Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Can vitamin c cure cancer?

Vitamin C and cancer is an interesting topic to talk as there are lot of evidence which suggest that vitamin c has n ability to cure some cancers. There have been reports of massive doses of vitamin C curing cancers. However, there is no reliable evidence that doses up to 10 g per day have any beneficial effect on survival or on the general condition of the patient. Patients having cancer of the breast with metastases in bone have obtained some relief of deep bone the pain associated with the condition. There has been no cure or regression of the cancer. Even with these patients ascorbic acid (vitamin C) does not have an advantage over analgesics.

Vitamin C prevents the formation of nitrosocarcinogens from nitrites. This prevention can occur in vivo, in the alimentary tract. It can also be used as a means of preventing formation of nitrosocarcinogens in food.

The conventional wisdom of how antioxidants such as vitamin C help prevent cancer growth is that they grab up volatile oxygen free radical molecules and prevent the damage they are known to do to our delicate DNA.

Injections of high doses of vitamin C have almost halved the rate of tumour growth in mice, leading US researchers to believe it may be useful in the treatment of cancer in humans.

The idea that vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, could be used to treat cancer was advanced in the 1970s by American scientist Linus Pauling, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1954.
The notion was controversial and studies failed to show a benefit. But those studies involved vitamin C given orally.
In the latest study researchers injected the vitamin C to enable greater concentrations of it to get into the system.
Injections were necessary because the body regulates vitamin C when ingested, so that higher doses cannot be attained.
The claim that vitamin C is useful in the treatment of cancer is largely attributable to Linus Pauling, Ph.D. In 1976 and 1978, he and a Scottish surgeon, Ewan Cameron, M.B., Ch.B., reported that patients treated with high doses of vitamin C had survived three to four times longer than similar patients who did not receive vitamin C supplements. The study was conducted during the early 1970s at the Vale of Leven Hospital in Loch Lomonside, Scotland. Dr. Cameron treated 100 advanced cancer patients with 10,000 milligrams grams of vitamin C per day. The clinical course of these patients was then compared with that of 1,000 patients of other doctors whose records were obtained from the same hospital, but who had received no vitamin C. The findings were published in 1976, with Pauling as co-author, in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences

Vegetables and cancer risk

can you die from vitamin c toxicity?

can you die from excess vitamin?


Vitamin B2 toxicity


0 comments: