Vitamin C Cures Cancer & Allergies at high doses?

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My parents always pumped me full of Vitamin C when I was a kid any time I got sick with a cold or the flu.  Mom always said it boosted my immune system, and in addition to the vitamins, gave me juice to drink.

My dad once told me that you can never take too much Vitamin C.  “Whatever your body doesn’t use,” he said,”leaves your body when you urinate.”

I believed that, wholeheartedly.  They are my parents, after all.  So, whenever I felt a sniffle coming on, the Vitamin C was popped into my mouth and chewed like crazy.

Then we learned that Zinc could help too, so I always kept a bottle of each handy.

I spoke with a doctor once who disagreed with my parents about Vitamin C. He said it wasn’t entirely true that you couldn’t overdose on Vitamin C, and that too much can harm you.  This confused me.  The Vitamin C seemed to work, didn’t it?

I used to take about 3,000 mg of Vitamin C per day a few years ago under the supervision of a Naturopathic doctor.  At this time, I can’t remember her reasoning other than strengthening my immune system which was very weak…even more so than usual.  Now I’m learning much more about Vitamin C that I had never heard of before.

Besides being a blanket “immune system booster”, many doctors have stated that Vitamin C aids in allergy and asthma treatment and can also be used as a mood elevator.  DING DING DING! That sounds good to me!  They also say that cancer patients, who were given death sentences by conventional medicine, were successfully treated with intravenous Vitamin C at 100,000 – 200,000 mg per day! That’s WAY ABOVE the maximum recommended dosage of 2,000 mg per day. (Remember, I used to take 3,000 mg per day at the suggestion of my NMD.)

According to the Dole Nutritional Institute:

“Exceeding the upper limit for vitamin C—2,000 milligrams per day— can cause diarrhea and gastrointestinal distress. This is worth watching out for, since many popular supplements contain 1,000 milligrams—more than 10 times the RDA.”

Is the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) a One-Size-Fits-All approach?

The above is a crucial question. Should all patients be created equal with regard to vitamin supplements, or is one person’s poison another person’s cure?  According to some, certain factors must be taken into consideration when deciding just how much Vitamin C is necessary for normal body function including stress levels, which can quickly deplete Vitamin C levels, allergies, asthma, and other immune system maladies.

I watched a documentary today called “Foodmatters” where they discussed this very thing. The doctors on this documentary, recommended by Dr. Joseph Mercola, argued that there is no evidence that Vitamin C intake can result in toxicity and that therapeutic doses above the recommended daily allowance can treat allergies and mood disorders and cure cancer!  Yes – they said that Vitamin C Cures Cancer, but not at the low-dose RDA.

So I have found myself in a bit of a conundrum.  How much should I take?  Whom should I trust?