Vitamin C may be useful in treating cancer â€" study

Sep 07, 2008

VITAMIN C might be useful in treating cancer, according to a US study in which injections of high doses of the vitamin reduced the rate of tumour growth in mice.

VITAMIN C might be useful in treating cancer, according to a US study in which injections of high doses of the vitamin reduced the rate of tumour growth in mice.

The idea that Vitamin C could be used to treat cancer was advanced in the 1970s by American scientist Linus Pauling. The notion was controversial and subsequent studies failed to show benefit.

But the studies involved Vitamin C given orally. The new study by the US government’s National Institutes of Health involved injections of Vitamin C to enable greater concentrations of it to get into the system.

The researchers implanted three types of aggressive cancer cells into laboratory mice — ovarian, pancreatic and glioblastoma brain tumours.

Mice that were given high-dosage injections of Vitamin C experienced tumour growth only about half that of similar mice that were not given the injections, they said.

“The key finding here is that this is ascorbic acid used as a drug and it appears to have some promise in treating some cancers,” said Dr. Mark Levine of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

The researchers believe the elevated amounts of ascorbic acid generate hydrogen peroxide in the body that acts against the cancer cells.

“That hydrogen peroxide leads to death of some cancer cells and does not seem to kill normal cells. Why that is, we don’t know,” said Levine. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Levine said a recent clinical study in Canada, in which he was involved, showed that similar high doses of Vitamin C can be injected into people with very minimal side-effects.

“The concentrations that are effective, or similar concentrations, can be achieved in humans,” Levine said.

A reasonable next step would be to begin studies testing whether this works in people, he said. “I think we are pretty close to being ready to do that,” Levine said.

Reuters

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});