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General health Ascorbic acid is necessary for the production of anti-bodies formed in the body against infections by bacteria and viruses. Unless it is present in the blood, immunization or vaccination against infectious disease causes marked reactions. Diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccines (triple antigen injected into babies), influenza vaccine, smallpox and rubella vaccines can cause fever and severe symptoms if the recipient is deficient in Vitamin C.
This is why doctors are advised in the leaflets accompanying the vaccines not to immunize a child suffering from a cold or other infection. Infections quickly use up all the Vitamin C in the blood and tissues and, unless it is specially supplied before immunization, there is none to produce antibodies against the introduced organisms, whether they be living or killed.
This danger of immunization has been brought out by the experiences of Dr Archie Kalokerinos with aboriginal children in Collarenabri (N.S.W.). The constant infections of nasal passages, ears, chest and bowels from which so many aboriginal children suffer, use up all the scanty supply of Vitamin C they obtain from their food. They have little natural immunity in their make up and, with no Vitamin C to produce antibodies, injections of triple antigen have caused such severe reactions that some of them have become severely sick with pneumonia, others have died of shock.
Ascorbic acid is thus one of the best and safest bulwarks we have against infections of all kinds, whether by bacteria or viruses. It enables the body to produce anti-bodies against them’— and without it antibodies cannot be formed to combat these invaders, nor the poisons they produce.
It has been actually shown, for example, that shots of ‘flu vaccine have a far greater protective effect when Vitamin C is given at the same time. Similar results have been achieved by Vitamin C controlling the germs causing whooping cough and tetanus.
In practice it is, of course, unwise — even dangerous — to give an immunizing injection to any child who has ‘flu or a cold or other infection. Should immunization be urgent, large doses of Vitamin C should be given before and for several days after the injection.
Even babies can take Vitamin C as Rose Hip Syrup or vitamin drops (orange juice is not enough and oranges differ widely in their Vitamin C content).
Even in a perfectly well child or adult the value of immunization injections of any kind is improved by taking at least 1000 mg to 1500 mg of Vitamin C on the day before and for several days after.
*6/21/7*
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General health One of the most important functions of Vitamin C is the formation and maintenance of a protein-like substance in the body called ‘collagen’. Collagen cannot be formed without ascorbic acid.
Collagen is the actual cement substance that holds the body together. It forms one third of the total amount of body protein. Collagen forms the kind of meshwork in which the calcium of the bones is laid down, much like the ‘reinforcement’ in a concrete wall.
Ligaments that join bone to bone in the joints, the tendons of muscles, indeed, the connective tissue network in which the muscle cells lie are formed of collagen. It enters into the substance of the teeth and is the cement that holds the teeth firmly in the gums. Even a mild deficiency over the years causes the teeth to become loose in their sockets, and, as the cement substance disappears, pockets are formed in which food and germs accumulate with the resulting pyorrhoea that comes on about middle age.
As Vitamin C is not so well absorbed by the elderly, pyorrhoea and loosened teeth become more prevalent as the years advance. Very few elderly people still have their own teeth and healthy gums.
Collagen is most important in the walls and linings of the blood vessels. It forms the firm connective tissue in the walls of both arteries and veins, and when weakened aneurisms or bubbles can form on the artery walls, and veins become flaccid, bulgy and ‘varicose’ where pressure is greatest. This is seen mostly in the legs and round the anus — forming piles or haemorrhoids.
It is the collagen substance that actually joins the cells lining the blood vessels. The walls of the capillaries where the fluid nourishment in the blood actually seeps through to the tissues are only one cell thick. If the cement that holds them together is weak or lost, as in scurvy, the capillaries become like a leaking sieve and the red blood corpuscles themselves escape into the tissues and we have a bruise or blood mark under the skin.
Easy bruising and those tiny patches of haemorrhage so often seen under the skin on the hands and forearms of elderly people are early but certain signs of Vitamin C deficiency.
In scurvy the whole condition is intensified. Blood seeps into the joints, between muscles and round the teeth.
It is the C dependent collagen in the tissues that keeps the skin youthful, soft, firm, supple and free of wrinkles. In fact, poor collagen maintenance is intimately connected with the whole ageing process. Adequate strong collagen throughout the body maintains health, flexibility and a youthful appearance.
Viewed under the high powered microscope this collagen substance is marked by bands of firmer material in the jelly-like matrix, much like the reinforcement in concrete. But there are no strengthening bands in vitamin deficient collagen. It is soft, friable and easily dislodged and broken, allowing the blood to seep out of the capillaries, the teeth to become loose in their sockets, the lining of joints to become pitted and painful and the expanding tissues in the body to lose their elasticity and become like old spent elastic.
This is almost certainly what happens to the pads of fibrous elastic tissue between the vertebrae of the spine — the inter-vertebral discs. With a low Vitamin C content of the tissues, the discs degenerate and cause a condition prevalent in many people.
For many young people, but more so as the years advance, the discs, made largely of collagen, lose their firmness and elasticity and squash out between the vertebrae thinning and protruding so that they press on the sensitive nerves, emerging between the bones, causing intense pain.
The bodies of the vertebrae themselves are only too often softened through lack of firm collagen matrix in which the calcium particles are enmeshed. They tend to give under the weight of the body and become wedge-shaped — causing further pressure on nerves. Here we have all the makings of the low back pain that plagues so many and the bent backs and dwindling height so prevalent in the elderly.
This is what we see so often in old age — deterioration not due to age alone, but to a shortage of Vitamin C over the years. We need much more than the mere Recommended Daily Allowance, and yet there are only 50 mg tablets now allowed for pensioners as a pharmaceutical benefit.
The old 500 mg tablets were much more effective. Two or three of these a day kept many pensioners, who could not afford much fresh fruit, healthy, active and free from colds and chest infections and backache.
There are, indeed, many people both young and old even in this fruit-growing country who suffer from a Vitamin C deficiency, not recognized and not acknowledged by doctors or health authorities.
If their symptoms were called early or incipient scurvy — which it is — perhaps we would all take more notice and seek to remedy the deficiency.
*5/21/7*
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