Monday, April 23, 2007
Benefits of vitamin C in fighting the cancerCombined administration of vitamin C and vitamin K given prior to chemotherapy increased survival and the effect of several chemotherapeutic agents in a Murine ascitic liver tumour model.
The vitamin combination did not increase the toxicity of these agents to healthy tissue.
As well as being safe to use concurrently with chemotherapeutic agents, vitamin C has also been shown to be not only safe to be used concurrently with radiation, but has been shown to have a radio protective effect on normal cells while concurrently having a radio sensitizing effect on malignant ones.
Orthomolecular treatment improves the quality of life, decreases side effects and is palatable. “There can be no logical reason today why most of the research funds should go only toward the examination of more chemotherapy and more ways of giving radiation.
There must be a major expansion into the use of orthomolecular therapy to sort out the variables and to determine how to improve the therapeutic outcome of treatment.”
Theoretical and Experimental Applications of Vitamin C in Cancer
Proposed mechanisms of vitamin C activity in the prevention and treatment of cancer include:
• enhancement of the immune system by increased lymphocyte production;
• stimulation of collagen formation, necessary for ‘walling off' tumours;
• inhibition of hyaluronidase, keeping the tumour intact and preventing metastasis;
• inhibition of oncogenic viruses;
• correction of an ascorbate deficiency, often seen in cancer patients;
• expedition of wound healing after cancer surgery;
• enhancement of the effect of certain chemotherapy drugs,
• reduction of the toxicity of other chemotherapeutic agents;
• prevention of cellular free radical damage;
• neutralization of carcinogenic substances.
What is not commonly appreciated is that tumours exhibit sensitivity to free radical damage and to high concentrations of antioxidants. It is apparent that tumour cells lack catalase, glutathione peroxidase, manganese SOD (superoxide dismutase) and copper-zinc SOD.
This indicates that tumour cells lack free radical protective mechanisms. Further evidence for this lies in the fact that many of the chemotherapeutic agents utilized today act via the generation of highly reactive free radicals, which cause damage to malignant cells ( and normal cells too, unfortunately)
