High Doses Of Vitamin C Confirmed To Aggressively Kill Cancer Cells

Science has been split on whether vitamin C is useful in the fight against cancer, with detractors focusing on studies showing it not to work and conveniently ignoring that many of these studies that were inconclusive weren’t tested enough to unlock effectiveness.

Scientists from the University of Iowa have confirmed that high doses of vitamin C does selectively kill cancer cells without damaging normal cells: one study shows it to reduce mutations that cause cancer in mice, and another shows it can kill up to 50% of human lymphoma cells.

Injecting mice with high doses of vitamin C was found to have stopped leukemia cancer stem cells from growing by scientists from the Perlmutter Cancer Center, who suggest this is likely achieved by signalling the faulty cells in bone marrow to die. Adding it to typical chemotherapy drugs was found to have extended average survival times of pancreatic cancer patients from 5.6 months to 12 months in another study.

Injecting high doses of vitamin C into human ovarian cells found it to target ovarian cancer cells without harming healthy cells by scientists from the University of Kansas who went on to repeat the study on mice and human subjects.

A review published in Puerto Rico Health Sciences Journal looking at studies using higher doses of vitamin C intravenously concluded it was effective against tumors, but noted its efficacy could not be judged when administered orally. These researchers called for more research into vitamin C’s possible cancer fighting powers that went unanswered.

Although not widely accepted patients have been getting high doses of vitamin C treatments at alternative cancer clinics. Those who are wary of IVs are finding it difficult to get the high blood concentration needed for this treatment to work when taking orally.

A new player has entered the cancer battle arena via a new form of vitamin C that could be a game changer: Liposomal vitamin C. This new contender can create levels in the blood that are 100-500 times greater than those typically achieved by oral ingestion, making it easier to use to fight cancer. This new form of vitamin C is encapsulated in lecithin shielding it from digestive enzymes that will break it down; as it makes its way through the digestive system it is absorbed by the intestines before being transported to the liver where it is then released into the bloodstream.

This new method of delivering high levels of vitamin C will put an end to waste and gastric upset that can be seen with conventional vitamin C tablets while maintaining high blood concentrations. However, whether this makes it way to the mainstream one day remains to be seen as it will give riskier treatments such as chemotherapy a run for their money, after all chemotherapy has been very profitable for the medical and pharmaceutical industry.