Vitamin C and the Common Cold (book)
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Cover image of Vitamin C and the Common Cold
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| Author | Linus Pauling |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Vitamin C and the common cold |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Publisher | Freeman |
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Publication date
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1970 |
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Published in English
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1970 |
Vitamin C and the Common Cold is a popular book by Linus Pauling, first published in 1970, on vitamin C, its interactions with common cold and the role of vitamin C megadosage in human health. The book promoted the idea that taking large amounts of vitamin C could reduce the duration and severity of the common cold. A Nobel Prize-winning chemist and activist, Pauling promoted a view of vitamin C that is strongly at odds with most of the scientific community, which found little evidence for the alleged health benefits of greatly increased vitamin C intake. The book went through multiple editions, and a revised version that discussed the flu and other diseases, retitled Vitamin C, the Common Cold & the Flu, came out in 1976.
The book characterizes the inability of humans and some other animals to produce vitamin C in terms of evolution and Pauling's concept of "molecular disease" (first articulated in his 1949 study, "Sickle Cell Anemia, a Molecular Disease"). Pauling argues that the loss of vitamin C synthesis first arose as a molecular disease, because of a genetic mutation that resulted in the loss of the biochemical capacity to make the vitamin, but because diets of the primate ancestors of humans consisted of high levels of vitamin C from plant sources, the loss of that biochemical mechanism was not harmful and may have even been beneficial. He argues, however, that the subsequent shift to a high-meat, lower-plant diet resulted in widespread vitamin C deficiency.
Pauling began studying vitamin C mega-dosage, and orthomolecular medicine more broadly, after he was contacted in 1966 by biochemist Irwin Stone, who suggested that taking enough vitamin C would let him live another fifty years. Pauling reinterpreted the large body of research on vitamin C based on comparative studies of the biochemical genetics of vitamin C synthesis in different species, as well his own theories about "molecular disease" and recent developments in molecular evolution. He criticized the design of studies that did not find positive results for vitamin C mega-dose treatment, and promoted those that did. He and other vitamin C advocates thought the vitamin boosts the body's ability to fight all kinds of infection. By 1970, after following Stone's regimen for 4 years and studying and debating the issue extensively, Pauling was sure enough that organized medicine had it wrong that he wrote Vitamin C and the Common Cold to popularize his vitamin C message.
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