Posted on Monday October 24, 2005 in Life
It’s funny the topics that people choose to become overzealous about.
Whether it is for financial gain, fame, or just because they really, really believe it, there are all manner of wackos on this wide brown internet all talking nonsense. Health is one topic that is talked about all over.
As far as I can gather, a certain Dr. Linus Pauling was a great advocate for the ingestion of large doses of vitamin C. According to this site, the publication of his second book in 1970, called Vitamin C and the Common Cold may have caused an increase in the consumption of vitamin c supplaments by 300%. The author claims that this increase inversly effected the mortality rate due to coronary heart failure.
Vitamin c is also responsible for reducing the incidence of glaucoma and cateracts. It works in conjunction with things called bioflavonoids which are present in all foods containing vitamin c. One less health supplement to buy :)
Wikipedia give us more information:
As a class of compounds, flavonoids have been referred to as “nature’s biological response modifiers” because of their ability to modify the body’s reaction to other compounds such as allergens, viruses, and carcinogenic properties. In addition, flavonoids act as powerful antioxidants by providing remarkable protection against oxidative and free radical damage.
Apparently one of the richest sources for bioflavonoids is the stringy white stuff inside citrus fruit. Now I am a manderine lover, but I have always thought that the white stuff was to be taken off as much as possible. I think I may even have been told (no doubt by some peabrained schoolfriend) that you would get cancer from eating it.
Not that I ever believed such tripe.