Vitamin C and Cancer

Linus Pauling was a chemist, peace activist, educator, author, and two time winner of the Nobel Peace prize. Dr. Pauling began studying the treatment of cancer using vitamin C in the 1970's. He and a colleague showed promising results providing large doses of vitamin C (10g or 10,000mg/ day) to 100 patients who had been deemed "terminal" by their medical doctors, living an average of 210 days from the start of Vitamin C therapy as compared to 50 days for a comparable group of hospitalized patients.

So hopeful and impressive were these initial results that the Mayo Clinic undertook the study of vitamin C with a group of patients diagnosed with terminal colorectal cancer. No medical treatment had been shown to be effective for this cancer, and so Mayo clinic researchers felt it was ethical to try the vitamin therapy. Though the patients felt well on the therapy, tests showed that their tumors were not receding, and in some cases, were growing, so the researchers ceased the trial, stating that they felt it was unethical to continue a treatment that was not reducing tumors. Paradoxically, they placed the patients on the medical treatment fluorouracil, the very treatment that had been repeatedly proven to be both toxic and ineffective in treating colorectal cancer.

Since Dr. Pauling's findings and the subsequent Mayo clinic trial, we are still waiting for substantive research on vitamin C and cancer to occur, but here is what I know.

Vitamin C affects the immune system, which must be functioning well to prevent or heal cancer. White blood cells (WBC's), the immune system's primary therapeutic agent, contain vitamin C. Research shows that WBC's taken from people with cancer have less vitamin C in them than those taken from healthy people.

I know that vitamin C is non-toxic and is shed by the body if taken in too high doses. Vitamin C occurs in nature but may be lacking due to poor food quality or dietary choices. I know that when I had cancer, I opted for safe, simple, cheap vitamin C and capped my dosage at the point where the "C" was being shed in diarrhea, approximately 7 – 8 g/day. I know that I continue to eat vitamin C-rich foods and take an anti-oxidant vitamin today.

And Nicholai? You can bet he takes vitamin C each day, 2 – 3 g in divided doses through the day.