Detractors choose to focus on those studies that showed it didn’t work, conveniently ignoring the fact that many of the studies that were inconclusive in this regard simply weren’t testing big enough doses to unlock its effectiveness.
Research carried out at the University of Iowa confirms that vitamin C does kill cancer cells selectively without damaging normal cells. One study showed that the vitamins can reduce mutations that cause cancer in mice, while another study showed it can kill as much as 50 percent of human lymphoma cells.
Another study, this one from the Perlmutter Cancer Center, found that injecting mice with high doses of vitamin C stopped leukemia cancer stem cells from humans from growing, probably by telling the faulty stem cells in bone marrow to die. A different study found that adding vitamin C via IV to typical chemotherapy drugs extended the average survival times of pancreatic cancer patients from 5.65 months to 12 months.
Then there’s the University of Kansas study that injected high doses of vitamin C into ovarian cells from humans. They found that the vitamin targeted the ovarian cancer cells without harming healthy cells, and they went on to repeat the study on mice and human subjects.
These findings wouldn’t be surprising to the researchers who worked on a review that was published in the Puerto Rico Health Sciences Journal in 2008. After looking at studies that used extremely higher amounts of vitamin C intravenously, they concluded that it can be effective against tumors, although they said that its efficacy could not be judged when it was administered orally.
Even though the authors called for further research into vitamin C’s cancer-fighting power, nothing was done about it at the time. After all, chemotherapy has been so profitable for the medical and pharmaceutical industries, and it would be hard to profit off of something as cheap, widely available, and unpatentable as vitamin C .
Some people have been getting these treatments on their own at alternative cancer clinics, but it’s not widely accepted. In addition, those who are wary of IVs find it extremely difficult to get the high blood concentration needed for this treatment to work its magic when they take it orally.
Now, however, there is a new form of vitamin C that could change everything. Liposomal vitamin C can create vitamin C levels in the blood that are 100 to 500 times greater than those normally achieved by oral ingestion, making it easier for people to fight cancer.
Liposomal vitamin C is encapsulated in lecithin, which shields it from digestive enzymes that would normally break it down. It makes its way through the digestive system with ease and is absorbed by the intestines before being transported into the liver, where it is released into the bloodstream.
This approach does away with the waste and gastric upset seen with conventional vitamin C tablets while maintaining high blood concentrations. Whether it will one day make its way into the mainstream and give riskier treatments like chemotherapy a run for their money remains to be seen, however.
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