Owen,
I had a customer contact me today (a nurse) who truly believes that her Tower HeartTech use (2 jars monthly for six months) has affected her calcium and copper levels to the point where she is very symptomatic. In doing some research I found this article that describes some of these levels that megascorbate therapy can alter and why, and I wonder if you are aware of most of these:
http://www.acu-cell.com/vitc.html
She says that she tried to join the vitamin C forum to speak about this but that no one responded to or granted her request via e-mail.
First, people must email me after they register with the email generated by the registration request from the forum. We had to institute this step because of all the spam. I'd be happy to activate her when I know her username.
I believe we have discussed this article before. Other than symptoms, does she have any blood work or other evidence?
For example, from that link, taking it at face value, if she has high copper levels, she cannot take enough C, and if her copper is too low, she would then have an inflamatory response, or am I missing something? So she thinks her copper is too low?
People with very high Copper levels rarely reach optimum levels of Vitamin C (i.e. optimal benefits), unless they take in excess of 1,000 mg / day, or unless they lower copper first through other means, and I not only see patients supplementing Vitamin C in the 5,000 mg -10,000 mg range and just barely reach normal levels, but they start to suffer from medical symptoms as soon as they reduce that amount.
When exhibiting copper overload, or when there is a tendency to retain too much copper (which applies to a majority of the population), and if a multi-vitamin / mineral formulation is used, a brand should be chosen that is copper-free. Iron can be a problem for some people as well, but from personal clinical experience, iron overload is not the universal problem it has been made out to be by some sources.
In contrast, there may be those whose copper level is on the low side, and they feel a cold coming on, so they start to take a few grams of Vitamin C. Even after just a few days of doing so, copper levels may drop to a point of provoking an inflammatory response."
Notice that even this article says that low iron is a rare problem, implying that high vitamin C is required for the vast majority.
There are a lot of assertions in this article about the effects of vitamin C on minerals, but how valid are they in the vast majority? I take 15 to 20 g daily, why am I not symptomatic? Remember, the basic answer is always - why don't these effects happen in the majority of the animal kingdom which makes their own vitamin C 24/7.