| Megavitamin Therapy |
Website Links For Therapy |
Information AboutMegavitamin Therapy |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT MEGAVITAMIN THERAPY | |
| orthomolecular medicine | |
| alternative medicine | |
| vitamins | |
| therapy | |
|
BACKGROUND In the 1930s and 1940s, scientific and clinical evidence for beneficial uses of Vitamins 's development of megadose intravenous vitamin C treatments in the 1940s[http://www.orthomed.com/klenner.htm]. William Kaufman, MD, PhD, published two books in the 1940s that detailed his treatment of arthritis with frequent, high doses of niacinamide[http://www.doctoryourself.com/JOM1.html][http://www.doctoryourself.com/kaufman3.html][http://www.doctoryourself.com//kaufman10.html]. In 1954 , Professor R. Altschul and Abram Hoffer , MD, PhD, developed the first officially recognized megavitamin therapy, applying large doses of the immediate release form of Niacin (Vitamin B-3) to treat Hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol). Confirmed by William B. Parsons, Jr. of the Mayo Clinic and the Canner Study , more general medical recognition of niacin therapy for Hypercholesterolemia followed the successes of several popular books in the 1980s. Niacin remains the only therapy proven in large scale, prospective, randomized, controlled trials to reduce long term total mortality. The Canner study of the Coronary Drug Project showed 11% reduction in mortality at 15 years follow up with only 6 years of niacin treatment. Niacin is used to treat hypercholesterolemia because of its low cost and its unique ability to broadly improve lipid profiles for ApoB LDL, small dense LDL, HDL, HDL2b (extremely good cholesterol), Lp(a), fibrinogen and trigycerides[http://www.bhlinc.com/CIRM.shtml . Niacin's use still lags behind other, heavily promoted, heavily subsidized pharmaceutical treatments, which, in most categories, have been less effective than niacin and have had more serious side effects. [http://www.selfimprovement.ch/health/articleView.php?ArtID=124][http://medicine.ucsd.edu/SES/adverse_effects.htm][http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050205/bob10.asp] In the 1960's, biochemist Irwin Stone , author of ''The Healing Factor'', observed that Vitamin C's utility in the megadose treatments of human disease parallels the amounts of Vitamin C physiologically produced in most animals and postulated humans' evolutionary loss of this capability. Since the 1970s the wider field of Orthomolecular Medicine has emerged and it has begun to subsume Megavitamin therapy within it. CONTROVERSY The efficacy of various megavitamin therapies has been controversial. Megavitamin therapies were publicly advocated by Linus Pauling in the late 1960s based on the extensive vitamin research of his generation as well as his own pioneering work in biochemistry, molecular biology and molecular disease. Megavitamin therapy works under the principle that administration of large doses of vitamins can combat conditions which are considered wholly or in part due to individual biochemical variation and inadequate levels of essential nutrients. This type of treatment is based on the published scientific and medical research of the vitamin discovery era (ca 1920s-1950s) that is not easily accessed electronically. Individual researchers and physicians, through private research, lifelong effort, numerous small clinical trials, and collaboration, evolved the current megavitamin therapies. Megavitamin therapies are neither well addressed in conventional medical education nor, usually, officially acknowledged. An American Cottage Industry in the late 20th century, the evolving megavitamin therapies are integrated with orthomolecular and Naturopathic Medicine . Although megavitamin therapies still largely remain outside of the structure of Conventional Medicine and the Pharmaceutical Industry , they are increasingly used as adjuvants to conventional medicine. {Link without Title} SIDE EFFECTS Administration of very large doses of Vitamin A , Vitamin D and Pyridoxine may have Adverse Side Effect s, usually when used alone rather than balanced with other vitamins. Megavitamin proponents point to an almost zero level of deaths caused by overdosing with vitamins compared to the significant numbers from pharmaceuticals, including a number of over-the-counter items. REFERENCES
HISTORICAL REFERENCES
EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|