The Effectiveness of Vitamin C Cancer Treatment
Intravenous Vitamin C for alternative cancer treatment, also known as ascorbic acid, has been producing overwhelmingly positive results in human testing when used alone or in conjunction with traditional chemotherapy treatment for cancer patients. When used in high doses, between 50 to 100 grams, intravenously as opposed to orally, it has proven to have both a vastly positive results and low risk factors and side effects.
Role of Vitamin C in Cancer Treatment
The vitamin can increase the quality of life for cancer patients. Patients in studies have reported:
- Feelings of increased alertness
- Elimination or decrease of pain
- More energy
- Better appetites
- An increase in an overall feeling of well-being
Vitamin C treatment has also been shown in clinical trials to increase survival time and has demonstrated dramatic cancer cell-killing ability.
Vitamin C as Cancer Treatment
- Reverse cancer cell’s resistance to chemotherapy
- Help patients overcome drug and multi-drug resistance
- Enhance drug delivery
- Increase chemotherapy’s cancer cell killing ability
In fact, high-dose Vitamin C enhances cancer immunotherapy and incorporation with chemotherapy can spark a patient to respond to cancer treatment like never before including rapid tumor shrinking. Some data even suggest that when Vitamin C is used in conjunction with chemotherapy that a smaller dose of chemotherapy may be used to the same effect as regular strength chemotherapy.
Perhaps most importantly, however, many studies have shown that intravenous Vitamin C increases the survival time of cancer patients; in the Vale of Leven study, 100 cancer patients treated with intravenous and oral Vitamin C as well as traditional cancer treatment were compared to 1,000 cancer patients who did not receive Vitamin C treatment.
In this study, 90% of the group treated with vitamin C lived an average of three times longer than those who were not given this treatment. The 10% remaining could not be determined as they were still alive at the time of gathering data.
References on Vitamin C
Vitamin C and cancer: examination of the Vale of Leven trial results using broad inductive reasoning
Jaffey M. Vitamin C and cancer: examination of the Vale of Leven trial results using broad inductive reasoning. Med Hypotheses. 1982 Jan;8(1):49-84. doi: 10.1016/0306-9877(82)90089-5. PMID: 7038410. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0306987782900895?via%3Dihub
Abstract
Cameron and Pauling have reported large survival increases in terminal cancer patients treated with Vitamin C. Their trials, which have been criticized because not based on random, double-blind principles, are reviewed here using a broad inductive method that relies on diverse data of varying quality.
Conclusions are offered both on the value of Vitamin C and on this broad method, as follows: There is a strong possibility that Vitamin C very approximately doubled survival time as measured from the start of Vitamin C treatment, regardless of whether this was after termination of conventional treatment or much earlier.
A recent Mayo Clinic trial which concluded that Vitamin C is valueless in the terminal stage may be given an alternative interpretation that supports this view. Despite a speculative element because based only on the condensed, published data, these conclusions have the sufficient possibility of validity as to call for full further investigation.
The conclusions on the method are that the broad, inductive approach may have potential value when the randomized method cannot be used; that it also may facilitate, to the public’s benefit, the release of probably valuable, inexpensive, non-toxic treatments pending decisive proof; and a greater return on the research dollar might result from a formal acceptance of the probabilistic element in scientific proof.
Intravenous Vitamin C and Cancer: A Systematic Review
Abstract
Background: Intravenous vitamin C (IVC) is a contentious adjunctive cancer therapy, widely used in naturopathic and integrative oncology settings. We conducted a systematic review of human interventional and observational studies assessing IVC for use in cancer patients.
Methods: We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, CINAHL, and AMED from inception to April 2013 for human studies examining the safety, effectiveness, or pharmacokinetics of IVC use in cancer patients.
Results: Of 897 records, a total of 39 reports of 37 studies were included: 2 randomized controlled trials (RCTs), 15 uncontrolled trials, 6 observational studies, and 14 case reports. IVC dosing ranged from 1 g to more than 200 g ascorbic acid per infusion, typically administered 2 to 3 times weekly. IVC does not appear to increase toxicity or interfere with antitumor effects of gemcitabine/erlotinib therapy or paclitaxel and carboplatin.
Based on 1 RCT and data from uncontrolled human trials, IVC may improve time to relapse and possibly enhance reductions in tumor mass and improve survival in combination with chemotherapy.
IVC may improve quality of life, physical function, and toxicities associated with chemotherapy, including fatigue, nausea, insomnia, constipation, and depression. Case reports document several instances of tumor regression and long-term disease-free survival associated with use of IVC.
Conclusion: There is limited high-quality clinical evidence on the safety and effectiveness of IVC. The existing evidence is preliminary and cannot be considered conclusive but is suggestive of a good safety profile and potentially important antitumor activity.
However, more rigorous evidence is needed to conclusively demonstrate these effects. IVC may improve the quality of life and symptom severity of patients with cancer, and several cases of cancer remission have been reported. Well-designed, controlled studies of IVC therapy are needed.
High-Dose Vitamin C Therapy and Cancer
Over the past century, the notion that vitamin C can be used to treat cancer has generated much controversy. However, new knowledge regarding the pharmacokinetic properties of vitamin C and recent high-profile preclinical studies have revived interest in the utilization of high-dose vitamin C for cancer treatment. Studies have shown that pharmacological vitamin C targets many of the mechanisms that cancer cells utilize for their survival and growth. In this Opinion article, we discuss how vitamin C can target three vulnerabilities many cancer cells share: redox imbalance, epigenetic reprogramming, and oxygen-sensing regulation. Although the mechanisms and predictive biomarkers that we discuss need to be validated in well-controlled clinical trials, these new discoveries regarding the anticancer properties of vitamin C are promising to help identify patient populations that may benefit the most from high-dose vitamin C therapy, developing effective combination strategies and improving the overall design of future vitamin C clinical trials for various types of cancer.
Vitamin C and Cancer
Vitamin C (VitC) is known to directly impair cancer cell growth in preclinical models, but there is little clinical evidence of its antitumoral efficacy. In addition, whether and how VitC modulates anticancer immune responses is mostly unknown. Here, we show that a fully competent immune system is required to maximize the antiproliferative effect of VitC in breast, colorectal, melanoma, and pancreatic murine tumors. High-dose VitC modulates infiltration of the tumor microenvironment by cells of the immune system and delays cancer growth in a T cell-dependent manner. VitC not only enhances the cytotoxic activity of adoptively transferred CD8 T cells but also cooperates with immune checkpoint therapy (ICT) in several cancer types. A combination of VitC and ICT can be curative in models of mismatch repair-deficient tumors with the high mutational burden. This work provides a rationale for clinical trials combining ICT with high doses of VitC.
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