Does Vitamin C Help Fight Cancer

Vitamins And Diet Supplements

We need nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, essential fats and amino acids for our bodies to work properly.

Summary

• Try to eat a balanced diet with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.
• Low levels of nutrients can make you feel ill.
• Any supplements should be used under the supervision of a dietitian or your medical team.

Fact: Vitamin D Shows Promise For Colorectal Cancer

Scientists have done a lot of research on the role of vitamin D in colorectal cancer. The results havenât been totally consistent, but a number of studies found that higher levels of vitamin D are linked with a lower chance of getting the disease.

Clinical trials are still looking into the connection, including how the vitamin affects people who take it along with their treatment for colorectal cancer.

Supplements For Cancer: Iron

Cancer itself can cause fatigue. But this debilitating lack of energy can also be caused by cancer treatments. In fact, fatigue is a side effect experienced by nine out of 10 people undergoing cancer treatments, including chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants, or radiation therapy.

These treatments can damage cells in your bone marrow that are responsible for making red blood cells and lead to iron-deficiency anemia. With this type of anemia your red blood cells do not contain enough hemoglobin, which carries oxygen throughout your body. Iron is an essential component of hemoglobin, and iron supplements may improve the fatigue caused by iron-deficiency anemia.

Someone with a high need for extra iron might take iron supplements, says Byers, but most people can get the iron they need from food. One trick is to take vitamin C with meals in order to enhance the absorption of the iron in food.

Always check with your doctor before taking iron supplements, even if you think youre anemic. Too much iron in your body can damage your liver and heart. Everyone who takes iron, including the iron in multivitamins, should do so under a doctors supervision.

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Vitamin C In The Treatment Of Cancer: An Historical Perspective

Based in the known role of vitamin C in collagen synthesis, about six decades ago, William J. McCormick hypothesized that cancer metastasis could be related to a vitamin C deficiency, due to a poor collagen formation and connective tissue degeneration. Hence, the maintenance of collagen synthesis at optimal levels by using vitamin C was proposed to limit metastasis process . Since this first assumption until now, the possible benefit of vitamin C in the treatment of cancer has been controversial.

McCormicks hypothesis was extended in the 1970s by Ewan Cameron et al. Cameron proposed that vitamin C inhibited the enzyme hyaluronidase, which reduces tissue disruption and cancer cell proliferation . For this, Cameron performed the first clinical studies analyzing the anti-cancer effect of ascorbate, initially together with Allan Campbell and then with the Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling. In two retrospective studies, Cameron and Pauling suggested a therapeutic effect of high-dose vitamin C treatment in advanced cancer. Terminal cancer patients receiving intravenous followed by oral doses of ascorbate, showed increased survival times and symptomatic relief compared to control patients . These studies created a controversy and the results were criticized, among other things, for the lack of blinding inherent to a retrospective trial and the possibility of a placebo effect.

Supplements For Cancer: Garlic

Many studies have found that people who eat a lot of garlic are less likely to develop certain common cancers.

That garlic research has led scientists to wonder whether garlic may have cancer-treating properties as well as cancer-prevention capabilities. Although studies are not yet conclusive, there is some evidence that garlic may be useful for cancer in conjunction with medical treatments.

For starters, garlic may be beneficial for cancer patients owing to its immune-boosting abilities, which vary depending on how the garlic has been processed. Additionally, certain substances found in garlic have been shown to suppress growth and fight certain cancerous cells in the lab, including forms of breast and lung cancer.

Early studies have shown that eating garlic can decrease the risk of colorectal cancer and stomach cancer. The same benefit was not found with garlic supplements. However, preliminary prostate cancer research on men in China has shown that both eating garlic and garlic supplements may decrease the risk of prostate cancer.

Continued

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Supplements In The Fight Against Cancer

Many people take vitamins and supplements while they are being treated for cancer some take them to prevent cancer. Here are tips to help you shop wisely.

Vitamins and Supplements to Fight Cancer

Cancer patients are increasingly turning to supplements to strengthen their immune systems and ease nausea from chemotherapy.

Vitamin D is one of the most studied supplements for cancer prevention and treatment right now.

Antioxidant

Vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E , and beta-carotene contain antioxidants once thought to help prevent cancer. However, more recent studies show that high levels of these, in supplement form, may increase cases of gastrointestinal cancers, such as stomach, colon, and esophageal, in some populations. However, eating foods that contain these vitamins reduces the risk of many kinds of cancer.

Folic acid helps reduce the toxicity of the cancer drug methotrexate. However, in men, high levels of folic acid may raise the risk of prostate cancer.

Iron

Iron supplements can improve the fatigue caused by iron-deficiency anemia, which can result from chemotherapy and radiation.

Information About Vitamins and Supplements

Do you know how to evaluate vitamins and supplements? There are so many vitamins, supplements, and herbal extracts on the shelves. Use these tips to find out which ones may be right for you.

Safe Upper Limits for Vitamins and Minerals

Vitamin and Supplement Glossary: Common Definitions

Fasting Plus Vitamin C An Effective Cancer Treatment Combo Concludes Mice Study

Related tags:Cancer, , fasting

There is a growing body of evidence supporting the role of fasting in both cancer treatment and prevention.

Some research suggests that fasting helps fight cancer by lowering insulin resistance and levels of inflammation. Also, some researchers believe that fasting may make cancer cells more responsive to chemotherapy while protecting other cells. Fasting may also boost the immune system to help fight cancer that is already present.

Now, researchers from USC and the IFOM Cancer Institute in Milan have found that the combination of a fasting-mimicking diet, plus vitamin C supplementation, can delay tumour progression in multiple mouse models of colorectal cancer. They even found it caused disease regression in some mice.

Valter Longo, the study senior author and the director of the USC Longevity Institute at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, said: “For the first time, we have demonstrated how a completely non-toxic intervention can effectively treat an aggressive cancer.

“We have taken two treatments that are studied extensively as interventions to delay ageing – a fasting-mimicking diet and vitamin C – and combined them as a powerful treatment for cancer.”

In the report, published in the journal Nature Communications, the authors state that while fasting remains a challenging option for cancer patients, a safer, more feasible option is a low-calorie, plant-based diet that causes cells to respond as if the body were fasting.

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Vitamin C And Heavy Metal Toxicity

Metals including iron, copper, chromium, and vanadium undergo redox cycling, while cadmium, mercury, and nickel, as well as lead deplete glutathione and protein-bound sulfhydryl groups, resulting in the production of ROS as superoxide ion, hydrogen peroxide, and hydroxyl radical. As a consequence, enhanced lipid peroxidation, DNA damage, and altered calcium and sulfhydryl homeostasis occur . Various experimental studies report the beneficial effect of vitamin C against heavy metal toxicity. Lead is considered as one of the common environmental poison in which protective role of vitamin C is extensively studied. A recent experimental study based on histopathological examination revealed the diminution of detrimental effects of chronic lead intoxication on liver, kidneys, brain and testes . In another study lead induced electrophysiological changes were inhibited in rat colon by AA administration . The beneficial effect of AA on lead concentrations in human studies is however inconclusive. A large survey comprising of 19,578 participants without prior history of lead poisoning reported that blood levels of AA are inversely related to plasma AA and recent dietary intake had no influence on blood levels. This study surmises that there may be a protective relationship between AA and lead .

Myth: Vitamin D Can Help Prevent All Cancers

There isnât enough evidence to recommend vitamin D for every form of the disease. In fact, one large study found that taking vitamin D3 and calcium did not lower the overall chances of getting cancer in healthy women after menopause.

Plus, when scientists reviewed the results of several studies, they found that vitamin D does not seem to lower the odds for several kinds of cancer, including:

• Cancer of the esophagus, the tube that connects the mouth and stomach

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Supplements And Cancer Risk

Studies suggest that people who eat a diet high in plant foods such as fruit, vegetables and wholegrain cereals have a lower risk for some types of cancer.

However in most cases it is not known which compounds is best when it comes to lowering the risk of cancer. There are likely to be important, but not yet identified, components of whole food that are not included in supplements.

Currently the only evidence to suggest that supplements can reduce cancer risk is for calcium supplements. There is probable evidence that taking calcium supplements of more than 200 mg per day protects against bowel cancer.

Questions To Ask Your Doctor

Once you let your doctor know about all the medications you takeincluding over-the-counter drugs, vitamins and other supplementsyou may still have more questions, especially when it comes to your cancer treatment.

Below are some questions to consider asking:

• Can I take my other medications before and during chemotherapy?
• What are the potential side effects of this cancer treatment?
• What can I do besides take supplements to help manage treatment side effects?
• Are there any natural supplements that safely help relieve side effects from treatment?
• What are the side effects of any supplements that are safe to take?
• Are there any warning signs I should be aware of when taking supplements that are considered safe?
• When is it safe again to take the supplements I usually take?

Expert

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Myth: Women Should Take Vitamin D To Lower Their Chances Of Breast Cancer

Vitamin D may lower some womenâs odds of getting the disease, but research shows it doesnât prevent breast cancer overall. Women who are low on vitamin D to begin with may get more benefits from taking it than others.

Other findings have linked low levels of vitamin D with higher chances of breast cancer.

• Among women in the early stages of the disease, those low on vitamin D were more likely to have cancer come back later than women with normal levels. The low-vitamin D women also had a greater chance of dying from the disease.
• Women with healthy levels of vitamin D had 63% lower odds of breast cancer than women who didnât have enough of it.
• In mice, too little vitamin D seemed to help breast cancer cells grow.

Role Of Vitamins And Nutrients To Prevent Cancer

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Benjamin Franklin

As mentioned, diet plays a key role in cancer prevention. Eating a well-balanced diet and getting regular exercise can effectively eliminate two risk factors. Being overweight and obesity.

With this in mind, lets discuss five vitamins and nutrients that can help prevent cancer:

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Vitamin C Administration In Clinical Studies

Since the early 2000s, several studies including case reports and clinical trials, have been analyzed the effect of IV vitamin C in patients with different types of cancer. Two initial reports showed that treatment with high-dose IV ascorbate is well tolerated for cancer patients . However, although one study analyzing three cases showed long survival times of patients , the second study analyzing 24 cases failed to demonstrate anticancer activity of vitamin C . A study considering 125 breast cancer patients showed that IV ascorbate reduces chemotherapy-related side effects, such as nausea, fatigue and dizziness . Similar results were obtained in a study with 60 patients with different types of cancer, where IV ascorbate improved their quality of life . In addition, vitamin C administrated alone also improved quality of life in a study including 17 patients with different solid tumors, although no patient showed an objective antitumor response .

Importance Of Vitamin C In Fighting Cancer

• Date

Vitamin C, a natural substance found in many foods and dietary supplements, has long been known to carry several important health benefits. Most notable among these benefits are its critical role in the formation and health maintenance of collagen. Therefore, Vitamin C is important for the health of skin and connective tissues throughout the body.

Intravenous Vitamin C has, in fact, been used for aesthetic purposes such as skin rejuvenation and skin whitening. Vitamin C is also important for the health of bone, cartilage, and teeth, and also plays a very important role in iron absorption thus impacting overall body health in the many critical ways iron does.

Probably the most controversial, yet exceedingly exciting, a benefit of Vitamin C is its suggested role in fighting cancer. The basis of attributing to Vitamin C this cancer-fighting ability is predicated on two main observations: Vitamin Cs property as an antioxidant and its property as a factor that helps enhance the function of the immune system. Several studies have documented the fact that Vitamin C acts as a natural antioxidant.

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Vitamin C And Tissue Healing

It is also fairly understood that wound healing requires synthesis and accumulation of collagen and subsequent cross-linking of the fibre to give new tensile strength to the damaged tissue. An early study demonstrated that maximum tensile strength of scar tissue in guinea pig was achieved after supplementation of vitamin C . Since then various studies have been carried out to evaluate the role of AA in wound repair and healing/regeneration process as it stimulates collagen synthesis. Adequate supplies of AA are necessary for normal healing process especially for post-operative patients because there is rapid utilization of AA for the synthesis of collagen at the site of wound/burns during post-operative period hence, administration of 500 mg to 1.0 g/day of AA are recommended to accelerate the healing process . Of late, Jagetia et al. demonstrated that AA pre-treatment was beneficial in healing of irradiated wounds and suggested a vitamin C related therapeutic strategy to accelerate wound repair in such conditions and in the cases of combined injury situation.

The Adjuvant Anticancer Effect

As shown in the previous section, vitamin C protects normal cells from the oxidative, genotoxic effects of chemotherapeutic agents, but this does not imply that it counteracts the cytotoxic effects of cancer chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Regarding the clinical use of high doses of vitamin C in combination with standard anticancer chemotherapy, for a long time, and even today, detractors of vitamin C warn against the risk that antioxidants may enhance cancer cell proliferation.

The role of micronutrients with antioxidant properties as a useful adjunct to conventional chemotherapy and /or radiotherapy has been controversial, essentially because they could protect cancer cells from the deleterious effects of free radicals generated by the therapy, thereby preventing cancer cell death.

Recent evidence suggests that vitamin C can efficiently

• aid low-dose methotrexate in inducing cell death in Hep3B cells ,

• synergize arsenic trioxide in acute promyelocytic leukemia ,

• improve chemosensitivity of ovarian cancer, reducing, at the same time, the toxicity of chemotherapy ,

• sensitize tumor cells toward cytostatic drugs , and

• improve the quality of life of patients undergoing chemo/radiotherapy .

, compared to what happens in vivo . Overcoming cancer hypoxia may therefore represent one of the main ways to improve the anticancer activity of high doses of vitamin C in clinical settings, as commonly realized with either hyperbaric oxygen or ozonated autohemotherapy.

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Vitamin C And Neurodegenerative Disorders

Very few studies have examined the effect of vitamin C with typical antipsychotics in the treatment of schizophrenia. Oral supplementation of vitamin C with antipsychotic reverses AA levels, reduces oxidative stress, and improves BPRS score, hence both the drugs in combination can be used in the treatment of schizophrenia . The findings of another study suggest that antioxidant supplement therapy as an adjuvant therapy is useful in patients with stress-induced psychiatric disorders . There are also reports advocating beneficial effect of vitamin C in neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimers disease. Overall there is large body of evidence supporting that maintaining healthy vitamin C level can have a protective function against age related cognitive decline but avoiding vitamin C deficiency is likely to be more beneficial than taking supplements on top of normal healthy diet .

Vitamin Supplements And Cancer Risk

Dietary supplements such as vitamin and mineral tablets have become widely available in Australia and may be taken for a variety of reasons. Some people are advised by their doctor or dietitian to take dietary supplements if they have certain medical conditions, are pregnant or have a restricted dietary intake. However, most people do not need dietary supplements if they eat a wide variety of nutritious foods.

Cancer Council recommends people eat a variety of nutritious foods, especially fruit and vegetables, instead of individual nutrients in supplement form.

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