Vitamin C Treatment Cuts Tumor Growth in Mice
“NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Aug 04 – Parenteral treatment with vitamin C can reduce the growth of aggressive tumor xenografts in mice, according to a report in the August 4th Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Old Wine in New Bottles
The article below is rather astonishing but long, long overdue. In fact, what this study, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says is that when mice are given an aggressive form of cancer (glioblastoma, a virulent brain tumor) and then given a single [presumed high] dose of Vitamin C. The result is that the tumor growth was slowed.
When daily doses were given to mice who had brain, ovarian and pancreatic cancers implanted in their abdomens, the results were dramatic although “cure” did not result.”
Well, of course it did not. Used by a nutritional physician, Vitamin C is not given alone. It is part of a total regimen including diet, supplements, exercise, detoxification, etc.
So their conclusion, although naive, is quite hopeful because the barrier between themselves and common sense about nutritional therapies put up for so long by mainstream medicine might, just might, be breaking down as the conventional cancer therapies fail and fail and fail.
For years, as you know, Vitamin C treatment for cancer was demonized. There were periodic reports, of course, like this, but they tended to disappear without a trace. Perhaps this one will be the one that opens the gates for wide acceptance of the wisdom that the natural medicine community, through all of its practitioners, has accummulated for so long.
You see, in my office, and the office of every other nutritional physician, naturopath, homeopath, etc., results that never, never occur in the treatment of chronic, degenerative diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases, arthritis, allergies, autism, etc., etc. We treat causes, not down-stream events like the diseases after the nutritional and toxic problems have taken their toll. That’s why we already know about treatments like Vitamin C (+ other aspects of the protocol) for our cancer patients! After all, we have had wonderful teachers, for example, Linus Pauling!
Keep educating your friends, relatives and doctors. We are right, after all! Our clinical experiences, and those of our patients, make that very, very clear!
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
www.Organics4U.org
Although vitamin C is typically thought of as an antioxidant, Dr. Mark Levine and colleagues show in the new study that it can also act as a prooxidant. The results also indicate that at pharmacologic levels, the essential nutrient elicits hydrogen peroxide-dependent cytotoxicity only toward cancer cells, leaving normal cells unscathed.
Testing in mice with glioblastoma xenografts showed that a single parenteral dose of vitamin C leads to free radical formation in tumor interstitial fluids, but not in the blood, Dr. Levine, from National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and co-authors found.
Daily treatment with vitamin C significantly slowed the growth of glioblastoma, ovarian cancer, and pancreatic cancer in mice.
To gauge the therapeutic potential of vitamin C, the researchers administered the nutrient intravenously to humans and found that concentrations corresponding to the efficacious levels in mice were, in fact, achievable.
Despite these encouraging results, the authors note that “use of pharmacologic ascorbate as a single agent was not curative.” Still, they believe that it could be used in combination with other therapies to increase the efficacy against prognostically poor malignancies, such as those examined in the study.
Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2008.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/578577?sssdmh=dm1.374026&src=nldne