VITAMIN C

Hundreds of epidemiological studies have pointed to the importance of dietary and supplemental ascorbate in the prevention of various types of cancer including bladder, breast, cervical, colorectal, esophageal, lung, pancreatic, prostate, salivary gland, stomach, leukemia, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (Altern Med Rev 3(3):174-186, 1998).

Vitamin C was first recognized in the 18th century as a cure for scurvy in the form of fresh citrus juices. Albert Szent- Gyorgyi first isolated ascorbic acid in the late 1920's as 3- keto-L-gulofurnlactone. By the 1990's Vitamin C has become the most commonly used single supplement in the US. Its use in cancer therapy started with W.J. McCormick, a Canadian physician, who formulated in 1954 the hypothesis that cancer is a collagen disease secondary to a Vitamin C deficiency. While alternative cancer treatments, such as The Gerson therapy, have been incorporating high doses of Vitamin C for years, the use of Vitamin C supplementation in large doses for the prevention and treatment of cancer was not aggressively advanced to the public until 1971 when Linus Pauling, PhD, and Ewan Cameron, MD., presented studies of their use of high-dose Vitamin C for treatment of patients with advanced cancer. Since 1971, considerable attention has been paid to Vitamin C and cancer, particularly in the area of prevention. But until recently, there has been a paucity of human studies using Vitamin C to treat already existing cancer.

The chemopreventive properties of Vitamin C include:

• Vitamin C is a potent antioxidant that scavenges cancer- causing free radicals, neutralizes carcinogenic chemicals such as nitrosamine and nitrites, and regenerates active Vitamin E in lipid membranes.
• Vitamin C stimulates collagen formation necessary for "walling off" of tumors.
• Vitamin C inhibits hyaluronidase which keeps the ground substance around the tumor intact and prevents metastasis.
• Vitamin C is a potent immunostimulant that enhances lymphocyte function and rapidly mobilizes phagocytes, has potent anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties, increases IgA, IgG and IgM antibody levels, stimulates interferon synthesis, and accelerates and promotes wound healing after cancer surgery.
• Vitamin C regulates inflammation by increasing synthesis of prostaglandin PGE1(anti-inflammatory) and inhibiting prostaglandin PGE2 (inflammatory).
• Vitamin C reduces the toxic effect of chemotherapeutic drugs such as Adriamycin.