Efficiency of Nature

Kudos to Linus Pauling

A key feature of nature is that bad ideas don’t survive.

Nature is not wasteful. Energy and nutrients are not wasted on non-essential functions.

In biology we find that metabolism adjusts for the supply of nutrients. The first little bit of anything is usually crucial. But as supply increases there is a “diminishing returns” curve.

Some recent research has found that no matter how active humans are, we tend to peak out at burning 2,600 calories per day. This is quite different from what I’ve studied previously which suggests ancient humans were very active and burned 4,000 or so calories per day. Push yourself physically and your body will shut down other essential processes (like healing and thinking).

I’ve previously mentioned my admiration of Linus Pauling as one of the most brilliant humans of the past century. Let’s revisit some of his work. Linus Pauling, like all good scientists, builds upon the work of others, for vitamin C this specifically is Irwin Stone and G.H. Bourne.

Re-reading Linus Pauling’s paper from 1970, I notice that his recommendations are based on a human burning about 2,500 calories per day. This is consistent with the 2,600 calorie figure and thus doesn’t require the assumption that ancient humans burned more calories.

Pauling concludes that a minimum level for optimum health would be 2,300 mg of vitamin C per day, with an upper limit of needing no more than 9,500 mg per day of vitamin C. The 2,300 mg figure is an average of 2,600 mg for a typical male and 2,000 mg for a typical female.

Stone suggested that optimum intake is 3,000 mg a day of vitamin C under normal circumstances and up to more than ten times that amount when ill (like with a cold).

So when you say you “take vitamin C”, are you really saying you don’t take enough because you are only taking one 500 mg common vitamin C supplement capsule?

My advice is that you should consider 2,000 mg per day of vitamin C as absolute minimum. Consider taking 3,000 to 4,000 mg per day and take quercetin with it.

As a reminder: vitamin C is extremely non-toxic. People have taken 100,000 mg per day for several days and 40,000 mg per day for weeks without any harm. I’ve personally taken roughly 3,000 mg per day for the past eighteen years and I’m considered to be very healthy.

Note: Nutritional policy is set by assuming that the average intakes of the population are adequate. This sets the guidelines for requirements and recommended dosages. This fails to account for the fact that the current population is very unhealthy. Remember: the average person is not healthy. Do you want to be average?

Linus Pauling certainly wasn’t average. He was an accomplished chemist (his textbooks are still used to teach chemistry) and a physicist. He is the only person to have won two unshared nobel prizes: first in Chemistry (1954) and second in Peace (1962). Probably nobody has understood tiny molecules better than Linus Pauling.

Be healthy and advocate for peace!