Why is that? It is because of vitamin C. But, you say, you have never seen any bow-wows at the vitamin counter, nor near the citrus at the grocery. So what gives?

Hickey explains, "Cats and dogs manufacture their own vitamin C."

And, no, not in a lab, silly, in their bodies.

Hickey said this is true of nearly all plants and nearly all animals. "Humans are a little bit strange," he says.

Hickey says humans are odd because our bodies can no longer make the Ascorbic Acid as they once did. So to get a dog's life today, as far as heart health, we have got to get C from food and supplements. And that intake may provide more than just heart health.

"Over the last 30 years," Hickey says, "we have had repeated reports and case study data of cures and highly effective treatments, treatments that increase the life span of terminal cancer patients, [increase their] expected life span by a factor of three."

So, are Americans getting enough to keep major diseases at bay? Well, that is a good question. The government says we don't need much.

The RDA, or Recommended Daily Allowance, for vitamin C suggests that men should get 75 milligrams a day and women 90 milligrams. Yet a dog the size of an adult would internally make about 2,500 milligrams.

For Hickey, the human recommendation is way too low, and should be closer to what an animal, like a dog, would make.

Dr. Hickey continues, "A normal, healthy individual might look for a 500 milligram vitamin C tablet and take it with every meal."

Nutrition researcher Carol Johnston at Arizona State University says, based on her own research and other vitamin C studies, she personally takes 1000 milligrams (1 gram) a day.

The government RDA, however, will only keep most people from getting scurvy, a wasting disease that leads to weakness of skin, gums and blood vessels; reduced ability to fight disease; and premature death.

You might expect that scurvy only exists in poor countries, but Johnston says scurvy is on the rise in America.

Data from 20 years ago put five percent of adults at scurvy levels, with the unexpected current figures at 15 percent.

Hickey says if there were an emphasis on the 1000 milligrams daily, those millions at scurvy levels would diminish and the rest of the population would be healthier. He says part of that better health would be increased resistance to deadly germs, as well as those annoying, but all too common, colds that plague us every winter.

So what error led our government down the wrong path on vitamin C? They did not account for vitamin C's half-life of half an hour. Half-lives measure depletion from the blood.

In a research study, the government waited 12 hours before looking at blood levels of people taking high and low doses. After 20-some half lives, both the high and low doses had depleted to the same level in the blood. Low doses thus appeared just as good as high doses.

Hickey says that is bad science, betraying a bias for low doses. He states, "Instead of looking at that as a hypothesis, as an idea to be tested, an idea to be thrown away, if possible, they looked at it -- and look at it -- as a scientific law."

Hickey says that the bias against lavishing vitamin C on people's diets is widespread and goes back many years. "The medical establishment had actually got it wrong, and their science was poor, and the physicians who were claiming enormous benefits for high doses -- their science was correct," he remarks.

Hickey says that the government should have paid attention to literally thousands of studies suggesting that more vitamin C is better

"Taken as a whole," he says, "that evidence invalidates the hypothesis that small doses and low blood levels are all a person needs for good health."

Why exactly is vitamin C so important, and why might getting more make a difference?

The well-known benefit of C is as an antioxidant. That is, C helps protect the body from the damage of daily living. Not as well-known is C's crucial role in forming collagen in the body. Collagen can be called the body's glue. That means it is crucial for the strength and flexibility of the blood vessels, a bastion against heart disease.

And vitamin C's antibiotic properties appear strongest at very high doses of vitamin C. Some physicians have used as much as a thousand times the RDA intravenously to treat certain diseases.

"And, that difference in magnitude is enormous," Hickey says. "It's the difference between the speed of a snail and the speed of a jet."

Even our ancient diet is believed to have included as much as 600 milligrams a day. To get that amount today, people would have to eat all fruit, all the time. And that, of course, is not practical today.

Still, Hickey does recommend the fruits and vegetables. He says, "The different colors might indicate different levels of antioxidants within those skins and what you're looking for is a lot of different colored fruits and vegetables."

Yet, he says, don't count on those fruits and vegetable for your vitamin C; they will not guarantee a person consistent and high-enough levels of the vitamin.

CBN News asked Dr. Hickey what was the best form of vitamin C to take. Hickey responded, "Well, an ideal form is vitamin C powder, because it's low cost and it's easy to take."

The trouble is, standard medicine has long had evidence that the nation's top killer -- yes, heart disease and strokes -- result from low vitamin C

"But in the past half a century, says Hickey, "the medical establishment has not performed even a simple experiment to refute that hypothesis."

Hickey says those experiments need to be done, and if not, about 95 percent of the population could rightfully assume they are not getting enough vitamin C.

The importance of vitamin C for good health is becoming increasingly evident, but with medical and government policies increasingly downplaying the nutrient, consumers are led to believe that a little dab will do you -- but it won't.

NOTE: If you have problems with acid reflux or excess stomach acid, opt for the "buffered" form of vitamin C

By Gailon Totheroh
CBN News Science & Medical Reporter