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From these facts, some vitamin enthusiasts have leaped to the conclusion that the substances can prevent or control many diseases. Irwin Stone, a California-based biochemist, regards vitamin C as a magic bullet that not only can help man avoid scurvy but can serve as a treatment for cancer, heart disease and schizophrenia. Nobel-prizewinning Chemist Linus Pauling has advocated large doses to prevent or cure the common cold. Dr. Wilfrid Shute, a Canadian cardiologist, believes that proper use of vitamin E can aid in treatment of damaged hearts. Others recommend vitamin E for hypertension and rheumatic fever; some claim that it will promote sexual potency.
No one, however, has done more to popularize the use of vitamins than Adelle Davis, whose books and television appearances have established her as one of the country's leading health-food advocates (see box, page 72). But some of Davis' claims, as well as those of her fellow vitamin advocates, are still unproved. Doctors can find no conclusive evidence that vitamin C in large doses prevents heart disease or effectively treats cancer. Vitamin C's function as a cold cure is also uncertain. Its safety—if taken in quantities hundreds of times greater than the recommended daily requirement of about 60 mg.—is questionable. Though deficiencies of vitamin E will produce the symptoms of muscular dystrophy in rats, doctors are not yet convinced that such symptoms may exist in humans. "Vitamin E," say some physicians, "is a cure looking for a disease."
Other vitamins can actually be harmful. Vitamin A can be dangerous if taken in excess. Overdoses of vitamin D can produce demineralization of bone, resulting in multiple fractures after minimal trauma. Though lack of vitamins may cause health problems, the pills are not—and should not be—regarded as panaceas. "People," says Philip White, an American Medical Association nutrition expert, "have been led to believe that positive health benefits will occur: super vitality, great endurance, freedom from illness, resistance to infection. Supposedly these benefits result from supplementing an already adequate diet. They cannot."
Health, however, is not the only concern of food-conscious Americans. Many, aware that to be overweight is to be unattractive, are trying to diet their way to slimness. Broadly speaking, they have two alternatives: they can follow regimens that promise rapid weight loss through the elimination of almost all carbohydrates, or they can try a more sensible system of eating that restricts quantity rather than variety and pares off pounds more slowly.
Many dieters opt for the eccentric. They have no lack of plans from which to choose. Ice cream fiends can find an ice cream diet, lovers of martinis, whipped cream or bananas can find diets that emphasize their favorite foods. Some crash diets seem more popular than others. Among them: