High doses of Vitamin C may improve cancer treatment, says study

Can vitamin C help cancer treatment? It appears so, according to the study published in the latest edition of Cancer Cell.

Clinical trials found that it is safe to regularly infuse brain and lung cancer patients with 800 to 1,000 times the daily recommended amount of vitamin C as a potential strategy to improve outcomes of standard cancer treatments.

University of Iowa researchers showed pathways by which altered iron metabolism in cancer cells, and not normal cells, lead to increased sensitivity to cancer cell death caused by high dose vitamin C.

Co-author Garry Buettner has been quoted in a press release sent by the university as saying: "This paper reveals a metabolic frailty in cancer cells that is based on their own production of oxidizing agents that allows us to utilize existing redox active compounds, like vitamin C, to sensitize cancer cells to radiation and chemotherapy."

Vitamin C isn't toxic to normal cells. The research group at Iowa found, however, that tumor tissue's abnormally high levels of redox active iron molecules react with vitamin C to form hydrogen peroxide and free radicals derived from hydrogen peroxide. These free radicals are believed to cause DNA damage selectively in cancer cells (versus normal cells), leading to enhanced cancer cell death as well as sensitization to radiation and chemotherapy in cancer cells.