The Health Blog

Animals — other than man, monkeys and guinea pigs — meet the demands of stress, any kind of stress, by producing extra ascorbic acid in their livers. Man cannot do this. His adrenal glands work overtime, and so great a quantity of the ascorbic acid present in the body is used up that a deficiency is likely to occur.

Supplements of Vitamin C improve the person’s ability to withstand the effects of stress. This has been shown in hundreds of experiments with animals, especially guinea pigs — which suffer the same disability as humans.

Many experiments have shown that animals given doses of ascorbic acid survive the stress of cold, heat, im­mersion, poisons and injury far better than those receiving no or very little supplement — their ability to withstand the stress depending on the ascorbic acid levels in their body tissues.’

Those few tests carried out with humans have shown exactly the same principles.

High doses of Vitamin C have improved the ability of such groups as soldiers, industrial workers, students and patients to withstand such stresses as cold, burns, injuries, any kind of surgery, many poisons from minerals, pollu­tion, drugs and bites and stings of snakes and insects, and allergies.

Moreover, the exhaustion that follows a stressful situa­tion is far less when the blood levels of Vitamin C are normal or above normal.
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Although not high on the list of killing diseases, rheumatism of one kind or another causes more pain and disability, more loss of work and efficiency than any other complaint.

It is estimated that in U.S.A. 13 million people suffer from arthritis — while in Australia the N.S.W. Council for Rheumatism estimates that 33 in every 1000 of the popula­tion suffer some disability from arthritis, but 66 per 1000 from all rheumatic disorders. A survey made several years ago showed that half the invalid pensioners and about half those permanently unable to work had rheumatic com­plaints.

I believe ‘rheumatism’ is even more prevalent. Looking round among patients — myself included — I can find scarcely one adult who has not suffered from ‘rheumatic’ pains and twinges in the joints at some time in their lives.

Most of these are seasonal and transient. It is the chronic sufferer — the crippled elderly and those crippled even in youth with progressive rheumatic arthritis who need help.

Reading of all the many ‘cures’ claimed for arthritis and rheumatism would lead to utter confusion if one did not bear in mind certain definite principles that are essen­tial to success.

Whatever the immediate causes of arthritis and rheumatism, there is always a basis of stress, with the con­sequent depletion and exhaustion of the adrenal and pituitary glands which renders the tissues of the joints sus­ceptible to the destructive processes which take place in them. ^

Dr Hans Selye, the great Canadian expert on stress, has found that any strain on the body will use up its essential stores from its own tissues — especially proteins, minerals and vitamins far in excess of its normal needs. These must be replenished, if these glands are to continue their work of rebuilding, maintaining normal function and resisting in­fection.

This is why cortisone, a product of the cortex or outer layer of the adrenal gland and A.C.T.H. from the pituitary gland are so effective in temporarily combatting arthritis. But cortisone does not effect a cure. Rather it acts as such a crutch to the failing adrenals that they tend to give up the job of producing cortisone for themselves. Synthetic cor­tisone, however, produces its own side effects and although it must be continued in increasing doses to obtain relief, it should not be used indefinitely as the main treatment.

The first aim of treatment then should be to rebuild depleted tissues and the efficiency of these glands. This can only be done by replenishing the body’s fighting equipment in a completely adequate diet, plus supplements of minerals and vitamins to meet the demands of stress.

Many vitamin supplements are needed to reinforce a well balanced diet. Vitamin E, Vitamin A, the B Complex, especially pantothenic acid and Vitamin C all help to re­habilitate the adrenal and pituitary glands.

Adelle Davis and Irwin Stone who have thoroughly researched all the studies made on the effect of Vitamin C on the adrenal glands believe in its value.

Miss Davis writes in her book Lets Get Well — ‘Although adrenal hormones can be produced without Vitamin C, the need for this nutrient is tremendously increased by stress; and if under-supplied the glands quickly haemorrhage and the output of hormones is markedly decreased. This Vita­min accelerates the rate of cortisone production, appears to improve its utilization and delays it breakdown, and al­leviates many of the limitations resulting from a pantothenic-acid deficiency. Apparently because large amounts of Vitamin C are used to detoxify harmful sub­stances formed in the body during stress, greater than normal quantities are lost in the urine at this time.

‘Huge amounts of Vitamin C appear to protect animals from every form of stress — guinea pigs exposed to very low temperatures remained healthy when given 75 times their normal requirements of Vitamin C; if only allowed smaller amounts, their adrenals haemorrhaged and many animals died.

‘Translated into human terms, 75 times our normal daily requirement of Vitamin C would be approximately 5,625 milligrams. Such a quantity seems startling’, she writes, ‘yet during stress it may not be excessive.’

In actual practice a group of patients whose adrenals were exhausted and unresponsive to other stimuli im­proved greatly when large doses of Vitamin C were given.

The second principle is that early treatment of arthritis in any of its forms offers the best hope of success — before destructive processes have taken place in the cartilage of the joints.

In 1968 the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in London found that damage to the synoval membrane lining the joints released destructive enzymes that pitted the un­derlying cartilage and finally eroded the bone beneath. It is at this stage, they wrote, before bone and cartilage can be damaged that treatment must be aimed if permanent dis­ease is to be prevented.

‘If a substance can be found that repairs the leak in the cell wall and prevents the enzymes from eating away the cartilage, a major step may have been taken in preventing the inroads of crippling arthritis’.

I believe that such a substance exists in Vitamin C — which is essential with proteins in building and keeping in repair the coloid substance that cements all cells together and prevents leakage between them.

Dr W. J. McCormick M.D. of Toronto writing in the Archives of Pediatrics states that ‘the most definitely estab­lished function -of Vitamin C is that of assisting in the formation of collagen for the maintenance of integrity and stability of the connective tissues generally and this would include the bones, cartilages, muscles and vascular tissues. A deficiency of this vitamin causes a breakdown and easy rupture of any of the connective tissues including the discs of the backbone, the ligaments and linings in the interior of the joints (synovial membrane) and^ the cartilage which helps in their movement’.

He believes that this may be a common cause and a significant factor in arthritic and rheumatic diseases.

Early tests of Vitamin C in alleviating arthritis or rheumatism were hampered by using it as a vitamin in small doses to correct a nutritional deficiency instead of treating a serious disease already present. In all reports since the 1940s, those workers using large doses of 4 grams (1 gram four times a day) to 8 to 12 grams a day have shown excel­lent results.

Since the 1950s very little research has been carried out on Vitamin C in these collagen diseases, but the experience of individual doctors since and that of these earlier inves­tigators seem to indicate the dawn of a new era of discovery in effective treatment of rheumatic diseases.

Further large scale research is now needed to confirm and improve results already achieved.
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