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# Vitamin C may help fight melanoma, breast cancer
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/vitamin_c_melanoma_breast_cancer_1124120314/
- Published: 2012-11-24T16:14:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T15:57:37.000Z
- Description: In mice unable to make their own vitamin C, an ascorbate-supplemented diet reduced melanoma metastasis by 71 percent and slowed breast tumor growth by 28 percent, and sharply lowered serum IL-6 and VEGF, compared with mice on a vitamin C-free diet.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Vitamins, Nutrition, #vivvo-import

By David Liu, PHD

Saturday Nov 24, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- Taking high doses of vitamin C also known as ascorbic acid or ascorbate may help prevent melanoma and breast cancer or delay the progression and inhibit metastasis of these diseases, according to a study released recently in International Journal of Oncology.

Dr. Mathias Rath and his colleagues at Dr Rath Research Institute gave mice that were unable to synthesize vitamin c themselves an ascorbate supplemented diet or a no-vitamin c diet and after four weeks on the diets, mice received by injection B16FO melanoma or 4T1 breast cancer cells and the mice continued using their diets for another two weeks.

The vitamin C supplemented mice injected with B16FO melanoma cells were found to have reduced tumor metastasis by 71 percent, compared with those on the control diet without vitamin C.

Among mice receiving the vitamin c supplement, those receiving 4T1 breast cancer cells had tumor growth reduced by 28 percent, compared to tumor growth in mice that did not use the vitamin C supplemented diet.

Vitamin C supplement caused a 99% decrease in serum inflammatory cytokine interleukin (IL)-6 in the mice receiving melanoma cells and a 85% decrease in mice that received breast cancer cells, compared to mice that did not receive any vitamin C.

Additionally, in the melanoma cell study, vitamin C supplementation of mice resulted in a 98% decrease in serum VEGF, compared to those that did not receive vitamin C.

Mice that had no dietary vitamin c supplement in their diet had in their blood only 2% of the mean vitamin C levels found in supplemented mice.

The researchers concluded "ascorbate supplementation hinders metastasis, tumor growth and inflammatory cytokine secretion as well as enhanced encapsulation of tumors elicited by melanoma and breast cancer cell challenge in gulo KO mice (that can't produce vitamin C themselves)."

This is not the first time that vitamin C was found to be protective against cancer. Quite a few studies have suggested that high doses of vitamin C delivered by IV-infection can treat a variety of malignancies. Some alternative physicians even use IV-injected vitamin C to treat cancer patients.

Dr. Rath and colleagues suggest that the extracellular matrix integrity is important in preventing the formation of tumors and their metastasis and has been found associated with the aggressiveness of tumor growth and metastasis of cancer.

The researchers conducted the current study because they know vitamin C is essential for the structural integrity of the intracellular matrix and humans can't produce vitamin C themselves and must obtain it from the diet.

Also, the fact that cancer patients often have very low reserves of vitamin c indicates that vitamin C may play an important role in cancer prevention.