There is a news article on the popular BBC discussing vitamin C slowing Cancer deaths.

Summary: Mice with weak immune systems were injected with human tumors. Vitamin C was then injected into the mice. Tumour growth and weight fell by between 41% and 53%, and while in untreated mice, the disease spread rapidly to involve other body parts, no such spread was seen in the vitamin C-treated animals.

Previous studies have not found this remarkable evidence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7540822.stm

I cannot post the images because im at work.

This is encouraging work but it's at a very early stage because it involves cells grown in the lab and mice

Boy I´m tired of reading that for each and every health research announcement...

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Have there been previous studies on this type of treatment?

I found this part interesting: "Some research even suggests that high doses of antioxidants can make cancer treatment less effective, reducing the benefits of radiotherapy and chemotherapy."

Hmm... Last time I checked, radiation and chemo "work", but the side effects are usually worse than the cancer itself. So they are in essence saying 'hey, this non-toxic, easily attainable and affordable treatment method can reduce your tumors by 40-50%, and halt the spread of the said cancers, but it may interfere with the expensive, toxic chemicals and radiation we are giving you that, well, don't really work all that great anyways, make you feel like dying, and may even weaken you so much that our treatment will kill you before your cancer does'. I highly doubt a high dose of a vitamin is going to waste you away like rad and chemo treatments do.

I hope that this study is followed up with more research.

One troublesome side effect is that the mice begin to resemble Linus Pauling.

True. After dying from cancer, theraputic side effects are usually minimal.

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Ditto. Before dad died, while he was sick... my grandfather would see that for just about everything, and rush right over with some supplement, juice, vitamin, herb, etc.

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Well put!

No mouse should suffer that indignity.

Mike Alexander. Not too funny. Linus Pauling, winner of two Nobels, was a brilliant chemist, an imaginative writer/teacher, and as erudite as anyone. His championing of vitamin C for combatting the comon cold viruses was backed by numerous double-blind studies and was strirred by the medical community's bureaucratic inertia against a friend's work...(which would have reduced commercial consumption of OTC cold medicines).
There were studies published in the late 80's I believe that linked primatology work on blood lipids' transport to vitamin C concentrations. A female researcher trying to establish a baseline for blood lipid levels in primates removed all sources of them from her test animals' diets. The resulting diet, high in vitamin C, nevertheless saw an unexpected increase in blood lipid levels to her surprise, even though they ate none. Subsequent investigations led her and others to conclude that the vitamin C was increasing transport of arterial deposits to the liver, and that this tailed off as the arteries cleaned. Since vitamin C is easily bought and used, and cheaply synthesized it bore grim consequences for the powerful pharmaceutical industry. It was published in a small circular I found at the Out-of-Town Ticket Agency in Harvard Square many moons ago. She claimed to have been stonewalled by publication in a headier journal, such as the New England Journal of Medicine...but I found little consequential reference to her work throughout the years. Her name eludes me, but I'll try Googling the lipid/primate work and see if something pops up. pete

heres one:http://www.garynull.com/Documents/vitaminc.htm
heres another:http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/133/10/3047

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But was he good-looking?

just kidding

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Argos. As one who is equally as follicularly challenged...of course! pete.

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I agree, the Linus Paulding scenario is just another case of big profits threatened by simple solutions, this case the pharmaceutical companies.

Keep em sick so the $$ keeps rolling in!

not taht old tosh. If simple cheap treatments are effective they would be used, the evidence would support them. Or do only the big drug companies have access to Vitamin C?

What you are suggesting is a conspiracy between the drug companies and university research labs, other scientists etc. Show us some evidence.

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Well, assuming Vitamin C did retard the growth of tumors as the OP states, the best I could see for this is as an adjunct therapy for standard cancer treatment, not as anything stand-alone. Something to make things a little easier on the patient, so to speak.

And anybody who's trying to say that such-and-such a purported remedy for such-and-such a disease is being suppressed by the drug companies is lying out of his ear (and probabaly trying to sell you something as well). Stay away from them!

- Maha Vailo

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Pauling was indeed a brilliant chemist (see my copy of "The Nature of the Chemical Bond"). He was also a self-deluded nut in some areas, and his championing of vitamin C shows all the signs of arrogant ignorance.

A compound that works on everything from the 'common cold' to a variety of cancers contains a large admixture of oil of snake, added by a self-deluded genius.

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My copy of The Nature of the Chemical Bond would confirm the first half of that. My personal experience would also confirm the second half.

Around 1978 or so, while I was an undergraduate at The Polytechnic Insitute of New York, Dr. Pauling gave a guest lecture in the Chemistry Department. I was quite awestruck at meeting a gosh-darn real life Noble Prize winner (actually two, one also in Peace). He spoke about his ideas about Vitamin C. I do not recall any of the details after 30 years, but I do recall coming away completely disappointed, unconvinced, and with the thought of "how the mighty have fallen".

I have not kept up with the details of the research since then, but I have seen nothing that convinces me that Vitamin C is a miracle cure for cancer, or a significant way of preventing colds. At best, like other antioxidants, it may impart some small benefits to humans, as part of a healthy diet, IMHO.

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And anybody who's trying to say that such-and-such a purported remedy for such-and-such a disease is being suppressed by the drug companies is lying out of his ear (and probabaly trying to sell you something as well). Stay away from them!

- Maha Vailo

It doesn't actually say in the article, though it does seem to imply, whether this was the first time this method has been employed (direct injection, amount injected, etc.). If it is the first time this has been tried (by an independent, non profit driven group anyways), it would certainly explain why it is not in widespread use, and why it is such a landmark finding.

edit: Missed this part of the piece:

The researchers wrote: "These pre-clinical data provide the first firm basis for advancing pharmacologic ascorbate in cancer treatment in humans."

I was following Linus Pauling since the 70s.

He had a great sense of humor and probably would have LOVED the mouse joke.

Pauling was a genius, but an impulsive one.
Read "The Double Helix". Crick & Watson were terrified to hear that Pauling had beaten them to the structure of DNA, and mightily relieved when they read that he proposed a triple helix, because they knew it was nonsense - and he should have known!
John

01101001. My setting was some double-blind studies he referred to back in the seventies, that showed a significant effect. I believe I read it in a paperback text of his...circa 1974?... pete

something to this effect...see:http://news.bio-medicine.org/medicin...old-3F-9249-1/

The link refers to ~ a 50% reduction in contract...for people exposed to severe temperatures, but holds that result as cautionary, though to be fair, slight reduction in overall intensity in many others.......pete.

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If it worked as advetised by the cranks the mainstream would have picked it up years ago, never mind this mythical conspiraqcy by the drug companies.

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The thread threatened to veer into ATM-land, but managed to get back on track, thankfully, as the first post has already been picked up several times by the "let's copy lots of forum articles and send them link-backs in the hope that it makes people come here so we can score ad-money" sites.

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