Vitamin C Prescription — One Molecule. Three Medicines.

The gummy in your cabinet and the IV in the clinic are the same compound.

At 60 milligrams, vitamin C prevents scurvy. At a few grams, it fills the tissues that run on it. At fifty grams in a vein, it stops behaving like a nutrient and starts behaving like a drug. Vitamin C Prescription is the story of how one name hid three interventions for a century — and the practical question that untangles all of it: at what dose, by what route?

What this book changes for you

Not chapter summaries — outcomes. Three things a reader can do by the last page that most people, and many busy clinicians, currently can't.

Read the evidence like an insider

Six studies, three positive, three null — a coin flip? No: three different interventions filed under one name. You'll ask the dose-and-route question of every study, label, and headline, and watch a century of "contradictions" resolve into a coherent story.

Run a protocol that actually fits you

A plain baseline — one gram of ascorbic acid daily, split with meals, a few dollars a month — then a free, lab-free method to find your personal number, and clear adjustments for illness, hard training, surgery, smoking, and age.

Have the physician conversation well

Know the real, narrow cautions — kidney stones, kidney disease, iron overload — the answerable questions to ask, and the single five-page paper worth handing over, so the conversation produces judgment instead of a shrug.

What early readers are saying

Advance-copy reactions from readers on both sides of the stethoscope.

"The aspirin analogy in chapter one rearranged my head. Nobody tests aspirin at ten milligrams and declares it useless — and I'd been doing exactly that with vitamin C my whole career."
Placeholder — physician reader
Family medicine, 22 years in practice

"I came in convinced this would be either a debunking or a sales pitch. It's neither. The chapter on the Mayo trials is the fairest account of a scientific dispute I've read in years."
Placeholder — skeptical reader
Science journalist

"Chapter 16 alone is worth the price. I finally have a protocol I understand, a way to find my own dose, and the exact questions to bring to my doctor instead of a stack of printouts."
Placeholder — general reader
Marathon runner & caregiver

About Dalton West

Dalton West holds a bachelor's degree in Biomedical Science with a minor in Chemistry from Brigham Young University–Idaho and is pursuing a career in medicine. His interest in vitamin C began with a simple question:

Why is there such a large gap between what most people are told about vitamin C and what has actually been studied?

That question grew into an extensive investigation of the scientific literature — vitamin C's biochemistry, its evolutionary history, its role in human physiology, its therapeutic potential, and the controversies that have surrounded it for decades. The Vitamin C Prescription grew from that investigation. Rather than asking readers to accept either the enthusiasm or the skepticism that has long surrounded the molecule, West invites them to examine the evidence for themselves.

He brings an unusual vantage point to the subject: he was raised around a family clinic in Pocatello, Idaho — open since 1916, five generations of the same family practicing in one building — that has used vitamin C at every tier this book describes: as a nutrient, as a high-dose supplement, and as an intravenous therapy. Watching all three in one place is what made the book's central observation possible.

Raised in Idaho, West has long been drawn to the intersection of biochemistry, nutrition, physiology, and preventive medicine. When he isn't studying science, he can usually be found outdoors — fly fishing, dirt biking, snowmobiling, or exploring the mountains of Idaho.

Questions the book answers head-on

Chapter 15 clears the myths in one sweep — from both the skeptics and the enthusiasts. A sample:

"Don't you just pee it out?"

True — and it means the opposite of what it's used to mean. The kidney reclaims ascorbate up to a threshold and discards the surplus, so vitamin C appears in urine only once the blood has reached its ceiling and the tissues are drawing what they need. Excretion is the signal that the tank is full. The person excreting none is the sick or depleted one, whose tissues are still absorbing everything the blood delivers.

Does vitamin C cause kidney stones?

Overstated, but not empty. A fraction of ascorbate becomes oxalate, and large cohort studies in men found a modest association between gram-level supplementation and first stones — while comparable studies in women found none. The risk is small and concentrated in people already prone to stones. The book's advice: anyone with a stone history talks to their physician first, and everyone at high doses drinks generously.

Is high-dose vitamin C a cancer cure?

No — and the book says so plainly. What the evidence supports: a mechanism confirmed in human tissue, a strong safety record, credible evidence of reduced treatment toxicity and improved quality of life, and encouraging but uncontrolled survival signals in small trials. No phase III demonstration of extended survival exists, and anyone claiming a cure is doing damage to patients and to the research alike.

Does it prevent colds?

Not for the general population — the trial data are extensive and consistent. Regular supplementation shortens colds by roughly eight percent in adults. The striking exception: in people under severe physical stress — marathon runners, skiers, soldiers on subarctic exercises — regular supplementation cut cold incidence roughly in half. The general claim fails; the specific one is well supported.

Is "natural" vitamin C better than synthetic?

Ascorbic acid is one molecule with one structure, and the body cannot tell its origin — comparative absorption studies find them equivalent. What whole food adds is the accompanying flavonoids and plant compounds, which is a genuine argument for eating fruit and a poor argument for paying a premium for "natural" supplements.

What research is this book built on?

The primary literature, cited chapter by chapter and collected in Appendix B: from James Lind's 1747 trial and Szent-Györgyi's isolation of ascorbic acid, through the Mayo trials, to the 1990s NIH pharmacokinetic work in PNAS and the Annals of Internal Medicine that explains why oral and intravenous vitamin C are pharmacologically different interventions. The book is explicit about which claims rest on trials, which on case series, and which remain open questions.