February was Heart Health month, and we honored it by writing about two nutrients that are critical for a healthy heart, vitamin E and CoQ10. However no discussion of nutrients that benefit the heart would be complete without talking about our favorite vitamin, vitamin C. We’ve told you before about a theory advanced by one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, two-time Nobel laureate, chemist Linus Pauling. He hypothesized that heart disease may actually be a vitamin C deficiency disease. Pauling observed that animals don’t get heart attacks. Most animals (humans, apes, guinea pigs and fruit bats excepted) make their own vitamin C—out of blood sugar! According to Andrew W. Saul, PhD, most mammals make the human equivalent of more than 5,000 mg of vitamin C daily, and considerably more when under stress. Pauling also knew that one of vitamin C’s primary roles in the body is helping to build collagen, the basic material in connective tissue, including blood vessel wal…

Now I’ve got to the point where I think we can get almost complete control of cardiovascular disease, heart attacks and strokes by the proper use of vitamin C and lysine. If you are at risk of heart disease or if there is a history of heart disease in your family . . . or if you have had a mild heart attack yourself, then you had better be taking vitamin C and lysine. – Linus PaulingIn the US, heart disease causes 700,000 deaths each year—more than all forms of cancer combined.  Atherosclerosis, or “hardening of the arteries” causes most heart attacks and strokes and is found to some degree in almost everyone today, even babies. It doesn’t have to be this way.Dr. Linus Pauling proposed a solution: vitamin C . . .Thirty years ago, chemist Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel Prize winner and one of the great scientific minds of the 20th century, proposed that vitamin C deficiency is the major cause of atherosclerosis.Among its more than 300 functions in the human body, vitamin C helps the…

Raymond Francis often says, “If you are deficient in only one nutrient, you will get sick, guaranteed.” Although many people still focus single-mindedly on calcium, bone-building is a team sport. While calcium may be the star player, it’s ineffective and even dangerous without its teammates. If even one member of the team goes AWOL, your bones will suffer. Bones are about half mineral and half protein. Minerals give bones their hardness—an important quality if you want to stand up straight. However a large part of bone consists of “bone matrix:” flexible tissue made of collagen and studded with hard minerals. Calcium accounts for about 64% of bone’s mineral content, but phosphorus and magnesium also contribute to bone hardness. Zinc, manganese, silica and copper are used as co-enzymes in constructing bone matrix. Vitamin C is needed to create collagen. Vitamins C, D and K and the minerals boron, chromium, germanium, selenium and vanadium play various roles in what’s called bone…