Linus Pauling
Winter is upon us, and with it comes one of life’s great annoyances, the common cold. This year, the US population will suffer from over one billion colds – almost four per person! You may be tempted to increase your intake of vitamin C – after all, everyone knows that vitamin C helps increase immunity to the common cold, right? Wrong. As it turns out, it’s amazing what a Nobel Prize and a book can do to convince the general public of a complete farce.
Most people have never heard of Linus Pauling, but they unknowingly practice his most famous contribution to the scientific community. Dr. Linus Pauling is one of the most brilliant and influential chemists ever to live. Over his seventy-year career in the sciences, he researched subjects as important and widespread as chemical bonding, molecular disease and explosives. In addition to his impressive work in the field of science, he spent extensive time working with social issues, primarily to demonstrate the dangers of atmospheric nuclear tests. In 1954, he won the Nobel prize in chemistry for his work on the nature chemical bonds and the structure of molecules and crystals. Eight years later, he won the Nobel peace prize for, among other things, his work on a nuclear test ban treaty, thus making him the only person ever to be awarded two un-shared Nobel prizes. He discovered the alpha helix, paving the way for Watson and Crick to propose the structure of DNA five years later. No doubt about it, he was a living genius.
In the mid 1960's, Dr. Pauling became fascinated with the biochemistry of nutrition. He began combing through existing data taken for other purposes, to research what affect vitamin C had on the body. Although he never performed a single experiment to test his theory, using what he called 'physiological and evolutionary reasoning', he became convinced that vitamin C in large quantities would serve to prevent, or at least shorten the length of the common cold. In 1970, he published his 'findings' in a book titled "Vitamin C and the Common Cold" which quickly became a best seller. The public took the notion and ran with it - after all, if a Nobel-prize winning chemist says it's true, it had to be.
Since the release of his book, countless professional clinical trials have been performed to test Dr. Pauling's claim. Not one of them has ever proven him to be correct. A summary of 27 of the more large-scale trials by Dr. A. S. Truswell of the University of Sydney, Australia showed no evidence that vitamin C has any effect on the common cold, but did show vitamin C in quantities as large as Dr. Pauling advocated to have many negative side-effects, including chronic diarrhea and the risk of kidney stones. Nevertheless, the whole world believes it - then again, for all but the last five hundred years or so, most of the world thought the Earth was flat. So much for public opinion.
So the next time you start to feel a scratchy throat, remember the story of Linus Pauling before running out to buy blocks of Vitamin C. If you feel like it, you can even tell your friends, although I never did bother. Maybe I’ll try again once I have a Nobel prize.
Most people have never heard of Linus Pauling, but they unknowingly practice his most famous contribution to the scientific community. Dr. Linus Pauling is one of the most brilliant and influential chemists ever to live. Over his seventy-year career in the sciences, he researched subjects as important and widespread as chemical bonding, molecular disease and explosives. In addition to his impressive work in the field of science, he spent extensive time working with social issues, primarily to demonstrate the dangers of atmospheric nuclear tests. In 1954, he won the Nobel prize in chemistry for his work on the nature chemical bonds and the structure of molecules and crystals. Eight years later, he won the Nobel peace prize for, among other things, his work on a nuclear test ban treaty, thus making him the only person ever to be awarded two un-shared Nobel prizes. He discovered the alpha helix, paving the way for Watson and Crick to propose the structure of DNA five years later. No doubt about it, he was a living genius.
In the mid 1960's, Dr. Pauling became fascinated with the biochemistry of nutrition. He began combing through existing data taken for other purposes, to research what affect vitamin C had on the body. Although he never performed a single experiment to test his theory, using what he called 'physiological and evolutionary reasoning', he became convinced that vitamin C in large quantities would serve to prevent, or at least shorten the length of the common cold. In 1970, he published his 'findings' in a book titled "Vitamin C and the Common Cold" which quickly became a best seller. The public took the notion and ran with it - after all, if a Nobel-prize winning chemist says it's true, it had to be.
Since the release of his book, countless professional clinical trials have been performed to test Dr. Pauling's claim. Not one of them has ever proven him to be correct. A summary of 27 of the more large-scale trials by Dr. A. S. Truswell of the University of Sydney, Australia showed no evidence that vitamin C has any effect on the common cold, but did show vitamin C in quantities as large as Dr. Pauling advocated to have many negative side-effects, including chronic diarrhea and the risk of kidney stones. Nevertheless, the whole world believes it - then again, for all but the last five hundred years or so, most of the world thought the Earth was flat. So much for public opinion.
So the next time you start to feel a scratchy throat, remember the story of Linus Pauling before running out to buy blocks of Vitamin C. If you feel like it, you can even tell your friends, although I never did bother. Maybe I’ll try again once I have a Nobel prize.
posted by Nicholas at 1:32 PM
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