Prostate The Vitamin C Conspiracy Cancer Cancer

[Typical lies from Pharma shill charity, Cancer Research UK: They emphasised that there is no evidence from clinical trials that Intravenous Vitamin C (IVC) is effective in humans. 'Some research even suggests that high doses of antioxidants can make cancer treatment less effective,' warned Dr Alison Ross, science information officer at Cancer Research UK. 'It could actually reduce the benefits of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.' See: [2010 Sept] Intravenous Vitamin C and Cancer

Could vitamin C jabs cure cancer? This man says it's put his prostate tumour into reverse

By Jerome Burne
Last updated at 2:11 AM on 19th August 2008

A Check-up six months ago revealed Denis Vaughan's prostate cancer was becoming more active.

Vaughan, an orchestral conductor and one of the driving forces behind the creation of the National Lottery, has had prostate cancer for 12 years.

Because the tumour wasn't considered aggressive enough for surgery or radiotherapy, his consultant at University College Hospital had agreed on a policy of watchful waiting, while Denis kept it at bay with diet and exercise.

Alternative treatment: Conductor Denis Vaughan used a treatment which involved infusing vitamin C into the bloodstream and it seems to have worked

Then, his prostate specific antigen (PSA) score, which measures how active the tumour is, went from 13 to 18.5 'and the watching became a bit anxious'.

His oncologist wanted him to take drugs or begin radiotherapy, but Vaughan, who is a strong believer in a natural approach to health, preferred to try a treatment offered by his London GP that involved infusing vitamin C into the bloodstream.

He underwent weekly treatment - with up to 75 grams of vitamin C at a time (the recommended daily amount is 60mg).

The treatment, which cost Ł100 a time, appears to have worked - after seven weeks, his PSA dropped back down to 13, a level described as moderately elevated, and he's back on watchful waiting. His oncologist has said he now doesn't need to see Vaughan for another year.

It's an unorthodox approach, but one that seems to be backed up by research published earlier this month, which found that injecting large amounts of vitamin C into laboratory mice with aggressive and hard-to-treat tumours, caused the cancers to shrink by between 41 and 53 per cent.

The American study - reported in top science journal Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences - was greeted cautiously by UK cancer experts.

They emphasised that there is no evidence from clinical trials that Intravenous Vitamin C (IVC) is effective in humans.

'Some research even suggests that high doses of antioxidants can make cancer treatment less effective,' warned Dr Alison Ross, science information officer at Cancer Research UK.

'It could actually reduce the benefits of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.'

Experts also say that while the doses seem comparable to the official daily amounts, there is a big difference between injecting the vitamin directly into the bloodstream - circumventing the body's own defences - and getting it in food or as a pill.

Hundreds of patients in the UK have already received IVC as a treatment for cancer - without apparent side-effects.

Dr Julian Kenyon, a private GP in Harley Street, says: 'What the American study shows is that when you infuse amounts as high as 4 grams per kilo - the equivalent of around 75 grams for an average adult - vitamin C causes a build up of a chemical called hydrogen peroxide, which destroys the tumour.'

Dr Kenyon has treated more than 100 patients over the past ten years with IVC and claims there is now quite a body of experience about how to use it.

'We've found that it's not so good for tumours in the brain, the lung and womb because you can get a build up of fluid.

'We've had very good results with the kidneys, though. Cancers here don't respond well to chemotherapy, but we have been able to shrink them enough for an operation. It's not a cure-all and you do need to have good veins because you are putting in a couple of litres of liquid as well, several times a week.'

The chief researcher of the American trial, Dr Mark Levine of the American National Institutes of Health, has been investigating vitamin C's cancer killing abilities for several years.

He's already shown that it's effective in a test tube and, two years ago, he published a report on three patients who were treated for serious and advanced cancers and survived far longer that would normally be expected.

'We now know that the vitamin C gets into tumours in large amounts and that it kills them by causing a build up of hydrogen peroxide.

'That's the same stuff that's used as bleach but cells in your body also use it to defend themselves,' he says.

In fact, vitamin C is hardly a new anti-cancer treatment.

It was famously used by double Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling more than 30 years ago, who found that terminal cancer patients treated with vitamin C lived much longer.

However, when his trials were repeated at the prestigious Mayo clinic in America, the researchers found no benefit.

Proponents of vitamin C point out the clinic only used oral vitamin C which can work differently.

'Actually, the finding that vitamin C is a potent anti-cancer substance goes back even further,' says Dr Steven Hickey, who has researched vitamin C and cancer at Manchester Metropolitan University, and written several books on the history and chemistry of vitamin C.

'The discovery that hydrogen peroxide kills tumours in mice was made in 1957, and less than ten years later researchers found that vitamin C would selectively kill cancer cells without harming normal cells,' he says.

Other researchers achieved similar results to Pauling's, including some in Japan in 1982 and the eminent Canadian psychiatrist Dr Abram Hoffer of Saskatchewan University.

'They found that very high doses could boost survival times of terminal patients by four to five times,' Dr Hickey says.

One of the researchers in the latest American study, Jeanne Drisko, professor of orthomolecular medicine at the University of Kansas, is now running human trials to test for safety and tolerability of the treatment in humans, and is also just starting a trial to test it against hepatitis C.

Her unit also currently offers IVC to patients. She says they carefully monitor patients for signs of trouble.

Among those offering the treatment in the UK is Dr Damien Downing, the president of the British Society for Ecological Medicine.

'The Society has protocols and standard procedures in place and we make it clear that it is an experimental treatment,' he says.

'We also always work together with someone's doctor and most of the patients we treat have it together with regular chemotherapy.'

But everyone agrees that IVC needs more research. The question is, since you can't patent vitamin C, who is going to pay for it? Not the drug companies.

'This is just the sort of thing that public money should be spent on,' says Dr George Lewith, of the University of Southampton, who assesses complementary and alternative medicines for the National Cancer Research Institute.

'I would be strongly in favour of running a proper clinical trial of IVC as soon as possible. Until then we should proceed cautiously.'