FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 7, 2008
Chemotherapy Doesn't Work, So Blame Vitamin C |
|
For more see:
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service,
October 31, 2008
--a well documented summary of ascorbic
acid benefits in cancer treatment |
(OMNS, October 7, 2008) When Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer
Center announces that vitamin C may interfere with chemotherapy,
the news media trumpet it far and wide. But before cancer
patients throw away their vitamin C supplements, they need to
know rest of the story.
Most of the media dutifully reported the researchers' claim
that the equivalent of 2,000 mg of vitamin C "blunted the
effectiveness of the chemotherapy drugs." But only some of the
media included a study author's incredible statement that "If
you take an oral dose even as low as 100 milligrams a day" even
"that could be harmful" during chemotherapy (1)
| 100 mg "could be harmful"? That's the amount of vitamin C in
a few glasses of orange juice. Something is very wrong here.
First of all, this research involved mice with implanted
cancerous tumors; it was not a trial on cancer patients. A mouse
study is a long way from a human clinical trial. This obvious
difference was conceded by the study authors. However, there is
a more subtle, and probably much more important factor they did
not consider: all mice make their own vitamin C. Indeed, mice
make quite a lot. Adjusted for body weight, mice synthesize the
human body weight equivalent of approximately 10,000 milligrams
of vitamin C each day. (2) Incredibly, sick mice make even more.
Mice given transplanted tumors become sick mice.
Secondly, previous research has demonstrated that
mice with cancer respond well to high-dose vitamin C
therapy. One study found, "With an increase in the
amount of ascorbic acid there is a highly significant
decrease in the first-order rate constant for appearance
of the first spontaneous mammary tumor. . . |
IMPORTANT NOTICE
to Health Care Workers Using the Protocol for High-Dose
Intravenous Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) for the Treatment
of Cancer in Patients Who Are Also Diabetic!
It has been
discovered that high-dose intravenous vitamin C (15
grams and higher) will cause a "False Positive"
on finger stick blood glucose strips read on a "glucometer"
within four hours after receiving the vitamin C
infusion. If blood is taken from a vein and run on serum
in a laboratory, there is no interference. For some
reason, the strips are reading high levels of ascorbate
as glucose.
Please alert any
diabetic patients of this potential complication. Again,
it is a "False Positive" on the strips — the blood
glucose does NOT change. |
Striking differences were observed between the 0.076% ascorbic
acid and the control groups, which synthesize the vitamin." (3)
Another study concluded that: "A pronounced effect of vitamin C
in decreasing the incidence and delaying the onset of malignant
lesions was observed with high statistical significance. By 20
weeks, approximately five times as many mice had developed
serious lesions in the zero-ascorbate as in the high-ascorbate
group." (4) Interestingly enough, when this research was first
publicized, the media discounted these findings saying that
mouse studies were not particularly applicable to people.
Thirdly, a mouse's ability to make vitamin C, and a great
deal of it, is an overlooked confounding factor that may well
render the entire experiment invalid. If the Sloan-Kettering
team had tried their experiment on Guinea pigs, their results
might have been very different. Guinea pigs are more like human
beings in that they cannot make their own vitamin C. As controls
for comparison, the researchers also treated "no-added-vitamin
C" mouse cancers with chemotherapy. Chemo worked just fine on
those mice, by the researchers own admission. And each of those
mice was internally synthesizing a body weight equivalent of
10,000 mg/day of vitamin C, even though given none
supplementally.
So how come 10,000 mg of vitamin C does not interfere with
chemo treatment, and 2,000 mg - or even 100 mg - supposedly
does?
A sweeping recommendation warning cancer patients to not take
supplemental vitamin C, not even 100 mg, is irresponsible. It is
impossible to justify caution about taking 100 mg of vitamin C
daily when your animal subjects made the equivalent of one
hundred times that amount, and chemotherapy in them was still
reported as effective. You cannot have it both ways. If a
synthesized 10,000 mg of C does not interfere, there can be no
real "interference" or "blunting" from a supplemental 2,000 mg.
And most certainly not from 100 mg.
The study did report tumor shrinkage, in both groups of mice
receiving chemo. That is not surprising. Chemotherapy's claimed
success is based on tumor shrinkage. But tumor shrinkage,
encouraging though it is, is not a reliable indicator of
long-term cancer survival. As cancer research critic Philip Day
puts it, many patients are "cured but dead" after five years,
hardly a long-term survival. Day, noting that this is not
because oncologists are not trying, explains the chemotherapy
quandary: "You can be insincere, or you can be sincerely wrong."
(5)
The Sloan-Kettering study team seems to have missed the
essential point that vitamin C is not just an antioxidant.
Inside cancer tumors, it also acts as a prooxidant, killing
malignant cells. Comments Dr. Steve Hickey, of Manchester, UK:
"Essentially, the paper seems to be rather misguided and shows a
lack of understanding of the dual nature of vitamin C in tumors.
Chemotherapy has been shown by over 40 years of clinical trials
not to work in the majority of tumors, and its use is
counterproductive."
Chemotherapy drugs have come and gone; the five year survival
rate for cancer treated with chemo has remained virtually
unchanged for decades. Unfortunately, just over 2% of all
cancers respond to chemotherapy. Specifically, one scientific
review concluded, "The overall contribution of curative and
adjuvant cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adults was
estimated to be 2.3% in Australia and 2.1% in the USA . . .
chemotherapy only makes a minor contribution to cancer survival.
To justify the continued funding and availability of drugs used
in cytotoxic chemotherapy, a rigorous evaluation of the
cost-effectiveness and impact on quality of life is urgently
required." (6)
Perhaps this new, very well-publicized study results from an
ever-growing realization that chemotherapy is largely
ineffective, and the search is on for the reason why. Vitamin C
should not be made the scapegoat.
Vitamin C, in doses well over 100 mg/day, is known to help
prevent cancer. (7) Nearly 30 years ago, a review concluded that
"Many factors involved in host resistance to neoplasia are
significantly dependent upon the availability of ascorbate." (8)
Beginning in the 1970s, many well-designed studies show that
very large doses of vitamin C improve both quality and length of
life for cancer patients since they invariably are
"significantly depleted of ascorbic acid." When given
intravenous vitamin C, "The mean survival time is more than 4.2
times as great for the ascorbate subjects . . . This simple and
safe form of medication is of definite value in the treatment of
patients with advanced cancer." (9) Additional clinical trials
have confirmed this over the past several decades. (10)
Even more importantly, recent research indicates that in high
doses, vitamin C is selectively toxic to cancer cells. That
means vitamin C can function very much like chemotherapy is
supposed to, but without the severe side effects of
chemotherapy. "A regimen of daily pharmacologic ascorbate
treatment significantly decreased growth rates of ovarian,
pancreatic, and glioblastoma tumors established in mice. Similar
pharmacologic concentrations were readily achieved in humans
given ascorbate intravenously." (11)
"Cautioning" the public to avoid taking any supplemental
amount of vitamin C will decrease host resistance to cancer,
increase the incidence of this dreaded disease, and shorten
survival times. A cynic might say it will also create a larger
market for chemotherapy.
Is vitamin C a commercial competitor for chemo? To answer
this, one needs to consider what appears to be serious conflict
of interest at Sloan-Kettering. Bristol-Myers-Squibb makes
chemotherapeutic drugs. According to a DEF 14A SEC filing of
March 22, 2006, the Chairman of the Board of
Bristol-Myers-Squibb is also a director of the Coca-Cola
Company, and Honorary Chairman of Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center. (http://sec.edgar-online.com/2006/03/22/0001193125-06-060566/Section8.asp).
A previous Bristol-Myers-Squibb Chairman of the Board was a
director of the New York Times Company. He was also Vice
Chairman of the Board of Overseers and the Board of Managers of
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Chairman of the Board
of Managers of Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. (http://www.secinfo.com/dsvrt.bC7.htm)
Some sources say that there are even more Bristol-Myers-Squibb
directors who have or held positions on the board at Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. (12)
Positive endorsements for vitamin C as a cancer fighter are
not in the interests of any pharmaceutical company. Scaring the
public away from vitamin C might be profitable. It appears that
Sloan-Kettering is biased. So are media reports that attack
vitamins.
If the Sloan-Kettering study authors' recommendations to not
take 2,000 mg, or even 100 mg, of vitamin C are followed, there
will definitely be an increase in the number of people that need
chemotherapy.
References:
(1) Doheny K. Vitamin C and chemotherapy: bad combo?
Supplementing with vitamin C may reduce effectiveness of
chemotherapy drugs, study shows. WebMD Health News.
http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20081001/vitamin-c-chemotherapy-bad-combo
(2) Chatterjee IB, Majumder AK, Nandi BK, Subramanian N.
Synthesis and some major functions of vitamin C in animals. Ann
N Y Acad Sci. 1975 Sep 30;258:24-47.
(3) Pauling L, Nixon JC, Stitt F et al. Effect of dietary
ascorbic acid on the incidence of spontaneous mammary tumors in
RIII mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1985 Aug;82(15):5185-9.
(4) Pauling L. Effect of ascorbic acid on incidence of
spontaneous mammary tumors and UV-light-induced skin tumors in
mice. Am J Clin Nutr. 1991 Dec;54(6 Suppl):1252S-1255S. Read the
full paper free of charge at
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/54/6/1252S
(5) Day P. in the documentary film Food Matters,
http://www.foodmatters.tv See also: Day P. Cancer: why we're
still dying to know the truth. Credence Publications, 1999.
ISBN-10: 0953501248; SBN-13: 978-0953501243
(6) Morgan G, Ward R, Barton M. The contribution of cytotoxic
chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adult malignancies. Clin
Oncol (R Coll Radiol). 2004 Dec;16(8):549-60.
(7) Enstrom JE, Kanim LE, Klein MA. Vitamin C intake and
mortality among a sample of the United States population.
Epidemiology. 1992 May;3(3):194-202.
(8) Cameron E, Pauling L, Leibovitz B. Ascorbic acid and cancer:
a review. Cancer Res. 1979 Mar;39(3):663-81.
(9) Cameron E, Pauling L. Supplemental ascorbate in the
supportive treatment of cancer: Prolongation of survival times
in terminal human cancer. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1976
Oct;73(10):3685-9. Read the original paper at
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/MM/B/B/K/Z/_/mmbbkz.pdf
(10) Murata A, Morishige F, and Yamaguchi H. Prolongation of
survival times of terminal cancer patients by administration of
large doses of ascorbate. International Journal of Vitamin and
Nutrition Research Suppl., 23, 1982. p. 103-113. And: Null G,
Robins H, Tanenbaum, M, and Jennings P. Vitamin C and the
treatment of cancer: abstracts and commentary from the
scientific literature. The Townsend Letter for Doctors and
Patients, 1997. April/May. And: Vitamin C and cancer revisited.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008 Aug 12;105(32):11037-8. Also:
Riordan HD, Riordan NH, Jackson JA et al. Intravenous vitamin C
as a chemotherapy agent: a report on clinical cases. Puerto Rico
Health Sciences J, June 2004, 23(2): 115-118.
(11) Chen Q, Espey MG, Sun AY et al. Pharmacologic doses of
ascorbate act as a prooxidant and decrease growth of aggressive
tumor xenografts in mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008 Aug
12;105(32):11105-9. See also: Chen Q, Espey MG, Sun AY et al.
Ascorbate in pharmacologic concentrations selectively generates
ascorbate radical and hydrogen peroxide in extracellular fluid
in vivo. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 May 22;104(21):8749-54.
And: Chen Q, Espey MG, Krishna MC et al. Pharmacologic ascorbic
acid concentrations selectively kill cancer cells: action as a
pro-drug to deliver hydrogen peroxide to tissues. Proc Natl Acad
Sci U S A. 2005 Sep 20;102(38):13604-9. And: Padayatty et al.
Intravenously administered vitamin C as cancer therapy: three
cases. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2006. 174(7), March
28, p 937-942.
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/174/7/937. Also: Riordan NH
et al. Intravenous ascorbate as a tumor cytotoxic
chemotherapeutic agent. Medical Hypotheses, 1995. 44(3). p
207-213, March.
(12) Moss R. Questioning Chemotherapy. Equinox Press, 1995.
ISBN-10: 188102525X; ISBN-13: 978-1881025252. See also: The
Cancer Industry. Equinox Press, 1996. ISBN-10: 1881025098;
ISBN-13: 978-1881025092.
For more information:
Cameron E. and Pauling L. Cancer and vitamin C, revised edition.
Philadelphia: Camino Books, 1993.
Hickey S and Roberts H. Cancer: nutrition and survival. Lulu
Press, 2005. ISBN: 141166339X.
Hoffer A. Healing cancer: complementary vitamin and drug
treatments. Ontario: CCNM Press, 2004. ISBN-10: 1897025114;
ISBN-13: 978-1897025116.
For free access to an online archive of peer-reviewed, full-text
nutrition therapy papers:
http://www.orthomed.org/jom/jomlist.htm or
http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom
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Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D.
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Gert E. Shuitemaker, Ph.D.
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