Healthy cells are aerobic, meaning that they function properly in the presence of sufficient oxygen. Healthy cells metabolize (burn) oxygen and glucose (blood sugar) to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is the energy “currency” of the cells. Cancer cells on the other hand are anaerobic meaning they function without oxygen. In the absence of oxygen, the cell reverts to a primitive nutritional program to sustain itself, converting glucose, by fermentation.
Put simply, Vitamin C works with metals in the body to create hydrogen peroxide. Whereas normal cells have the ability to reduce the effects of hydrogen peroxide, cancer cells do not.
The earliest experience of using high-dose IV vitamin C was by a Scottish surgeon, Ewan Cameron, and his colleague, Allan Campbell, in the 1970s. This work led to collaboration between Cameron and the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling, further promoting the potential of vitamin C therapy in cancer management. The results clearly indicate that this simple and safe therapy is of definite value in the treatment of patients with advanced cancer.
How Does Vitamin C Kill Cancer Cells?
We all know that Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant with abundant benefits including immune enhancement, protection from viruses and bacteria, cardiovascular protection, eye diseases, and even skin wrinkles. What many people may not know, however, is that high-dose IV Vitamin C, can kill cancer cells.
Put simply, Vitamin C works with metals in the body to create hydrogen peroxide. Whereas normal cells have the ability to reduce the effects of hydrogen peroxide, cancer cells do not. The high concentration of the resulting hydrogen peroxide damages the DNA of the cancer cells cuts off their energy supply and kills them. Vitamin C, even in very high doses, is toxic only to the cancer cells without harming the healthy cells in your body.
Opponents to the use of Vitamin C as a chemotherapeutic agent believe that it actually can protect cancer cells. However, this is only potentially true if small doses are used. Small doses may help the cancer cells arm themselves against the free-radical induced damage caused by chemotherapy and radiation. Only markedly higher doses of vitamin C will selectively build up as peroxide in the cancer cells to the point of acting in a manner similar to chemotherapy. These tumor-toxic dosages can only be obtained by intravenous administration.
What Other Benefits Does High Dose IV Vitamin C Have?
In addition to its benefit as a non-toxic chemotherapeutic agent, intravenous vitamin C also boosts immunity. It can stimulate collagen formation to help the body wall off the tumor. It inhibits hyaluronidase, an enzyme that tumors use to metastasize and invade other organs throughout the body. It induces apoptosis to help program cancer cells to die early.
If Vitamin C Fights Cancer, Why Doesn't Traditional Medicine Offer it?
One of the biggest hurdles is the critics pointing to the lack of controlled double-blind studies demonstrating High Dose Vitamin C’s efficacy in treating cancer. Double-blind studies are typically conducted by pharmaceutical companies. The studies are huge undertakings and prohibitively expensive. Vitamin C is a naturally occurring nutrient that cannot be patented and, therefore, drug companies are not willing to sponsor the research.
This is not to say that legitimate research has not been performed that demonstrates the curative effects of Vitamin C on many diseases including cancer. If you perform a search in PubMed, a government research database, you will find over 50,000 remarkable studies on Vitamin C. We have provided links to some of these studies below so that you can read this research yourself and feel confident that substantial evidence exists supporting the use of Vitamin C in cancer treatment.
Can Oral Vitamin C Help?
Unfortunately, the answer is no. The only way to get the blood levels of Vitamin C high enough to kill cancer cells is to administer it intravenously. Our intestinal tract limits the amount of Vitamin C we can absorb and is not tolerated by our digestive system at these levels. Even if you ingested only 10 g of vitamin C, you would only absorb approximately 5% (.5g) and would certainly develop a pretty severe case of diarrhea. Vitamin C administered intravenously has the benefit of bypassing this control system and you absorb 100% of the intake. Moreover, it does not cause stomach upset or diarrhea.
Is High Dose Vitamin C Safe?
Utopia Cancer Center recognizes the benefits of Vitamin C and has administered thousands of high dose therapies without incident. We believe there is substantial evidence that points to the benefits of High Dose Vitamin C Therapy for patients and, therefore, we offer this therapy as part of our Intensive Medical Program.
Contradictions
High-dose IV vitamin C is contraindicated in patients with an iron overload disease. It is also contradiction in patients with renal insufficiency or renal failure, or those undergoing dialysis.
References
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Yun J., Mullarky E., Lu C., Bosch K.N., Kavalier A., Rivera K., Roper J., Chio I.I., Giannopoulou E.G., Rago C., et al. Vitamin C selectively kills KRAS and BRAF mutant colorectal cancer cells by targeting GAPDH. Science. 2015;350:1391–1396. doi: 10.1126/science.aaa5004.
Cameron E., Campbell A. The orthomolecular treatment of cancer. II. Clinical trial of high-dose ascorbic acid supplements in advanced human cancer. Chem. Biol. Interact. 1974;9:285–315. doi: 10.1016/0009-2797(74)90019-2.
Cameron E., Pauling L. Supplemental ascorbate in the supportive treatment of cancer: Prolongation of survival times in terminal human cancer. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 1976;73:3685–3689. doi: 10.1073/pnas.73.10.3685.
Cameron E., Pauling L. Supplemental ascorbate in the supportive treatment of cancer: Reevaluation of prolongation of survival times in terminal human cancer. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 1978;75:4538–4542. doi: 10.1073/pnas.75.9.4538.
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Ha Y.M., Park M.K., Kim H.J., Seo H.G., Lee J.H., Chang K.C. High concentrations of ascorbic acid induces apoptosis of human gastric cancer cell by p38-MAP kinase-dependent up-regulation of transferrin receptor. Cancer Lett. 2009;277:48–54. doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2008.11.020.
Du J., Martin S.M., Levine M., Wagner B.A., Buettner G.R., Wang S.H., Taghiyev A.F., Du C., Knudson C.M., Cullen J.J. Mechanisms of ascorbate-induced cytotoxicity in pancreatic cancer. Clin. Cancer Res. Off. J. Am. Assoc. Cancer Res. 2010;16:509–520. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-09-1713.
Ma E., Chen P., Wilkins H.M., Wang T., Swerdlow R.H., Chen Q. Pharmacologic ascorbate induces neuroblastoma cell death by hydrogen peroxide mediated DNA damage and reduction in cancer cell glycolysis. Free. Radic. Biol. Med. 2017;113:36–47. doi: 10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2017.09.008.