Posted on 09/10/2007 6:26:45 PM PDT by Pharmboy
Vitamin C can impede the growth of some types of tumors although not in the way some scientists had suspected, researchers reported on Monday.
The new research, published in the journal Cancer Cell, supported the general notion that vitamin C and other so-called antioxidants can slow tumor growth, but pointed to a mechanism different from the one many experts had suspected.
The researchers generated encouraging results when giving vitamin C to mice that had been implanted with human cancer cells -- either the blood cancer lymphoma or prostate cancer. Another antioxidant, N-acetylcysteine, also limited tumor growth in the mice, the researchers said.
Antioxidants are nutrients that prevent some of the damage from unstable molecules known as free radicals, created when the body turns food into energy. Vitamin C, vitamin E and beta-carotene are among well-known antioxidants.
Previous research had suggested that vitamin C may stifle tumor growth by preventing DNA damage from free radicals.
But researchers led by Dr. Chi Dang, a professor of medicine and oncology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, found that antioxidants appear to be working in a different way -- undermining a tumor's ability to grow under certain conditions.
Figuring out how antioxidants impede tumors should help scientists figure out how they might be harnessed to fight cancer, Dang said. In addition to the cancer types involved in this study, others that might be vulnerable to vitamin C include colon cancer and cervical cancer, he said.
Dang said more research is needed and cautioned against taking high doses of vitamin C based on these findings.
"Certainly we would very much discourage people with untreated cancer to go out and take buckets full of vitamin C," Dang said in a telephone interview.
Linus Pauling argued in the 1970s that vitamin C, also called ascorbic acid, could ward off cancer, but the notion has proved contentious.
Pauling, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry as well as the Nobel Peace Prize, died in 1994.
"Pauling actually had some good evidence that under certain situations vitamin C can prevent tumor formation. It's just the mechanism was really not that clear then," Dang said.
"Now that, I think, we provide relatively compelling evidence of how this works, maybe Pauling is partly right. We shouldn't dismiss him so quickly." Dang added.
The dose makes the poison.
Or, an older version:
"The right dose differentiates a poison and a remedy." Paracelsus.
All Vitamin C now comes from China! No thanks!
random ping—this is NOT a ping list
Nah...they’re still making ascorbic acid in Switzerland and Germany. And here, too.
Toxicology of drugs and vitamins are two different things.
I've read this advice for 30 years now. There's never enough research for vitamins. If statins had similar results, there would be an advertising push starting tomorrow.
ping
“Another antioxidant, N-acetylcysteine, also limited tumor growth in the mice, the researchers said.”
Where can I get me some N-acetylcysteine?
Are you serious?I just bought a jar of crystal Vitamin C powder from Trader Joe’s today.I looked at the label and all it said was Distributed and sold by Trader Joe’s,Monrovia,Ca.
I don’t trust Chinese made products either.
Vitamin C is extraordinarily safe.
So go ahead, folks, load up! Take ten grams or so...
after you spend a couple hours on the crapper, you won’t do it again!
I’m usually in for 4-5 grams a day.
vitamin C should come from food. It’s one of the easiest vitamins to get. If you eat liver you can even get enough without eating any plants (for all you anti-vegetarians out there)
www.lef.org
This is not as simple as it sounds, because ‘a’ may not equal ‘a’. That is, some years ago when they were studying bioflavanoids for their anti-cancer effects, they discovered that for unknown reasons, while they worked in natural substances, when removed from those natural substances as pure bioflavanoids, they didn’t work.
There is a very good chance that what is having the beneficial effect comes not from the chemical being studied, but from a different chemical, or even a complex organic, like a protein, present in tiny amounts with the main chemical.
It may work in the body, but not in cancer cells in a petri dish, because it effects another part of the body that in turn acts upon the cancer cells.
This is really complicated stuff.
You mean it might stimulate the gene that stimulates a particular substance that might be envolved?
I like Ester C.
The Late Dr. Robert Atkins, the Atkins Diet creator, did extensive research into this years before he died. His research showed the same.
I'M CURED!!
Pauliong was a smart guy and will probably be upheld in the long run.
Same thing—different range of effects, that’s all.
They include Vitamin Pb for no extra charge.
thanks, bfl
The amount to produce toxicity is also much different.
85% of all the Vit C comes from China.
Fighting cancer is so complicated that it rivals a major war in complexity. Cancer cells actually fight back when you try to treat them. For this reason, it is now recommended that you attack them with three different cancer treatments simultaneously, to overwhelm them.
Before cancer can begin, the bodies defenses have to be partially deactivated. Cancerous cells happen all the time and normally they are destroyed before becoming a problem. The cancer must be of a “successful” type or it will die. It must be able to divide yet produce other cancer cells that are both cancerous and functional.
Then, in a manner unique to cancer, it must actually stimulate the body to grow extra capillaries to feed it more than normal cells, as it consumes much more energy. And it must also defeat the “self-destruct” mechanism that cells have that prevents them from endlessly reproducing themselves instead of being replaced by stem cells.
Finally, it must change the chemical composition of its outer coat, to make itself slippery, so that cells can break off from each other, in metastasis, so they can travel through blood vessels to a new location where they can become a new tumor after changing back and adhering themselves to normal cells.
The complexity just keeps growing from there. And growing.
Findings from a 2005 study show that one of the procyanidins deactivates a number of proteins that likely work in concert to push cancer cells to continually divide. A research team from Georgetown University performed a variety of tests on breast cancer cells and four proteins that contribute to their division and growth. They discovered that after treating the cells with the procyanidin compound, all four proteins involved in the reproduction of the cancer cells were essentially “turned off” and the cancer cells stopped dividing. The lead researcher noted that the exciting aspect of their findings is that the procyanidin diactivated four separate regulatory proteins, greatly enhancing its inhibitory effect. Many anticaer agent only diplay a single inhibitory effect. The results were published in a 2005 issue of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics.
I buy mine from a company that has farms in the USA — totally organically grown. Excellent quality. FReepmail me for details.
I was in charge of purchasing for the company that makes Ester-C for 9 years. At the height of our sales boom, we were purchasing well over a million kilograms of raw vitamin C per year. The bulk of it was from China, but a significant quantity was made right here in the USA (New Jersey of all places) and we bought some on occasion from Europe as well.
By the mid-to-late 90's, the Chinese had learned to make C just as well as Mfrs in the West. We tested frequently for all kinds of contaminants, including heavy metals, and the C from China was just as pure as from anywhere else. Because it was fermented in a multi-stage process from corn, by the time it reached its final form (a white granular powder - very small granulation), the only thing that differentiated Chinese from domestic was the consistency of the particle size. Domestic had a tighter distribution.
The reason that the Chinese now comprise the bulk of raw C production in the world is because of unfair competition. They (the "Big 4" Chinese manufacturers conspired) drove worldwide pricing down below actual cost, which made it impossible for higher-cost Western producers (with one exception) and the smaller Chinese players to compete - so they simply stopped making C. When I left the business, there were just the 4 Chinese mfrs and one Western player that had a plant here in the US and one in the UK.
<blockquote><table><tr valign=top><td>thanks, and to Coleus as well. :')
<a href="http://www.tinypic.com/" target="o" title="Image and video hosting by TinyPic">
;<img src="http://i18.tinypic.com/6ahl7b8.jpg" border=0 alt="Alfonso Bedoya"></a>
</td><td>
<i>NOT A PING LIST, merely posted to: </i>
</td></tr></table>
</blockquote>
I read about 80% of it, actually.
Ewww, liver! Eating liver is like sucking on the dirty air filter from your car. No thanks. ;-)
the truth is that massive iv infusions of vitamin c have cured many types of diseases. Dr Klenner was a pioneer with that therapy and there are many natural health doctors healing people that way today. It is not understood and maligned by much of the medical establishment. Not a huge profit margin in it. Check out the vitamin c foundations website for the many amazing cures gotten with vitamin c therapy.
It's readily available from many vendors. Just do a web search for: N-Acetyl-Cysteine or N-acetylcysteine.
Yup.
They studied Vit C in a 150 lb goat.
It was creating something like 13,000 milligrams a day. And goats are veggies, so they probably get some from their diet.
Then they put the goat under extreme stress, and watched the Vit C go up to almost 100,000 milligrams a day.
I’ve been convinced for a long time that humans need AT LEAST 5 gr/day, possibly much more, but you gotta build up to it s..l..o..w..l..y........
Since mom recently died of pancretic cancer, I’ve been adding Vitamin D to my diet:
Vitamin D May Cut Pancreatic Cancer
Adults With Recommended Intake of Vitamin D Had Lower Pancreatic Cancer Risk, Study Shows By Jennifer Warner
WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Louise Chang, MD
on Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Sept. 12, 2006 — Getting the recommended intake of vitamin D from diet, supplements, or even the sun may cut your risk of pancreatic cancer.
The results of two large, long-term surveys show that adults who got 300 IU to 449 IU (international units) per day had a 43% lower risk of pancreatic cancercancer. The recommended intake of vitamin D for adults aged 51-70 is 400 IU per day.
Researchers say the findings suggest that vitamin D, which is created in the skin upon exposure to ultraviolet sunlight, and found in fortified dairy products and other food sources, may play an important role in preventing pancreatic cancer. The cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the U.S.
“Because there is no effective screening for pancreatic cancer, identifying controllable risk factors for the disease is essential for developing strategies that can prevent cancer,” researcher Halcyon Skinner, PhD, of the department of preventive medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, says in a news release.
“Vitamin D has shown strong potential for preventing and treating prostate cancerprostate cancer, and areas with greater sunlight exposure have lower incidence and mortality for prostate, breast, and colon cancers, leading us to investigate a role for vitamin D in pancreatic cancer risk,” says Skinner.
“Few studies have examined this association, and we did observe a reduced risk for pancreatic cancer with higher intake of vitamin D,” he says.
Vitamin D May Fight Pancreatic Cancer
In the study, researchers analyzed data on vitamin D intake and pancreatic cancer risk among the more than 120,000 men (aged 40 to 75) and women (38 to 65) who participated in the Health Professionals Follow-Up and Nurses’ Health studies.
Between the two surveys, 365 cases of pancreatic cancer were reported.
The Northwestern study showed people who consumed in the range of 300 IU to 449 IU per day of vitamin D daily had a 43% lower risk of pancreatic cancer than those with less than 150 IU per day.
Getting more than the daily RDA (600 IU per day or greater) had 41% lower risk than those who consumed less than 150 IU per day.
Even participants who consumed only 150 IU to 299 IU per day had a 22% lower risk than those with less than 150 IU per day.
The analysis took into account factors such as smoking history, multivitamin use, age, and body mass index (BMI)body mass index (BMI).
Researchers also examined the association between pancreatic cancer and daily intake of calcium and vitamin A, but found no link.
“In concert with laboratory results suggesting antitumor effects of vitamin D, our results point to a possible role for vitamin D in the prevention and possible reduction in mortality of pancreatic cancer.
“Since no other environmental or dietary factor showed this risk relationship, more study of vitamin D’s role is warranted,” says Skinner.
NAC is a good one.
Ping.
Thanks. I’ll retrieve my C jar from the back of the closet ... where I placed it a few years ago because of a report that it caused ... (Something not good. No longer remembering.)
Mabel? Get me Linus Pauling...
N-acetylcysteine?
It’s readily available from many vendors. Just do a web search for: N-Acetyl-Cysteine or N-acetylcysteine.
&&&
Which foods have it?
They include Vitamin Pb for no extra charge.
***
LOL!
It caused memory loss. Just kidding...LOL!
I want to go on your regimen!
no foie gras for you then!
no foie gras for you then!
no foie gras for you then!
the claim by everyone is that exercising and losing weight works to cure diseases brought on by obesity and yet very few actually do this.
Most people would rather buy into a claim that you can just take a pill and not even have to eat an orange for vitamin C.
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