Vitamin C To Prevent and Treat Cancer
For over a century scientists have realised that including enough vitamin C in your diet is important for your overall health. However, recent research has shown that taking vitamin C can help to protect you against getting some forms of cancer and may even be able to be used to treat some cancers.
However, if you already have cancer you shouldn’t dash out and purchase a powerful vitamin C supplement. Because research is still in its early stages it is not yet absolutely proved that Vitamin C slows or stops the growth of all existing cancers. There is even a risk that taking excessive Vitamin C supplements may even increase the growth of some sorts of cancer such as leukemia, despite slowing the growth of some other kinds of cancer. Never take high doses of any supplement without first seeking your doctor’s advice especially if you are seriously ill and already taking strong drugs.
Patients undergoing chemotherapy, in particular their second or third round of chemotherapy treatment can benefit from taking a mix of vitamins and minerals. Successful combinations include B vitamins, vitamin E, shots of vitamin C, beta-carotene, selenium and zinc. It is thought that one of the main reasons this kind of patient benefits the most from Vitamin C and a combination of other minerals and vitamins is that prior rounds of chemo lower patient’s immunological systems. Taking vitamin C and other minerals and vitamins helps to boost that patient’s depleted immune system. This helps them to remain relatively fit and healthy and to battle their cancer successfully.
There are also some promising early results from trials using vitamin C administered intravenously to treat some cancers. It is not an effective treatment for all types of cancerous cells, but early results suggest that it works on five out of nine kinds of cancer cells. On average intravenous Vitamin C killed 50% of the cancer cells already present within the patient’s body.
Intravenous vitamin C works by pushing up hydrogen peroxide production in the blood. Hydrogen peroxide is a poison for most varieties of carcinogenic (cancerous) cells, but leaves healthy cells and tissue un-affected. Taking vitamin C in tablet form does not satisfactorily build up the levels of hydrogen peroxide in the blood to kill off cancer-infected cells so it has to be given intravenously. This is largely because Vitamin C is water soluble, so when levels are too high your body automatically expels the excess when you urinate. This makes it almost impossible for your body to build up satisfactorily high levels of vitamin C to kill cancer cells just by taking it as a supplement.
Cancer cells have low levels of vitamin C in them when compared to standard healthy cells. As a result increasing the amount of vitamin C in your body creates a chemical environment which is not ideal for cancer cells making it hard for them to multiply or become established. Some Doctors believe this is one more reason why Vitamin C may be effective in treating cancer. Again research is at an early stage, but the results to date are very promising.
By Jools Marsh