LINUS
PAULING’S
REHAB

THEY CALLED HIM CRAZY. But af-
ter 22 years of promoting vitamin C,

two-time Nobel laureate Linus Pauling,
91, can feel a little bit vindicated. The vi-
tamin may add years to life after all, ac-
cording to an analysis this May by UCLA
epidemiologist James Enstrom.
Enstrom looked at data from a ten-
year survey on the nutrition and health
of more than 11,000 Americans. He
found that men who got at least 300 mil-
ligrams of vitamin C a day from a com-

bination of diet and vitamin supplements
lived up to six years longer than those
who averaged just 25 mg from their diet
alone (25 mg is the amount contained in
a third of an orange). In women, who
have longer life spans anyway, the effects
were less noticeable: consumers of high
doses of C lived an extra year.

Pauling argues that humans should
load up on vitamin C because they are
among the few animals that can’t make
their own supply. The recommended 60
mg per day for adults—set by the Na-
tional Academy of Sciences to prevent vi-
tamin-deficiency diseases such as scurvy
and beriberi—isn’t nearly enough, in his
opinion, and more is needed for optimal
health. His case rests on the fact that vi-
tamin C is an antioxidant, a substance

Linus Pauling
takes vitamin C in doses equivalent
to 240 oranges a day.

that scours the body for unstable oxy-
gen molecules called free radicals, which
can cause cell damage and may play a
role in diseases as varied as cancer and
atherosclerosis.

For adults Pauling recommends a daily
dose of 2,000 to 18,000 mg. (Too high a
starting dose can cause diarrhea.) He con-
sumes the max, the equivalent of more
than 240 oranges a day. Still, many nutri-
tion researchers have questions. Could
Enstrom$ vitamin takers have lived longer
because they were more health conscious
in general—more likely to exercise, less
likely to smoke? If the body absorbs only
several hundred milligrams of vitamin C
a day and excretes the rest, are megadoses
really of value? But Pauling claims that sci-
entists outside the fuddy-duddy nutrition
field are more receptive: “My colleagues
say, ‘Well, Linus has been right so often
in the past that he’s probably right on this
too.’” —Beth Ann Meehan