Vitamin C and Immunity

We've all heard that vitamin C is a good thing when you've got the flu, or for preventing the flu.  I've never really given much thought to this, since I assumed that the large quantities of orange juice I used to drink would give me what I needed.

Paul Jaminet at the Perfect Health Diet has a fascinating post on the effects of C on the immune system when it's under stress, why supplementation seems to be a good idea, and what the downsides of supplementation are.

He posts this as a follow-up to the case of Alan Smith's remarkable recovery from swine flu, against the best efforts of his doctors to kill him.  I was quite skeptical of the story of how vitamin C helped Smith recover, but after reading Jaminet's follow-up, it makes quite a bit of sense that this would work.

Jaminet's two prior posts on Smith's case are at the link above.

UPDATE: Here's the direct link to the video of Alan Smith's case, at my wife's request. ;)