Vitamin C to Shrink Tumour

Vitamin C, or we call it ascorbic acid is an essential
nutrient commonly regarded as an antioxidant,
protecting cells from the damaging effects of free
radicals.

There's a new study showed that vitamin C can
slowed tumour growth by half. Maybe,
you want to start relate to the antioxidant effect again,
the protecting from free radicals, and so on.

Well, I must tell you: This time, the legendary
vitamin C,
acts as pro-oxidant!

It's a research from the National Institutes
of Health
(NIH),
USA, showing that vitamin C at pharmacologic
concentrations was a pro-oxidant, generating
hydrogen-peroxide-dependent cytotoxicity
toward a variety of cancer cells in vitro without
adversely affecting normal cells.

While in vivo, the researchers injected
immune-deficient
mice with cells from three aggressive human
cancers – ovarian and pancreatic tumours,
plus a form of brain cancer called glioblastoma – and
found that vitamin C injections slowed
tumour growth
by up to 53%.

The untreated and ascorbate treated mice showing
effects of injected vitamin C

The injections were important,
when we take vitamin C supplements or eat
foods containing vitamin C,
natural physical controls regulate the amount of
vitamin C our bodies are able to absorb. Means,
we can never achieve pharmacologic
plasma concentration of vitamin C through orally.

When you eat foods containing more than 200
milligrams of vitamin C per day day
(for examples, lots of oranges), your body will
prevent the plasma concentration of vitamin C from
exceeding a narrow range.



The dose they use in the study, was up to
4g/kg of bodyweight, which can be achieve only
by bypassing the normal controls, through injecting
vitamin C into the veins or abdominal cavities of the
body.

The researchers discovered that vitamin
C's anti-cancer effect is due to the formation
of hydrogen peroxide (a common disinfectant)
in the fluid surrounding cells in the tumours.
However,
normal cells were unaffected.

A reminder: The study was done on MICE. So,
to apply it on human, it needs more time.


For desperate patients, DO NOT start taking large
doses of the vitamin C after reading this article.
That may be dangerous, because vitamin C
when taken orally, is acting as anti-oxidant,
and it could undermine the effectiveness
of standard
cancer drugs and radiation therapy.

The anti-cancer effect of vitamin C in this study is
using pharmacological dose of vitamin C,
intravenously!
via

Reference:

1. Qi Chen et al. Pharmacologic doses of ascorbate
   
2. act as a prooxidant and decrease growth of
   
3. aggressive tumor xenografts in mice.
   
4. PNAS 2008; doi: 10.1073/pnas.0804226105