Intravenous Vitamin C and Cancer

NatureMed Clinic Denver/Boulder

This page is meant to help patients understand more about the use of sodium ascorbate (vitamin C) and cancer. Vitamin C is typically given intravenously in doses ranging from a few thousand milligrams to one hundred thousand milligrams. At high doses intravenous vitamin C is antiviral, promotes natural detoxification, kills cancer cells and can help regulate the immune system. All the treatments we use at NatureMed are based on scientific evidence.  Therefore, the references for intravenous Vitamin C are listed below.

In two Scottish studies, terminal cancer patients given intravenous vitamin C (10 g day-1) showed longer survival times than historical controls. A Japanese study yielded similar results, but 2 double-blind studies at the Mayo clinic using oral vitamin C (10 g day-1) showed no benefit. Oral vitamin C supplementation is unlikely to produce plasma ascorbate levels sufficient to kill tumor cells directly and it for this reason that we give it intravenously.

Intravenous vitamin C is toxic to cancer cells turning into hydrogen peroxide inside cancer cells and causing these cells to die. Normal cells have a mechanism for combating the damage caused by hydrogen peroxide whereas cancer cells do not.  The use of intravenous vitamin C is currently being studied by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as an adjunctive therapy for cancer.

Researchers from the NIH reported in the August 5, 2008 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that high-dose vitamin C reduced tumor weight and growth rate by about 50 percent in mice with brain, ovarian and pancreatic cancers. The researchers traced vitamin C's anti-cancer effect to the formation of hydrogen peroxide in the extracellular fluid surrounding the tumors. Normal cells were unaffected.

Promising Research on Vitamin C Combined with Vitamin K₃

Cancer cell killing: The anticancer effects of sodium ascorbate (vitamin C) and 2-methyl-1,4-naphthoquinone (vitamin K₃) administered separately or in combination on human ovarian, breast, endometrial and skin cancer cells lines has been demostrated. When given separately, vitamin C or K₃ has a growth inhibiting action only at high concentrations but when combined into a single mixture administration of both vitamins demonstrated a synergistic inhibition of cell growth at 10 to 50 times lower concentrations. These vitamins are not toxic to normal human cells. The combination of sodium ascorbate and vitamin K₃ may also prevent metastasis.

The mechanism is something called autoschizic cell death. Autoschizis, is a novel type of cell death characterized by exaggerated cell membrane damage and progressive loss of cell contents. During this process, the nucleus becomes smaller, cell size decreases one-half to one-third of its original size.  Co-administration of sodium ascorbate and K₃ induces a cell cycle block on cancer cells making it harder for them to grow and divide.  This is called a G₁/S block. The intravenous vitamin cocktail containing sodium ascorbate and vitamin K₃ diminishes cancer cell DNA synthesis, increases H₂O₂ (hydrogen peroxide) production, and decreases cancer cell intracellular antioxidant defenses.

We only treat cancer patients under the oversight and supervision of our in-house oncologist.

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References:

Padayatty SJ, Sun H, Wang Y, Riordan HD, Hewitt SM, Katz A, Wesley RA, Levine  M.Vitamin C pharmacokinetics: implications for oral and intravenous use. Ann Intern Med. 2004 Apr 6;140(7):533-7.

Padayatty SJ, Riordan HD, Hewitt SM, Katz A, Hoffer LJ, Levine M. Intravenously administered vitamin C as cancer therapy: three cases.CMAJ. 2006 Mar 28;174(7):937-42.

Duconge J, Miranda-Massari JR, Gonzalez MJ, Jackson JA, Warnock W, Riordan NH. Pharmacokinetics of vitamin C: insights into the oral and intravenous administration of ascorbate. P R Health Sci J. 2008 Mar;27(1):7-19. Review.

Riordan HD, Casciari JJ, González MJ, Riordan NH, Miranda-Massari JR, Taylor P, Jackson JA. A pilot clinical study of continuous intravenous ascorbate in terminal cancer patients. P R Health Sci J. 2005 Dec;24(4):269-76.

Riordan HD, Riordan NH, Jackson JA, Casciari JJ, Hunninghake R, González MJ, Mora EM, Miranda-Massari JR, Rosario N, Rivera A. Intravenous vitamin C as a chemotherapy agent: a report on clinical cases. P R Health Sci J. 2004 Jun;23(2):115-8.

Yeom CH, Jung GC, Song KJ. Changes of terminal cancer patients' health-related quality of life after high dose vitamin C administration. J Korean Med Sci. 2007 Feb;22(1):7-11.

Vincenzo Noto, MD, Henryk S. Taper, MD , Jiang Yi-Hua, MD , Jaak Janssens, MD , Jan Bonte, MD, William De Loecker, MD Effects of sodium ascorbate (vitamin C) and 2-methyl-1,4-naphthoquinone (vitamin K3) treatment on human tumor cell growth in vitro. I. Synergism of combined vitamin C and K3 action. Volume 63 Issue 5, Pages 901 - 906.

James M. Jamison, Jacques Gilloteaux, Henryk S. Taper, Pedro Buc Calderon and Jack L. Summers. Autoschizis: a novel cell death. Biochemical Pharmacology. Volume 63, Issue 10, 15 May 2002, Pages 1773-1783.

Jacques Gilloteaux, James M. Jamison, Heather E. Lorimer, David Jarjoura, Henryk S. Taper, Pedro B. Calderon, Deborah R. Neal and Jack L. Summers Autoschizis: a new form of cell death for human ovarian carcinoma cells following ascorbate:menadione treatment: Nuclear and DNA degradation.Tissue and Cell Volume 36, Issue 3, June 2004, Pages 197-209

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von Gruenigen VE, Jamison JM, Gilloteaux J, Lorimer HE, Summers M, Pollard RR, Gwin CA, Summers JL. The in vitro antitumor activity of vitamins C and K3 against ovarian carcinoma. Anticancer Res. 2003 Jul-Aug;23(4):3279-87. PubMed PMID: 12926064.

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Taper HS, Jamison JM, Gilloteaux J, Gwin CA, Gordon T, Summers JL. In vivo reactivation of DNases in implanted human prostate tumors after administration of a vitamin C/K(3) combination. J Histochem Cytochem. 2001 Jan;49(1):109-20. PubMed PMID: 11118483.

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