Vitamin C Vitamin C and cancer. For cancer resources, information about cancer treatment options and cancer patient support.. Cancer patients seeking links to cancer resources, information and support will find this site provides a general orientation designed to help you make your own choices and decisions concerning alternative cancer treatments or orthodox cancer treatments.
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About the book Fighting Cancer: A Survival Guide
conversations and correspondence
Resources: the start of an adventure
If you have cancer; if you're caring for someone who has it
Cancer Treatment: Personal Stories
Readings from the cancer literature
Other cancer books you might find useful
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For decades the `dialogue'
- to use a polite word - between those advocating vitamin supplements
and those attacking the taking of supplements seems as if it is finally
coming to a conclusion. The pro-supplement side has won - perhaps not
yet decisively (on a points count rather than a knockout). The US National
Academy of Sciences believes that large sections of the community -
especially the elderly - need to increase their B-12 (advice varies
from 24-400 micrograms per day). Vitamin D deficiency is also widespread.
A supplement of 800 iu of vitamin D has been linked conclusively to
fewer fractures and to devreased incidence of breast cancer. Too much
sun-avoidance is a bad thing (the body makes vitamin D from exposure
to sunlight).
The US National Council for Responsible Nutrition has also weighed in with advice to take vitamin E (400-800 iu per day) and vitamin C (they suggest 500 mg per day). On the vitamin C question, I go along with Linus Pauling and say that 6-18 grams a day is what we should be taking. The argument is simple: almost all mammals produce their own vitamin C. They produce large quantities of it. For example, a 70 kilo goat produces 13 grams a day on a good day. On a bad day when it is severely stressed, it will produce up to 100 grams a day. If other animals need so much, how is it that doctors are insisting we only need 500 mgs. It doesn't make sense to me. Vitamin C is important for cancer patients. The reasons Ewan Cameron and Linus Pauling looked at vitamin C as a possible anti-cancer agent were two-fold. A tumour progresses by invading cells. In order to invade cells it must break through the cell walls. The cell walls are strengthened if the `intercellular cement' (Pauling's term) was strengthened. This intercellular cement consists of long molecular chains themselves strengthened by fibrils of collagen. Cancer cells release an enzyme - hyaluronidase - that can break down the long molecular chains and another enzyme - collagenase - that can dissolve the collagen. This makes invasion easy as the cell wall essentially collapses. It was then discovered that vitamin C helped cells to produce a substance that inhibits hyaluronidase. The more vitamin C in the system the more the inhibitor was released. Also vitamin C is neccessary for collagen production. So, for these two reasons, it was assumed that vitamin C would help protect cells against invading malignancies. Anyone - not predisposed to rejecting the conclusions - reading the evidence in their book, Cancer & Vitamin C, will surely come away feeling they have proved their case. In fact further studies suggested that patients did best when they took:
Pauling & Cameron gave their patients 10 grams a day - though some patients required more. Pauling himself recommends supplementation at 6-18 grams a day. Since vitamin C tends to leach minerals from the system it is important to add a multi-mineral supplement. In addition, Vitamin C is of value for the following diseases and conditions:
In fact, vitamin C is used in so many bio-chemical processes in the body that it is probably worth upping your intake no matter what the problem. You can't overdose on vitamin C and it is not at all toxic. By the way, Linus Pauling's source for vitamin C was
Bronson Pharmaceuticals who can be contacted at www.top.net/harouffd/bronson.html Finally, my own favourite vitamin C statistics are
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