What's the Deal?

  Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel laureate and Ph.D. and Matthias Rath, M.D., got to wondering about vitamin C and artery health.  It might be interesting to explain some genetic history.  Only a few animals (the higher apes, the guinea pig, and a species of fruit bat) ever show coronary heart disease.  Heart disease, however, appears only when these animals are fed a diet that is lacking in adequate amounts of vitamin C. 

   Zookeepers learned the connection between vitamin C and heart health a long time ago.  When their gorillas were fed a diet of early versions of processed “gorilla-chow,” instead of a diet rich in vitamin C from fresh fruits and vegetables, they got sick and developed heart disease. 

   In contrast, bears - whose cholesterol levels can be three times as high as man’s and whose heart rates slow way down during hibernation - remarkably never show any atherosclerosis.   

   So what’s going on in bears and other animals that is missing in humans, apes, guinea pigs and some fruit bats?  Perhaps a mutation!

Production of C-Ascorbate and a Genetic Mutation

   Other animals produce vitamin C endogenously (which means most animals manufacture virtamin C inside their bodies).  This production of vitamin C is essential to maintaining health, including maintaining healthy arteries.

   For example, a 150-pound goat has a typical blood concentration of C-ascorbate equivalent to taking 13,000 mg (13 grams) of vitamin C per day.  And, ascorbate concentrations rise much higher in times of stress.  Compare this abundance of vitamin C in a goat with the paltry 60mg recommended daily allowance for humans.  Consider further the percentage of people who do not get enough vitamin C from their diets, and it’s no wonder that heart disease is so prevalent.

    Some millions of years ago, a genetic mutation occurred, causing humans to rely on their diets for vitamin C.  This mutation was not life-threatening, however, because our early ancestors thrived in the tropics, where vitamin C was in ready supply in fresh fruits and vegetables.

   Scurvy (and heart disease) became a real problem for ancestors who settled in other regions of the world, areas with less readily-available dietary C-ascorbate. 

   However, this situation showed up during the Ice Ages when many of our ancestors did indeed succumb to scurvy and heart disease, when plant-foods were not as plentiful.  (Scurvy is a lack of vitamin C that eventually weakens cells – especially the cells in the blood vessels so they rupture.  This is the gum bleeding we see in movies.  Eventually the person bleeds to death internally.)  

   Our ancestors who were able to survive the lack of vitamin C developed a valuable genetic mutation – at least to survival, but not what excites us today.  This mutation developed an emergency backup patch mechanism whereby damaged (leaky) blood vessels could stop bleeding.  It is an animal food component called cholesterol.  Modern humans inherited this ability to use cholesterol to make repairs when there wasn’t enough vitamin C to make collagen fibers to normally heal the arteries. 

  We survived - but have this nasty side effect of cholesterol patches!