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Vitamin C and Cancer

TJ Williams, DC, PhD

By TJ Williams, DC, PhD

It is an unfortunate part of the day and age we live in that virtually every person reading this article will have been affected by cancer in some way or another, whether it be through a friend, a loved one, or even yourself. This is why we would like to introduce you to one of the oncology world’s greatest secrets: high-dose intravenous vitamin C.

It is a scientific fact that the antioxidant Vitamin C will promote oxidation when it circulates in very high concentrations in highly oxygenated blood. Healthy cells tolerate high dosages because of catalase, an enzyme that neutralizes oxidation immediately. Catalase is abundant in our blood and normal tissues but is generally scant in malignant tumors. This lack of catalase in cancerous tissues allows vitamin C’s oxidative capacity to selectively kill malignant cells.

Conventional therapy produces significant collateral damage, which means that, while chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery can be very effective at killing cancer cells, they don’t discriminate — they also kill healthy cells.

Some of the main cells that suffer are those of the immune system. Oncologists have to carefully estimate what the damage will be to healthy cells to avoid killing the patient with the very treatment intended to save him. That’s why chemotherapy and radiation must have breaks in their cycles. We are happy to share that intravenous vitamin C is available and may reduce the collateral damage caused by conventional treatment.

Researchers have found that a highly concentrated vitamin C dose is “selectively” toxic to cancer cells, meaning the dose harms cancer cells but not healthy tissue. Yet when this treatment was coupled with the addition of catalase (an enzyme), the cancer-killing effect was reduced significantly. This led researchers to believe that the high-dose vitamin C infusion resulted in the production of large quantities of hydrogen peroxide, which initially caused a cancer-killing effect that was then neutralized by the catalase. This suggested that cancer cells do not produce sufficient catalase to neutralize high levels of hydrogen peroxide on their own.

We now know that many cancer cells produce small amounts of catalase to sustain low concentrations of hydrogen peroxide. This creates the cancer-friendly environment of mild oxidative stress that encourages rapid growth of, and further aggression by, malignant cells. Fortunately, because a high proportion of cancers are only able to produce small amounts of catalase, they’re vulnerable to the cancer-killing effect exhibited by high levels of hydrogen peroxide. A high dose and rapid IV infusion of vitamin C reacts spontaneously with molecular oxygen within tumors, generating large amounts of hydrogen peroxide, lethal to tumor cells that produce only small amounts of catalase.

Research by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has proven that to consistently achieve the vitamin C concentration sufficient to provoke oxidation, a patient must receive dozens of grams intravenously; oral administration is useless in this regard. In fact, a number of published case reports, which show that repeated high-dose IV treatments yield objective tumor regression, are so compelling that NIH clinical trials are formally evaluating intravenous vitamin C therapy.

If you would like more information on Vitamin C therapy, please contact us at (314) 293-8123 or visit us at www.theinstituteofnaturalhealth.com. Dr. TJ Williams is the Clinic Director for The Institute of Natural Health and the host of the radio program Wellness 101, which provides common-sense, science-based strategies for a healthy life. Wellness 101 airs Sundays at 3:00pm on FM NewsTalk 97.1.