Vitamin C for Prostate Cancer

Linus Pauling was a scientist who performed groundbreaking research in the 1930s and 1940s on the structure of DNA and molecular medicine. He also joined with Albert Einstein and other scientists in protesting nuclear weapons. For his work, he received both the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize, making him the only person to receive two unshared Nobel prizes.

At the end of his career, though, Pauling made a controversial claim--that Vitamin C could fight cancer. While his opinions were dismissed in the 1970s, recent research has given them new life.

Theory

• In 2007, a study published in the journal "Cancer Cell" described a set of discoveries made about cancer growth in mice. These discoveries centered around the protein HIF-1 (short for hypoxia-induced factor 1). The HIF-1 protein helps cells compensate for a lack of oxygen. When cancerous tumors grow rapidly, they can easily consume all the oxygen in the area, creating a need for HIF-1.

  But HIF-1 also needs a steady supply of free radicals to operate. So, the doctors hypothesized, a very strong dose of vitamin C or some other antioxidant could eliminate the free radicals that keep HIF-1 (and, by extension, the tumor itself) functioning. Indeed, the researchers discovered that, in the mice they tested, cancer growth was completely stopped in subjects treated with high doses of Vitamin C.

Controversy and New Research

• Following Pauling's claims in the 1970s, scientists had tested the effects of Vitamin C on cancer and discovered essentially nothing. But those studies were only performed with orally ingested doses of vitamin C. The body naturally disposes of excess Vitamin C in urine. The only way to get an overwhelmingly high amount of Vitamin C in the body before it can be naturally disposed is through intravenous injection.

  New research with IV doses of Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid or ascorbate, has had promising results. In 2007, a team of scientists published a report with the National Academy of Scientists whose abstract begins with the promising line: "Ascorbate (ascorbic acid, vitamin C), in pharmacologic concentrations easily achieved in humans by i.v. administration, selectively kills some cancer cells but not normal cells."

Treatments

• There have been no clinical trials on humans for ascorbate treatment of prostate cancer. But such treatment is available, and the risk of side effects is virtually none, since Vitamin C does not affect normal cells.

  Consult your doctor about the possibility of receiving ascorbate treatments.