For more than half a century, mankind has been consuming vitamins in shock doses. But it has not yet become immortal. The number of handkerchiefs that it plagues annually during colds and flu has not decreased either.
It's time to figure it out: why?
Once upon a time people did not know anything about vitamins at all, but they were already struggling with their lack. This was mainly done by sailors, since it was this brave tribe who had to face a very strange disease. Here you sail, sail on a ship for several months, do nothing so bad, eat biscuits and corned beef, and then bang - and all your teeth fall out. Why, one wonders? Why?
For a long time, scurvy was perceived as a completely mystical phenomenon. For example, it has been observed that sailors of ships sailing in the Northern Hemisphere have it more often than those whose ships sailed the southern seas. No one could explain this strange paradox.
By trial, error and poking scurvy was still defeated, and much earlier than they knew its cause. It turned out that if you regularly feed the team with lemons, then bleeding ulcers and other scurvy delights are not afraid of it. Already by the time of Cook's expeditions, in the 18th century, barrels of lemons were an indispensable part of ship's provisions, and medical scientists published highly scientific articles in medical bulletins that, since the sea is the element of salinity and bitterness, and sugar, which was always enough in a sailor menu, - a supplier of sweets, it is precisely the lack of the fourth taste, sourness, that led to such sad consequences.
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“A person gets enough vitamin D from food and through exposure to sunlight. Its additional intake can lead to metabolic disorders Nikolay Adrianov, Ph. D., Associate Professor of the Department of Biochemistry of the Medical and Biological Faculty of the Russian State Medical University
For all the quackery of these texts, they generally contained correct information, although they brought to the grave a number of losers from the crews, who were trying to "restore the balance of acidity" with the help of vinegar, since it was cheaper than lemons. And all because vitamin C, the lack of which causes scurvy, especially in conditions of short daylight hours and cold climates, is not found in vinegar. But who knew …
A century later, people learned to treat another consequence of vitamin deficiency - rickets, although again they did not have the slightest idea about the mechanism of its occurrence. Just a summary of the accumulated experience showed that a child who is often outdoors, drinks a lot of milk and receives a spoonful of fish oil several times a week, is much better than others protected from this disease. And what's the difference how it works if it works?
Vitamin openers
In 1880, Nikolai Lunin, a biologist at the University of Tartu, was the first in world history to suspect that food might contain something very important to us, completely unknown to us. He took two groups of mice. He gave one to drink with cow's milk (they love milk very much) - and the mice were cheerful and happy. The second group was treated by Lunin with his own hand-made mixture, which included all the elements contained in milk: sugar, other carbohydrates, proteins, fats and various salts.
The mice died in Bose with a regrettable suddenness (we now know that they were killed by a deficiency of vitamin B, which is essential for their life). In his dissertation, Lunin described this experience and expressed the conviction that not only milk, but also other types of food may contain some unknown, but extremely important for life substances that have not yet been discovered due to the fact that there are very few of them there. … We now know that Lunin was absolutely right. But he was out of luck.
Other scientists who undertook to repeat his experiment did not find any deviations in the health of the mice fed by the Lunin composition. The whole problem was sugar: Lunin took cane sugar, but did not indicate this in his work.
And the confirmation experiments were carried out with the help of badly refined milk sugar, which itself contained vitamin B. So Lunin did not unfairly become the discoverer of vitamins, and several other scientists received the Nobel Prize for this, who in the late 19th - early 20th centuries jointly created the theory of vitamins … After that, as usual, numerous breakthroughs and inventions began: scientists learned how to synthesize vitamins, discovered many of them, found out the cause of several more diseases associated with a lack of vitamins (for example, pellagra and beriberi), calculated the recommended intake of vitamins, that is actively engaged in business.
At first, the rest of humanity treated all these achievements quite serenely. It was busy with world wars, revolutions, great depressions, the collapse of empires - in a word, the vast majority of the population of this planet had enough trouble to also keep track of what breakthroughs were taking place in nutrition theory. This is where to get this very food with coupon rates - it was a much more important question.
At the same time, the population was quite successfully vitaminized, since children's and school meals, therapeutic diets, soldiers' rations were already compiled taking into account the importance of various vitamins, and vitamin and mineral complexes were sold in pharmacies. In general, everything was boring, predictable and without excitement. Until He appeared. The one to whom, in an amicable way, in every pharmacy the monument would have to be erected at full height, because the income that he brought to pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers of dietary supplements … But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's get to know him first.
Great vitaminizer
By the late 1960s, Linus Pauling's name sounded louder than Jobs and Gates are today. He was an internationally recognized genius, an archangel from science, a prophet from natural sciences. One of the founders of molecular biology, who received the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, he still surrounded himself with the glory of a great humanist, fighting against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and becoming one of the main initiators of the signing of a nuclear test ban treaty between the United States, USSR and Great Britain.
For this he was also awarded the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize. A fantastic generalist, chemist, physician, biologist, philosopher and politician, Pauling also possessed an outstanding literary and oratorical gift. In general, a superman from laboratories, equally revered by both laymen and the scientific community. Unfortunately for his reputation, he lived a very long life - 94 years. And in 1966 he was only 65 years old - the most, one might say, heyday. And just that year Pauling caught a cold. His doctor, Irving Stone, recommended that the scientist take three grams of ascorbic acid per day, as he believed that the body weakened by the disease would not interfere with additional vitamin C. So the great scientist became addicted to ascorbic acid. Immediately after the first dose, he felt better, after a few days he was already healthy.
Physicians against
“Our food, fortunately, contains a variety of vitamins in varied quantities. If we have properly organized meals, we will get enough of them. Those who think over and publish advertising of vitamin preparations are concerned about increasing sales.”Salavat Suleimanov, MD, Professor, Head of the Department of the Institute for Advanced Studies of Healthcare Professionals
And then Pauling got overwhelmed. He believed. He believed in the great healing power of vitamin C. I must say that it is generally not good to believe a scientist, a scientist must be a terrible skeptic. The scientific method itself is based on the fact that any "two two is four" needs to be proven. There is not and cannot be anything obvious in the world, any evidence requires confirmation. That is, based on the principles of scientific thinking, Pauling should have said: “I took ascorbic acid, I feel better. And this can only mean one thing: in this particular case, this particular pill did not prevent this particular one from feeling good. And any other hypotheses on this score can be tried to prove."
But the personal experience of a genius, accustomed to the constancy of his righteousness, allowed him to do the unforgivable thing - to write and publish a work that did not stand up to scientific criticism. The book was titled Vitamin C and the Cold. In it, Pauling ardently urged everyone to take one or two grams of ascorbic acid every day so as not to catch a cold and feel good in general, and at the same time not to neglect other vitamins. In the text, Pauling admitted that he "does not understand the detailed mechanism of the effect of ascorbic acid on cold resistance," but this is not important, since he is deeply convinced of the correctness of his recommendation. To say that the scientific community got crazy when it got acquainted with the work of a genius is to put it mildly. From a scientific point of view, it was a text that did not differ much from the works of the adepts of "harmonizing the element of acidity."But all other members of society were ecstatic. The book, written in a simple, clear and even fascinating language, became a bestseller for a long time, stocks of ascorbic acid were swept off the shelves of pharmacies, and pharmacists, gardeners and juice producers did not tire of mentally kissing Linus Pauling's footprints.
They began to fortify everything. Even popcorn and chips. Humanity rushed to eat vitamins. Politicians, businessmen and public figures had no doubts that we are dealing with yet another brilliant insight of the super-mind. In 1973, the Linus Pauling Medical Science Institute in Palo Alto was established, where Pauling became president. In 1979, in co-authorship with a colleague Pauling published the second book - "Cancer and Vitamin C", in which it was convincingly but, alas, just as unsubstantiated that vitamin C is an excellent remedy for fighting cancer, both as a preventive measure and during illness. This book was also bought in millions of copies. The saddest thing is that she started to do harm. Some patients, for example, now refused chemotherapy and surgeries,preferring to these unpleasant and dangerous procedures a cozy intake of five grams (Pauling's recommended dose) ascorbic acid per day. And it's one thing if vitamins in horse doses are drunk by generally healthy people: unlike fat-soluble vitamin A or, say, D, vitamin C dissolves in water and is easily excreted from the body, so its overdose is not too dangerous.
And if the sick?
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“In a current study of 980 people with colds, we found no evidence that vitamin C had any significant effect on the duration or severity of upper respiratory illness.” Donald Cowan, Harold Deal, Abe Baker - University of Minnesota
Refusals of cancer patients from treatment caused a lot of dissatisfaction, especially since the observation of cancer patients taking "ascorbic therapy" did not show any improvement in their condition. And then, it seems, the word "charlatan" was first heard. But Pauling never thought to stop. He created and developed the theory of orthomolecular medicine, which he defined as "the right molecules in the right amounts." Vitamins, amino acids, minerals and bioactive supplements, according to this theory, can treat everything from mental disorders to HIV. The main thing is to find the right dose for a particular patient. And yes, theoretically - even grant immortality. Although Pauling did not go so far in his promises, supporters and followers did it for him,consisted mostly of journalists and just caring citizens.
Cleaning for genius
The complexity of the position of the scientific community was explained by the fact that it is often even more difficult to refute an unproven version than to prove it. And the reasoning "Where did you get that, idiot?" in Pauling's case, it did not work: the guy's initial reputation was too powerful. Well, a brilliant insight has happened, and you really disentangle it. The loosening is still going on, but at the moment it is already safe to say: "Pauling, you are wrong." Numerous and long-term observations have not found a relationship between the intake of dietary supplements and the state of health of patients. Physicians vs. “There is no scientific evidence for the benefits of supplemental vitamin use.
The notion that vitamins are not harmful to humans is clearly worth revisiting.”Dr. B. Cabalerro, Director of the Center for Human Nutrition at Bloomberg School of Health In 2009, Arch Intern Med magazine finally published a giant summary report of 161,000 showed that "the use of multivitamin preparations practically does not affect the risk of developing cancer, cardiovascular diseases and does not affect mortality in women after menopause." Another group of researchers is engaged in a runny nose. HIV is the third. Childhood psychosis is the fourth. Etc. Hundreds and thousands of control studies on dozens of substances and hundreds of diseases. Forrest Bennett, co-member of the big cleanup and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said: “Sometimes I feel likethat they (supporters of the theory of orthomolecular medicine and personally Linus Pauling. - Ed.) simply took their numerous conclusions from the ceiling."
Pauling died in 1994, having finally managed to fully enjoy his status as a psycho abnormal in scientific circles and an atmosphere of adoration among less demanding citizens. And it is not known how many more decades it will take to convince the population to stop consuming dietary supplements in such incredible quantities. For example, according to the US Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Research, in 2004, 3% of US residents took ultra-high doses of vitamins. And this is completely unhelpful, since even water-soluble vitamins can bring oneself to hypervitaminosis, which, in turn, leads to such troubles as coronary artery disease, hypertension, thrombophlebitis, liver toxicosis, spontaneous abortions and fetal malformations in women, gout, jaundice etc.
What do you do now?
Physicians against
“The concept of multivitamin preparations was sold to the Americans by nutraceutical corporations. There is no scientific evidence to support their use. Steven Nissen, Head of Cardiology, Cleveland Clinic
To understand that yes, vitamins are an important part of nutrition, our body actually does not know how to produce them on its own, apart from a couple of the most overwhelming ones. But the fact is that we need very, very few of them. Provided a sufficiently varied diet, you can forget about vitamin and mineral complexes, and, of course, you do not need to take them in handfuls, even if your local doctor strongly recommended it to you. No, no, we do not accuse your local doctor of a criminal conspiracy with the manufacturers of dietary supplements. It’s just, with a high degree of probability, he grew and studied at a time when Pauling’s name was aspirated, and the gigantic doses of vitamins and minerals he recommended were not yet officially recognized as top-notch nonsense.