Linus Pauling — "I don't think there's anything wrong with taking a lot of vitamin C."
I don't think there's anything wrong with taking a lot of vitamin C.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Taking high doses of vitamin C is perfectly fine and potentially beneficial. The speaker dismisses concerns about megadose supplementation, suggesting that consuming far more than the recommended daily amount poses no real health risk and may offer protective or therapeutic advantages that conventional medicine underestimates or ignores.
Relevance to Linus Pauling
Pauling was a two-time Nobel laureate who became obsessed with vitamin C in his later career, claiming megadoses prevented colds and cancer. He personally took enormous daily doses and co-authored studies promoting orthomolecular medicine. This belief defined his controversial later legacy, setting him against mainstream medical consensus despite his unparalleled scientific credentials.
The era
Pauling's vitamin C advocacy peaked in the 1970s-80s, during an era of growing public distrust of pharmaceutical companies and rising interest in alternative health movements. The counterculture had normalized questioning medical authority, and self-medication with supplements became a mainstream phenomenon. His prestige lent scientific legitimacy to what critics considered pseudoscientific nutritional megadosing.
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