For the past 20 years, the Magaziner Center for Wellness and Anti-Aging Medicine in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, a nationwide leader in complementary and alternative medicine, has been actively treating cancer patients. In addition to oral supplementation with immune modifiers, botanicals, and nutriceuticals, intravenous infusions of vitamin C and other nutrients have also played an important role in patient treatment.
New scientific studies published by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have revealed that the use of intravenous vitamin C may play a powerful role in cancer treatment.
In the 1970’s, Dr. Linus Pauling noted that the administration of vitamin C was beneficial for cancer patients, but researchers from the Mayo Clinic later debunked his theory after they claimed to have repeated his studies and noted no benefit. As a result, interest in the use of vitamin C in cancer declined.
However, the Mayo Clinic had not actually repeated Pauling’s studies. In most of their studies, they had administered vitamin C by mouth while Pauling had been using intravenous vitamin C. So, in fact, the routes of administration were vastly different. And now, we know that oral and intravenous vitamin C are not absorbed the same.
Dr. Mark Levine, Chief of the Molecular and Clinical Nutrition Section, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the NIH, found that while oral intake of vitamin C reaches a saturation point, “when you give doses intravenously, they go through the roof in the blood and then they are cleared.”
In studies published in September, 2005 and March, 2006, Dr. Mark Levine and his colleagues at the NIH published key papers requesting that the role of high-dose intravenous vitamin C therapy in cancer patients be reassessed. They found that when administered intravenously, blood levels of vitamin C could be 50 to 70 times higher than the maximum concentrations achieved with the oral dosage alone. Furthermore, they concluded that the intravenous administration could selectively kill cancer cells (or infectious agents) without harming normal cells.
“At the highest concentration of ascorbic acid, if given intravenously, they don’t touch normal cells and they kill lots of cancer cells,” Levine commented. It has been found, according to the September 12-16, 2005 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that vitamin C led to the formation of hydrogen peroxide, a substance naturally formed by white blood cells (WBC’s) that can kill cancer cells.
Although many of our patients continue to receive more conventional care from their oncologist, some have elected to exclusively pursue complementary and integrative medicine therapies. Our experience has been that patients who receive large doses of intravenous vitamin C and other complementary therapies live a fuller, more vibrant, energetic life and suffer many less side effects from more conventional treatments than those who receive, for example, chemotherapy and radiation alone. In many patients, we have noted greater tumor shrinkage and longer periods of remission. Although more studies are still needed, it appears that high-dose intravenous vitamin C may offer an effective alternative for cancer patients.
.
