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Megadose Vitamin C: Dr. William J. McCormick |
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Dr. W. McCormick |
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by Andrew W. Saul (This paper originally
was published as "The Pioneering Work of William J. McCormick, MD"
in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Vol. 18, No. 2, 2003, p 93-96. It
is reprinted here with permission.) It takes vitamin C to
make collagen and strong connective tissue. That fact is in every nutrition
textbook ever written. It has also been shown that vitamin C supplementation
enhances collagen synthesis. (1) And does so rapidly, too. (2) But few know
that, some 50 years ago, it was Toronto physician William J. McCormick, M.D.,
who pioneered the idea that poor collagen formation, due to vitamin C
deficiency, was a principal cause of diverse conditions ranging from stretch
marks to cardiovascular disease and cancer. STRETCH MARKS In 1948, Dr. McCormick
(3) wrote: "[T]hese disfiguring
subdermal lesions, which for centuries were regarded as a natural sequence of
pregnancy, are the result of increased fragility of the involved abdominal
connective tissue, secondary to deficiency of vitamin C." The strength of a brick
wall is not truly in the bricks, for a stack of bricks can easily be pushed
apart. Collagen is the "mortar" that binds your cells together,
just as mortar binds bricks together. If collagen is abundant and strong,
body cells hold together well. It is possible to see how this property would
prevent stretch marks. CANCER It is a logical but large
step to propose that, if cells stick together, tumors would have a tough time
spreading through them. Irwin Stone (4) credited McCormick with taking that
very step: "In cancer, the
maintenance of collagen synthesis at optimal levels, may provide such tough
and strong tissue ground substance around any growing cancer cells so that
they would be firmly anchored and could not break away and metastasize." This simple theory would
be the foundation for Linus Pauling and Ewan Cameron's decision to employ
large doses of vitamin C to fight cancer. After all, if cancer cells are
going to try to metastasize, it makes sense to provide abundant vitamin C to
strengthen collagen to keep them from doing so. Dr. McCormick was among
the first to comment that persons with cancer typically have exceptionally
low levels of vitamin C in their tissues, a deficiency of approximately 4,500
mg. This could help explain why a cancer patient's collagen is generally not
tough enough to be able to prevent cancer from spreading. McCormick also
thought that the symptoms of classic vitamin C deficiency disease, scurvy,
closely resemble the symptoms of some types of leukemia and other forms
cancer. Today, although scurvy is generally considered to be virtually
extinct, cancer is all too prevalent. If the signs of development of cancer
and scurvy are similar, could they be fundamentally the same disease under
different names? In his 1962 paper "Have We Forgotten the Lesson of
Scurvy" (5) Dr. McCormick writes: "As long ago as
1609, Martini cited by (scurvy research pioneer Dr. James) Lind stated that
scurvy is nearly allied to the plague, as it occasions carbuncles, buboes and
cancer. In an effort to clarify this relationship we published two papers
(6,7) in which we advanced the hypothesis that deficiency of vitamin C, by
bringing about disintegration of epithelial and connective tissue relationships,
owing to liquefaction of the intercellular cement substance collagen) and
disintegration of the connective tissue of the basement membrane, results in
breakdown of orderly cellular arrangement, thus acting as a prelude to
cancer." He also cites this obscure
but interesting reference in the 1905 edition of Northnagel's Encyclopedia of
Practical Medicine (8) which describes the scorbutic aspects of acute
lymphatic leukemia: "The most striking clinical symptoms of this disease
are the hemorrhages and their sequelae. . . Every touch produces hemmorhage,
making a condition completely identical with that of scurvy." Dr. McCormick's
conclusion is that "Our major effort
(against cancer) should be directed toward prevention of the cause of the
cellular disarrangement - collagenous breakdown of epithelial and
subepithelial connective tissues - as manifested in open sores or fissures
that fail to heal readily, and unusual or easily produced hemorrhage. Such
lesions may be early warning signs of future cancer. They likewise are early
signs of scurvy." (p. 10) If our civilization is
suffering from a scurvy epidemic under the current name of cancer, then the
symptoms, progress and results of the two diseases may have a common cause
(vitamin C deficiency) and a common treatment: vitamin C in large quantity.
If this is even partially true, then all cancer patients should receive large
doses of ascorbic acid as a matter of routine. CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE As scorbutic gum tissue
spontaneously hemorrhages, so also a scorbutic artery can literally
"bleed" into itself. McCormick, over twenty years before Linus
Pauling, reviewed the nutritional causes of heart disease and noted that four
out of five coronary cases in hospital show vitamin C deficiency. In one
paper (9) he wrote that, as early as 1941, " And while the exact
meaning of the word "adequate" has been at the heart of nutrition
controversy ever since, supplementation with even a moderate quantity of vitamin
C has been shown to prevent disease and save lives. Just 500 mg daily results
in a 42 percent lower risk of death from heart disease and a 35 percent lower
risk of death from any cause. (11) VITAMIN C AS ANTIBIOTIC
AND ANTIVIRAL Dr. McCormick proposed
vitamin C deficiency as the essential cause of, and an effective cure for,
numerous communicable illnesses. In "The Changing Incidence and
Mortality of Infectious Disease in Relation to Changed Trends in
Nutrition" (12) McCormick cited mortality tables as early as 1840, and
suggested that tuberculosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, whooping cough,
rheumatic fever and typhoid fever are primarily due to inadequate dietary
vitamin C. It remains as novel an idea today as it was nearly 60 years ago to
say that disease trends in history might be understood as waves of lack of
vitamin C intake. Dr. McCormick considered
vitamin C to be the pivotal therapeutic nutrient "by reason of its
chemical action as a reducing agent, and sometimes as an oxidizing agent,
vitamin C is also a specific antagonist of chemical and bacterial
toxins." Furthermore, in "Ascorbic Acid as a Chemotherapeutic
Agent" (13) he stated: "Vitamin C is known
to play an essential part in the oxidation-reduction system of tissue
respiration and to contribute to the development of antibodies and the
neutralization of toxins in the building of natural immunity to infectious
diseases. There is a very potent chemotherapeutic action of ascorbic acid
when given in massive repeated doses, 500 to 1,000 mg. (hourly), preferably
intravenously or intramuscularly. When thus administered the effect in acute
infectious processes is favorably comparable to that of the sulfonamides or
the mycelial antibiotics, but with the great advantage of complete freedom
from toxic or allergic reactions." (p. 151) There is considerable
evidence that vitamin C in large, frequent doses can cure what are usually
called infectious diseases. To establish that these diseases are actually
vitamin C deficiency diseases, we should be able to prevent them by regular,
abundant supply of the vitamin. This is exactly what can be done, McCormick
said: "Once the acute
febrile or toxic stage of an infectious disease is brought under control by
massive ascorbic acid administration, a relatively small maintenance dose of
the vitamin will be adequate in most cases to prevent relapses, just as in
fire protection small chemical extinguishers may be adequate to prevent fires
in their incipiency, whereas when large fires have developed, water from large
high-pressure fire hoses becomes necessary." (p. 152) Along with his
contemporary, Frederick R. Klenner, M.D., McCormick was an early advocate of
using vitamin C as an antiviral and an antibiotic. Klenner would go on to use
much larger quantities (350-700 mg per kg body weight per day). In the
1950's, even McCormick's relatively modest four or five daily 1,000-2,000 mg
doses were perceived as astronomically high, and something to be feared. In some minds, this
remains the case today. KIDNEY STONES Ever since Linus Pauling
began publicizing the value of megadoses of vitamin C in the early 1970's, it
has been a cornerstone of medical mythology that vitamin C can cause kidney
stones. The accusation is false. (14) Everybody has heard about unicorns and can
describe one in detail. You could probably draw a unicorn. You can see one in
your mind right now. Yet unicorns do not exist. They are imaginary, without
substance or proof. Just like a vitamin C kidney stone. The vitamin C kidney
stone myth is the best known non-fact in non-existence. Every physician has
heard of one, but not one of them has ever seen one. That is because
they simply do not exist. As Dr Abram Hoffer
has said, "Contrary to popular medical belief, vitamin C does not cause
kidney stones; at least it never has so far. Maybe in it will in the next
1000 years." Writers often pass by the
fact that Dr. McCormick actually advocated vitamin C to prevent and cure the
formation of some kidney stones as far back as 1946 (15), when he wrote: "I have observed
that a cloudy urine, heavy with phosphates and epithelium, is generally
associated with a low vitamin C status. . . and that as soon as corrective
administration of the vitamin effects a normal ascorbic acid (vitamin C)
level the crystalline and organic sediment disappears like magic from the
urine. I have found that this change can usually be brought about in a matter
of hours by large doses of the vitamin, 500 to 2,000 mg, oral or
parenteral." (p. 411) In what might be seen as
a display of almost too much therapeutic versatility, Dr. McCormick affirmed
that calculi in other parts of the body could be cleared up by plenty of
vitamin C, including stones in the biliary tract, the pancreas, tonsils,
appendix, mammary glands, uterus, ovaries, prostate and "even the
calcareous deposits in arteriosclerosis." He said that calcareous
deposits in the eye "may be cleared away in a few days by correction of
vitamin C status, and I find also that dental calculus (tartar on the teeth),
which lays the foundation for so much dental havoc, can be quickly suppressed
and prevented by an adequate intake of vitamin C." Odd though this final
statement may seem, "there appears to be a very real correlation between
vitamin C state (as a possible nonmechanical contributor) and debris
irrespective of tooth cleansing habits," wrote Professor of Oral
Medicine Emanuel Cheraskin, M.D., D.M.D., in 1993. (16) Dr. Cheraskin cited a
clinical trial that "reported a resolution of materia alba, calculus,
and stain when 500 mg of ascorbic acid was daily administered for 90
days." CIGARETTE SMOKING Fifty years ago,
McCormick (17) wrote: "The writer has
found, in clinical and laboratory research, that the smoking of one cigarette
neutralizes in the body approximately 25 mg of ascorbic acid, or the
equivalent of the vitamin C content of one average-size orange. On this
basis, the ability of the heavy smoker to maintain normal vitamin C status
from dietary sources is obviously questionable, and this alone may account
for the prevalence of vitamin C deficiency in our modern adult
population." This was quite a
statement in 1954, at a time when physicians were literally endorsing their
favorite cigarette in magazines and on television commercials. No doubt it is purely
coincidental that calculii, cigarettes, cancer, cardiovascular disease,
connective tissue, and collagen all have the letter "C" in common.
William J. McCormick's lifetime of work helped establish that these words
also have a vitamin in common. Dr. McCormick fought vitamin C deficiency
wherever his clinical experience found it. His early use of gram-sized doses
to combat what then and now are usually regarded as non-deficiency-related
illnesses set the stage for today's 100,000 mg/day antiviral/anticancer
vitamin C IV's. For such a good idea, the spread of this knowledge to date
has been exceptionally slow. Without McCormick's published work, it might
never have spread at all. To view rare photographs of Dr. McCormick and his sanatorium: http://www.doctoryourself.com/mccormickfamily.html
REFERENCES: Locating William J.
McCormick's papers is now somewhat easier than it used to be because a number
of them have been posted on the Internet at
https://www.seleneriverpress.com/archivetags/mccormick-w-j/
and
http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/ and also at http://www.doctoryourself.com/biblio_mccormick.html . (1) Chan D, Lamande SR,
Cole WG, Bateman JF. (1990) Regulation of procollagen synthesis and processing
during ascorbate-induced extracellular matrix accumulation in vitro. Biochem
J. Jul 1; 269(1):175-81 (2) Franceschi RT, Iyer
BS, Cui Y. (1994) Effects of ascorbic acid on collagen matrix formation and
osteoblast differentiation in murine MC3T3-E1 cells. J Bone Miner Res. Jun;
9(6):843-54. (3) McCormick, W J (1948)
The striae of pregnancy: A new etiological concept. Medical Record. August. (4) Stone, I The genetic
disease, hypoascorbemia: A fresh approach to an ancient disease and some of
its medical Implications. Acta Geneticae Medicae et Gemellologiae, Volume 16,
Number 1, 1967, pp. 52-60 (5) McCormick, W J (1962)
Have we forgotten the lesson of scurvy? Journal of Applied Nutrition. 15(1,2)
p 4-12. (6) McCormick, W J
(1954a) Cancer: The preconditioning factor in pathogenesis. Archives of
Pediatrics of (7) McCormick, W J
(1959). Cancer: A collagen disease, secondary to a nutritional deficiency?
Arch. Pediat., 76: 166. (8) Pincus, F (1905)
Acute lymphatic leukemia. In: Nothnagel's Encyclopedia of Practical Medicine,
American Edition. (9) McCormick, W J (1957)
Coronary thrombosis: a new concept of mechanism and etiology. Clinical
Medicine. 4:7, July. (10) Paterson, J. C.;
Some factors in the causation of intimal hemorrhage and in the precipitation
of coronary thrombosis, Can. Med. Assoc. J. 44: 114, 1941. (11) Enstrom, J E et al.
Vitamin C intake and mortality among a sample of the (12) McCormick, W J
(1947) The changing incidence and mortality of infectious disease in relation
to changed trends in nutrition. Medical Record. September. (13) McCormick, W J
(1952) Ascorbic acid as a chemotherapeutic agent. Archives of Pediatrics of (14) Intake of vitamins
B6 and C and the risk of kidney stones in women. Curhan, G. C., Willett, W.
C., Speizer, F. E., Stampfer, M. J. J Am Soc Nephrol 10:4:840-845, Apr 1999 (15) McCormick, W J
(1946) Lithogenesis and hypovitaminosis. Medical Record. 159:7, July, p
410-413) (16) The Case of the
Invisible Toothbrush: Why Some People Can Brush Less by E. Cheraskin, M.D.,
D.M.D. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine Vol. 8, No. 3, 1993) (17) McCormick, W J (1954b)
Intervertebral disc lesions: a new etiological concept. Archives of
Pediatrics of |
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