Key Takeaways:

• Makes a detailed biochemical case that humans, unlike most animals, cannot synthesize vitamin C and therefore may require far larger amounts for optimal health than they typically consume.
• Argues that chronic, low‑grade vitamin C deficiency contributes to a wide spectrum of degenerative diseases and that high‑dose supplementation can play a major preventive and therapeutic role.
• Synthesizes animal experiments, human case reports, and evolutionary reasoning to present vitamin C as a “missing stress hormone” in human physiology.
• Strongly influences Linus Pauling and the broader orthomolecular medicine movement, turning vitamin C into a central focus of late‑20th‑century nutritional therapy debates.