October 4, 2013 | By Dr. Ronald Hoffman Download this page in PDF formatFor more than 20 years, the Hoffman Center has been using high-dose vitamin C drips in its cancer support protocols. The initial impetus was from Linus Pauling who, together with Ewan Cameron, pioneered the use of high-dose C in cancer in the 1960s. Now, there’s new interest in this modality for fighting cancer based on new, exciting research under way at the National Institutes of Health. Cameron and Pauling found that vitamin C helped cancer patients live about four times longer than cancer patients not given vitamin C. They administered high-dose vitamin C in the form of sodium ascorbate given orally and intravenously to treat more than 1,000 cancer patients. Nonetheless, vitamin C for cancer suffered a setback when Dr. Charles Moertel of the Mayo Clinic, an arch foe of nutritional therapies for cancer, sought to disprove Pauling’s thesis. But he did not follow the Pauling/Cameron instructions or regimen.
Moertel selected a cohort of terminal colon cancer patients who had not responded to all forms of conventional treatment, including surgery, chemo and radiation, and administered 10 grams of vitamin C to them orally. When the patients failed to demonstrate improved survival over patients not receiving vitamin C in the study, Moertel pronounced the vitamin C/cancer hypothesis defunct. Moertel failed to note that the benefits achieved by Pauling and Cameron’s patients were obtained via both IV and oral C. He ultimately succumbed to cancer himself years later. Alternative practitioners, meanwhile, sought to resurrect IV vitamin C as a tool in the treatment of cancer, but not until recently has serious academic research resumed. Dr. Hugh Riordan of Kansas treated hundreds of cancer patients with doses of vitamin C up to 200,000 mg (200 grams) per day in infusions lasting 4-12 hours several times a week. He compiled a series of case histories documenting impressive responses but passed recently, before his work was generally acknowledged.
His protegee, Dr. Jeanne Drisko, Director, KU Integrative Medicine, has undertaken a series of clinical trials to validate the benefits of IV vitamin C in cancer. An FDA approved trial is now underway. Research at the National Institutes of Health is beginning to suggest that vitamin C deserves another chance to find its niche in the arsenal of anti-cancer therapies. Studies now suggest that even high dose vitamin C given by mouth is poorly absorbed. Blood levels “max out” at doses of 500 mg given several times during the day. But vitamin C given intravenously is another story. When delivered in a “drip,” much higher concentrations of C can be attained. At these higher concentrations, vitamin C has different characteristics than if given orally. While oral vitamin C boosts immunity and assists tissue repair, it is too weak to do much to kill or inhibit cancer cells. But at high doses delivered directly into the bloodstream, it may act to increase levels of hydrogen peroxide deep in the tissues where cancer cells lurk.
Peroxide-mediated killing is one of the white blood cells’ key mechanisms for fighting infection and cancer. Research currently under way has shown that high concentrations of vitamin C can stop the growth or even kill a wide range of cancer cells. Only intravenous administration of vitamin C can deliver the high doses found to be effective against cancer. IV vitamin C, when administered by a trained, experienced physician, is safe and well-tolerated, even at doses as high as 100,000 mg (100 grams) per day. Proper blood tests must be done to ensure that it is well-tolerated, and the patient must be monitored. Doses must be gradually adjusted upward. Not all patients are candidates for IV vitamin C. Vitamin C can be safely administered even while patients are undergoing chemo and radiation; in fact, the FDA-approved trial at the University of Kansas Medical Center explicitly permits the co-administration of vitamin C with conventional treatments. Intravenous vitamin C remains one of the key modalities employed by the Hoffman Center in support of recovery from cancer, and it is hoped that additional research, now under way, will further document its benefits.
Vitamin C, when administered in high doses by intravenous (I.V.) infusions, can kill cancer cells. Vitamin C interacts with iron and other metals to create hydrogen peroxide. In high concentrations, hydrogen peroxide damages the DNA and mitochondria of cancer cells and shuts down their energy supply and kills them outright. Best of all — and unlike virtually all conventional chemotherapy drugs that destroy cancer cells — it is selectively toxic. No matter how high the concentration, Vitamin C does not harm healthy cells. Do not attempt to use this treatment by yourself. This treatment must be used under the direction of cancer experts who are based at a clinic. The Vitamin C by I.V. treatment is generally used for cancer, but it can also be used to cure MDM-1, NDM-1, and Ebola. Two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling, along with Dr. Ewen Cameron of Scotland, did a scientific study proving that 10 grams of Vitamin C, given by I.V., could extend the life of advanced cancer patients six-fold.
However, there is currently an entire field of research called orthomolecular medicine which is devoted to natural treatments, especially Vitamin C, and their effect on disease. “Vitamin C is thought to act as a pro-oxidant inside the cell in high concentration, and some hydrogen peroxide is formed which is rapidly disposed of by catalase in a normal cell,” said Dr. William Wassell. “Since cancer cells have a deficiency or lack entirely of catalase the peroxides kill the [cancer] cell.” There are several clinics in the United States that use this treatment. Bright Spot For Health, a large research clinic in Wichita, Kansas, was the home of a great deal of research on Vitamin C by I.V. The original research was done by the late Dr. Hugh Riordon. In cancer, Riordan et al. (1995) demonstrated the likelihood that Vitamin C was an effective anti-tumor therapy as long as high enough concentrations of it could be achieved inside the tumor(s). These researchers also concluded that oral Vitamin C supplementation was unlikely to produce blood levels of Vitamin C high enough to have a direct killing effect on a given tumor.
Later, in studying a certain line of cancer cells and the ability of Vitamin C to kill those cancer cells, Casciari et al. (2001) elegantly demonstrated this point. They showed that the rapid intravenous infusion of Vitamin C as sodium ascorbate in combination with alpha-lipoic acid was effective in reaching Vitamin C levels that were toxic to the cancer cells. They also showed that a fat-soluble analogue of Vitamin C, phenyl-ascorbate, was able to kill cancer cells effectively at a dose roughly three times lower than seen with unaltered Vitamin C. Vitamin C was first suggested as a tool for cancer treatment in the 1950s. Its role in collagen production and protection led scientists to hypothesize that ascorbate replenishment would protect normal tissue from tumor invasiveness and metastasis (McCormick, 1959; Cameron, et al., 1979). Also, since cancer patients are often depleted of vitamin C (Hoffman, 1985; Riordan, et al., 2005), replenishment may improve immune system function and enhance patient health and well-being (Henson, et al., 1991).
Cameron and Pauling observed fourfold survival times in terminal cancer patients treated with intravenous ascorbate infusions followed by oral supplementation (Cameron & Pauling, 1976). However, two randomized clinical trials with oral ascorbate alone conducted by the Mayo clinic showed no benefit (Creagan, et al., 1979; Moertel, et al., 1985). Most research from that point on focused on intravenous ascorbate. The rationales for using intravenous ascorbate infusions (IVC) to treat cancer: If large amounts of Vitamin C are presented to cancer cells, large amounts will be absorbed. In these unusually large concentrations, the antioxidant Vitamin C will start behaving as a pro-oxidant as it interacts with intracellular copper and iron. This chemical interaction produces small amounts of hydrogen peroxide. Because cancer cells are relatively low in the intracellular antioxidant enzyme catalase, the high dose Vitamin C induction of peroxide will continue to build up until it eventually lysis the cancer cell from the inside out.