospital in its embarrassment declined to comment and as I stated in my original post the hospital has pulled info off the internet claiming some copyright or other, hardly the actions of a team wanting to put over their point of view, this can be checked by following up on relevant links.

If you chose to follow the links you will find that the Kiwi's are now clammering for Vit C supplimentation yet the British media I see and hear make no mention of this 'miracle' in one of our former colonies and packed with POMs.

Without trying to be cynical this 'miraculous recovery' would have been front page world news if the family had simply placed a religeous book on the mans chest and left the man to die/recover in peace and the doctors would have been paraded in front of the worlds cameras by the hospitals PR team in a blaze of glory.

As stated above I do not wish this to be dragged out further from my side, my mind is made up. I will finish with this quote from an American guy- I presume.

There are 200 horses and one Zebra in Central? Park at any one time. If you hear galloping hoofs coming up rapidly behind you in the park expect to see an horse pass.

Barry

"By all accounts afib is a nervous disposition"

If that is so, then why is surgery performed to burn out errant cells in the heart, we should instead seek out a shrink?

L

Hans,

thanks for that link it saves me a lot of explaining should anyone question my statement about Helicobactor Pylori. I read the report a few years ago and it confirmed what I aready knew from one of my own experiences which goes like this....

In 1991 I was working in Oman and one night I was watching the local TV which thankfully for once was not about the Sultan. It was about a guy called Barry Marshall a doctor from Western Australia and his fight with the Medical Establishment and BIG PHARM. This was 1991 and if I remember correctly Barry Marshall and his co-doctor came up with their argument that a living organisim could live in the human stomache and that it was causing ulcers.This bug could simply be killed off using a standard easily available concoction of antibiotics NOTE: I am watching this in 1991 possibly 10 years after Barry Marshalls et al. discovery.

As it happened I had a mate back in England who had been taking Tagamets tablets since the early 1970s, around 20 years, for stomache ulcers so when I got back home a few months later I told my mate what I had seen on the Omani TV and he should go to see his doc about the antibiotic treatment that would most likely cure him.

Off my mate goes to the doc and retells my story with the doc rolling his eyes but at least he lets him finish. At the end of my mates story the doc asked what I did for a living so my mate says "he's in construction over in Oman". The doc then says well tell your mate to get back to the Middle East and build something, oh and by the way here's another sackfull of Tagamets. My mate decides to stick with the doc and carried on taking his pills, by the handful, each day as he was a severe case.

Moved forward approx 15 years to 2005ish and my Tagamet eating friend is in Portugal on holiday when the hotel is quarantined for a few days, maybe a week, due to some major stomache bug outbreak. The medics desended on the hotel and everybody had to have many antibiotic injections/pills.

That guy has never taken a Tagamet since. So my mate, almost 25 years after the the Barry Marshall discovery, finally got the drugs I had told him about in 1991.

So much for the Medical Establishment/ BIG PHARMs concerns for peoples health and the sharing of critical 'new' information. On the other hand maybe I'm being a bit harsh on them as they are probably still waiting for the 'facts'

Barry
PS If I remember correctly I believe there does seem to be some connection between HP and AF hence the many posters linking stomache issues with the start-up of an AF episode.

L,

maybe I should have written 'nervous system' due to the most common trigger for AF being anxiety.

Some people will need to see a shrink though.

Barry

Anxiety is NOT my trigger---I have gone through deaths of my son and husband, through a murder of my stepson (who I raised from a small child) and stepgrandson, lost a lot of money during the stock market plunge a few years ago and during those times I never got afib not even weeks later.

When I get afib, it is in the evening, generally after eating, sitting on the couch and leaning forward toward my feet, bending to get something etc. I have done this manuever and not gotten afib, but almost always when afib has occurred it was after doing the bending (if you understand me), so that is my trigger, nothing to do with anxiety.

Seems like stress/anxiety is blamed for just about everything---do you think that affibers have more stress/anxiety than the rest of the population, I don't think so. Everythime I see it posted that stress/anxiety is to blame for so many things, it really irratates me, our country was founded by strong people that must have endured tremendous stress. Stress is a poster boy for everything wrong with us, ok, I am finished.

L

"A Day Without Orange Juice is Like an Invitation to Atrial Fibrillation"

[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

Rahmulus,

Thanks for the article. It was interesting.

Debbie

The vitamin C issue is important...but for afibbers, suggesting to drink orange juice in the quantity that would provide therapeutic amounts would be ill-advised because of the high sugar content and then the need to metabolize it... ie, it utilizes magnesium and potassium ... so in a person already low in these electrolytes such as the typical afibber, then adding a regimen of orange juice daily is asking for trouble. At the very least... a whole orange is better than juice, but still not that great because of the insulin requirements for metabolizing.

Better to supplement with C and not use much, if any, juice of any kind other than Low Sodium V8 which contains potassium chloride and is low sodium.

Jackie

Liz - I can't even begin to imagine what that must have been like for you... how terrible. I am truly sorry for your sorrow.

I'm out of town and don't have much time to devote to this but I did want to address your stress statement.

Remember that the stress system involves many things and primary is the ability to cope with stress. Many people can cope with horrendous stress and seemingly not have any ill effects. Others, will experience adrenal burnout because of the demands to cope and the system just wears out. Very often when the adrenals go, then thyroid issues crop up along with many other systemic ailments that can be traced to the stress-induced malfunction of the HPA Axis... Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal Axis which can include the Thyroid Axis along with that.

Identifying common stressors other than the obvious physical threats becomes something everyone these days should be aware of.... environmental stressors including neurotoxic chemicals from food along with just the demands of everyday living... economics, time constraints, traffic and the commute to and from work, and these are unremitting stressors and are key in the adrenal burnout issue.

This is a complicated topic but an essential one for afibbers to understand and manage. It isn't a cop-out... these conditions are very real.

I know from first-hand experience because of my stress-filled life since a very young person.... eventually, my adrenals burned out. It's been a long recovery and I teter on the edge of relapse continually and requires constant vigilance.

Jackie

Rahmulus,

Thank you for this important article. Here are excerpts relevant to this discussion on vitamin C, specific to atrial fibrillation:

“In a relatively small study, 100 patients who had received preoperative β-blocker therapy were randomized to receive vitamin C or placebo. Vitamin C was given in a dose of 2,000 mg the night before the procedure and 1,000 mg twice daily for 5 more days. Patients were monitored continuously for 4 days after surgery. During that period of observation, the authors report an amazing 85% reduction in postoperative atrial fibrillation. This claim is nothing less than dramatic. The most safe and effective atrial fibrillation prophylaxis to date, β-blockers, reduce the incidence of atrial fibrillation [only] from about 40% to 30%..

“Unfortunately, vitamin C evokes the image of Linus Pauling -- Nobel laureate, chemist, genius, and, to many, purveyor of preposterous claims and initiator of the ongoing, somewhat insane mega-vitamin craze. With this pedigree, why would any new claim for the ascendancy of vitamin C provoke anything but doubt? Yet, there are sufficient physiologic data to support the concept and additional data in human beings…

“Although debate is ongoing about the genesis of atrial fibrillation, reasonable people, I think, can agree that the cause is not uniform. Whatever the initiation, all roads lead to Rome, and continuation has a consistent physiology. Atrial fibrillation requires some combination of the triumvirate: conduction delay, increased circuit length, and a short atrial refractory period to sustain multiple foci of dynamic reentry.

[Humans] lost the capacity to make vitamin C thousands of years ago. An animal that makes its own vitamin C makes 8 to 12 grams every day, but how much we need to have on hand isn't really clear. Vitamin C is a cofactor for enzymes involved in the synthesis of collagen, carnitine, and norepinephrine, in the metabolism of tyrosine, and in the post-translational modification of peptide hormones. It is also a powerful, water-soluble antioxidant that may protect low-density lipoproteins, and perhaps cellular constituents, from oxidation. If so, vitamin C might blunt the impact of oxidant signaling, thus affecting the likelihood of atrial fibrillation.

“Vitamin C intake is less than adequate in 20% to 30% of U.S. adults…

“…. within the myocyte, sufficient ascorbate concentration may buffer the influence of “inflammatory” second messengers and the predilection toward oxidant stress. If so, preserved sodium channel activity (and thereby conduction velocity), in combination with a normal or near-normal refractory period, may reduce the frequency of dynamic reentry and atrial fibrillation.

“The left atria of patients with atrial fibrillation are characterized by up-regulation of NAD(P)H oxidase, the enzyme responsible for generating oxygen radicals within the cell. Associated abnormalities in sodium, calcium, and potassium channel function produced by oxidant stress may underlie the promotion of atrial fibrillation.

“Although treatment with ascorbate does not directly modify the ERP, it attenuates pacing-induced atrial ERP shortening... ascorbate was given to 43 patients before cardiac bypass graft surgery, and for 5 days thereafter. Those receiving ascorbate had a 16.3% incidence of postoperative atrial fibrillation, compared with 34.9% in control subjects.

“In another clinical trial, patients who underwent successful electrical cardioversion of persistent atrial fibrillation were randomized to either oral vitamin C administration or no additional therapy. After one week, atrial fibrillation recurred in 4.5% of patients in the vi-tamin C group and in 36.3% of patients in the control group (P = 0.024). Inflammatory markers decreased after cardioversion in patients who received vitamin C but did not change significantly in the control group. Therefore, vitamin C is associated both with a reduction in the early recurrence of atrial fibrillation after cardioversion and with attenuation in markers of the associated inflammatory response.

Great article Rahmulus. The amount of Vitamin C they were using wasn't large. From the article

"In a relatively small study, 100 patients who had received preoperative β-blocker therapy were randomized to receive vitamin C or placebo. Vitamin C was given in a dose of 2,000 mg the night before the procedure and 1,000 mg twice daily for 5 more days. Patients were monitored continuously for 4 days after surgery. During that period of observation, the authors report an amazing 85% reduction in postoperative atrial fibrillation."

I agree with Jackie OJ has too much sugar. Now EmergenC from alacer has 1000mg per packet so thats what I'll be taking.

Adrian

Barry,

I will make this my last post on this topic as well. This particular case does not prove the mega dose Vit C proposal either way. Taking your corollary of the 200 horses and 1 zebra, if there were 200 cases of people recovering from near death after taking Vit C, then I would see your point. In fact this case is equivalent to one horse and one zebra. If you hear a galloping sound then the sensible person will look up and check rather than assuming it is a horse!

People make remarkable recoveries from intensive care. Indeed I was reading an article in New Scientist yesterday that less intervantion in ICUs actually leads to increased survival.

The rate of survival after severe trauma has not changed as much as expected over the years. HMS Victory during the battle of Trafalgar suffered 51 killed and 102 wounded during the actual battle. The 102 were severely injured and 10 had to have amputations. Little water was available, hands and instruments went unwashed between procedures and yet only 6 of the 102 subsequently died (though including unfortunately Lord Nelson).

My conclusion is that people can survive from near death on their own with little medical intervention. This single case doesn't prove anything. Possibly Vit C had something to do with it but without a much wider trial, this just remains conjecture.

Mark

Hi to all,

further to my original post I, as always, cross reference as much as possible to see the other point of view i.e. trying to prove what I am believing to be wrong, I believe this is a form of good science.

I am struggling to come up with anything at the moment but is it very suspicious that BIG PHARM are not in the fray and debunking this 'miracle' in New Zealand. The ploy would appear be to let the issue disapear into obscurity as always.

What I did find is that a Dr Levy (cardioligist / lawyer /Vitamin C proponent) from America held audience to a large gathering in New Zealand a few months ago, which included the Smith family) His message was too long for this post but he did mention one point that I had read and forgot about. I can't remember his exact words so I will use this passge from yet another source - the source being......copy, paste, google the sentence below....


Why has this H1N1treatment collected dust?


I find this passage very interesting....
'Dr Klenner was an American researcher and family practitioner in North Carolina. In 1949 he reported this momentous news to the American medical Association. During the epidemic of poliomyelitis, he cured 60 OUT OF 60 patients (my emphysis) suffering from this disease by using massive doses of vitamin C, sometimes 300,000 milligrams daily. None were left with any paralysis. Yet no one appears to have listened to him. This was the same year I developed polio in my final year at Harvard Medical School. But none of its distinguished professors ever considered or even knew about the use of vitamin C in treating viral disease. And as far as I know, 60 years later, neither they nor the other doctors are aware of this fact'.

As we know very well the benifit of Vitamin C was 'proved' by James Lind of the British Royal Navy in 1747. Although it took a further 40 years for the Navies top brass to act on Linds findings you can be rest assured that the Royal Navy was soon chocker-block with 'Jolly Tars' pumped up to the eyeballs with natural occuring Vitamin C from their organic fruit and vedge rations. We ruled the waves from then on.

OK done, time to disappear for a while.

Barry

Hi Mark, Barry,

Thanks for a great discussion, and information! Here's a seemingly rational approach to vitamin C dosing by a practicing physician scientist.

Take good care and be well!
===========================
Full text: [www.orthomed.com]

Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, 7:4;197-200, 1993.

THE THIRD FACE of VITAMIN C
Robert F. Cathart, M.D.

ABSTRACT

Bowel tolerance to orally ingested ascorbic acid increases with the toxicity of diseases. Bowel tolerance with a disease such as mononucleosis may reach 200 or more grams per 24 hours without it producing diarrhea. A marked clinical amelioration or cure is achieved in many disease processes when threshold doses near bowel tolerance are given. In a sense, it is the reducing equivalents carried by free radical scavengers that quench free radicals, not the free radical scavengers themselves. Ascorbic acid can be dramatically useful in quenching free radicals because it is usually tolerated in amounts necessary to provide the reducing equivalents necessary to quench almost all the free radicals generated by severe disease processes. Vitamin C functions are incidental at these dose levels; the benefit is from the reducing equivalents carried. To the extent that free radicals are either essential to the perpetuation of a disease or just part of the cause of symptoms, the disease will be cured or just ameliorated. These effects are even more dramatic from intravenous sodium ascorbate.

Keywords: vitamin C, ascorbate, acute induced scurvy, bowel tolerance, titrating to bowel tolerance, the ascorbate effect, free radical scavengers, reducing equivalents.

INTRODUCTION

A clinical experience prescribing doses of ascorbic acid up to 200 or more grams per 24 hours to over 20,000 patients during the past 23 year period has revealed its clinical usefulness in all diseases involving free radicals. The controversy continues over the value of vitamin C mainly because inadequate doses are used for most free radical scavenging purposes. Paradoxically, the non controversial use of minute doses of vitamin C in the prevention and treatment of scurvy has set the minds of many against more creative uses.

I have found vitamin C exceptionally useful in a very high dose range. Its usefulness is in three such distinct realms that I will describe them as the three faces of vitamin C.

1. vitamin C to prevent scurvy
(up to 65 mg/day.)

2. vitamin C to prevent acute induced scurvy (1,2)
and to augment vitamin C functions
(1 to 20 grams/day.)

3. vitamin C to provide reducing equivalents
(30 to 200 or more grams/day.) (3)

Hi again, all:

The above article, ‘The Third Face of Vitamin C’, links to many more writings by Dr. Cathart, and by others. I’ve barely begun exploring them. This article by Linus Pauling is important for its relevance to this discussion: ‘Robert Fulton Cathart III, M.D. – An Orthomolecular Physician’. There is a nice photo of Dr. Cathart. [www.orthomed.com]

Erling

Hi all,

Barry, thanks for the focus on Dr. Levy and the timely flu-season articles at "Why has this H1N1 treatment collected dust?". This is really quite amazing. Dr Cathart's article above (http://www.orthomed.com/faces.htm) links to many writings, which together are pretty much the whole vitamin C story. Click on the colorful banner at the top and scroll down to 'The Origin of the 42-Year Stonewall of Vitamin C' by Robert Landwehr. Here are the outrageous facts of power prevailing over truth -- an account of why Dr. Klenner's brilliant findings were never accepted:

"In the late spring of 1949 the United States was in the grip of its worst poliomyelitis epidemic ever. On June 10 a paper on ways to save the lives of bulbar polio victims was read at the Annual Session of the American Medical Association (subsequently printed in its journal, JAMA, September 3, 1949, pages 1-8, volume 141, no. 1). Following the talk members of the audience were invited to comment. The first speaker, a leading authority from Pasadena, focused on details of tracheotomy techniques caused when paralyzed breathing, swallowing and coughing muscles of victims threatened their lives. Why the next person was recognized is puzzling. The only national recognition he had received — and it was obviously very limited — was that his picture appeared in Ebony in 1947 for having delivered of a deaf-mute black woman the first known surviving, identical quadruplets in the country. Here is the abstract of his remarks as recorded in JAMA:

“Dr. F. R. Klenner, Reidsville, N.C.: It might be interesting to learn how poliomyelitis was treated in Reidsville, N.C., during the 1948 epidemic. In the past seven years, virus infections have been treated and cured in a period of seventy-two hours by the employment of massive frequent injections of ascorbic acid, or vitamin C. I believe that if vitamin C in these massive doses — 6,000 to 20,000 mg in a twenty-four hour period — is given to these patients with poliomyelitis none will be paralyzed and there will be no further maiming or epidemics of poliomyelitis.”

Please read it all: [www.seanet.com]

Mark, thanks for being the devil's advocate in this, essential in such a discussion. It's good that you understood my meaning. It led to completion of my understanding of vitamin C, begun in 1951 with the beginning of my years in aero. engineering. Within that world of strictly applied sciences the basic facts of vitamin C as antibiotic were pretty much accepted, and generally applied for relief from "the common cold". Epidemic polio was still raging. Linus Pauling and vitamin C were in the news, but Dr. Albert Sabin's polio vaccine became the preventive, with cure considered impossible. Vitamin C became controversial, dismissed as pseudoscience, its application quackery. Now I have "the rest of the story".

Erling

Barry, Mark, Erling, et al.... now that I am home and have some time at the computer for reading, I'm truly enjoying this fascinating amount of information churned up in this thread .... thanks so much for the links and input. Just reinforces my high opinion of the benefits of vitamin C.

Thanks, also Mark for being the 'devil's advocate'.... that debate tactic typically serves a useful purpose.

Working in the dental field as a dental hygienist, I had many chances to experiement with the benefits of adding vitamin C when patients presented with bleeding gum tissue (capillary fragility) due to lack of collagen support and suboptimal vitamin C intake. My dentist-employer was not as familiar with the issue as I would have liked but he didn't interfere with my dietary analysis for the patient and the recommendations of supplementing with vitamin C. When patients came back in 2-3 months to check on improvements...and they always improved if there was compliance... he became a believer.

To tie this into benefits for afibbers, anything that helps improve endothelial function...or prevent endothelial dysfunction... merits strong consideration. There is a mountain of evidence for vitamin C benefits in this regard which helps prevent free-radical damage and cardiovascular problems including the tendency for stroke risk.

Great thread. Thanks!

Jackie