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Last Updated: Dec 27th, 2006 - 19:07:47 |
High doses of vitamin C administered intravenously may help fight cancer, according to a new study published in the Sept. 12-16 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Previous studies during the 1970s showed that high doses of vitamin C taken either orally or intravenously had no cancer-fighting effect.
In the study, Dr. Mark Levine and colleagues at the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Disease, applied cancer cell lines with high doses of vitamin C, which can only be achieved by intravenous administration.
According to the study, by intravenously administering ten grams of vitamin C, the serum vitamin C can reach as high as 25 times higher than what can be achieved orally.
The researchers found that high doses of vitamin C in the bloodstream did not harm the normal cells while many cancer cells were killed.
It is believed that during the study, vitamin C was transformed into a compound called hydrogen peroxide, which kills cancer cells.
The researchers suggested that previous studies failed to demonstrate the cancer-fighting effect of vitamin C. This is because the oral intake of vitamin C cannot raise the serum vitamin C to such a level as high as the intravenous administration does.
It is unknown whether or not this in-vitro result can be translated into animal results. Even if high doses of vitamin C show promise in animal tests, there is still a long way to go to confirm its cancer-fighting effect in clinical trials.
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