>You've not well comprehended Pauling's position.
Careful there reverend. I comprehended it just fine as a youth. As I stated in my post, vitamin C *can be* therapeutic. I have no issue with that. What I have an issue with is the convoluted logic that was used to arrive at Pauling's "recommended dosage".
>Pauling's recommended doses arose from clinical trials aimed at therapeutic
>solutions. As such, he doesn't commit the error of assuming early man
>required such large doses....
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From http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/pauling-and-vitamin-c.html
"One of the great misfortunes of human evolution, Pauling explained, was when our human ancestors lost their ability to manufacture vitamin C. Pauling thinks the trait was probably discarded at a time when our ancestors had a diet of vitamin-rich plants and didn't need to produce the vitamin themselves. This left today's primates (including humans) as one of the few groups of animals that must get the vitamin through the diet.
Ever since proto-humans moved out of fruit-and-vegetable-rich habitats, Pauling said, they have suffered great deficiencies of vitamin C. Pauling has forthrightly recommended that people make up for this deficiency with daily doses of vitamin C much greater than the 60 mg generally recommended.
He said our vitamin C consumption should be on par with what other animals produce by themselves, typically 10-12 grams a day. Pauling practices what he preaches, having gradually upped his daily doses of vitamin C from 3 grams in the 1960s to a hefty 18 grams today. "
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Isn't that assuming primitive man required large doses? Seems like it to me. And, the assumption is based, as many vegetarians and natural hygienists have claimed, on a diet that would have to be primarily plant-based to reach that level.
Pauling kept writing books about Vitamin C (and colds, and flus, and cancer, and longer life, etc.) in which he kept upping the recommended dose. As noted is the article, he started with what could be considered a reasonable amount (if you really, really like to eat oranges. Or liver.), but in the end it just got plain silly.
>After all, arterial plaque is a degenerative
>condition arising from decades of nutrient deficiency reflective of modern
>diets. A number of mid 20th century researchers successfully accessed
>prevalence of new diseases resulting from food processing and feed lot
>practices producing denatured food.
Or, the paleo diet contention that we strayed from the meat-leaves-berries approach :)
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Chuck wrote:
>Well, at least Bull Shit is paleo...isn't it?
Wouldn't bullshit be mostly leftover grass? :)
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About McDougall... seems like he was a author who wrote a few "food and activity as medicine" books. Lifestyle Medicine I think is what he calls it.
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