Vit C and Mexican Clinics

[Guest guest]

List,

I disagree with Sloan Kettering so often that it is amazing when we agree on something (see below). Vitamin C usually does not produce the expected results in cancer therapy. Many clinics still use it in high IV doses-- perhaps their observations are different than mine. I do think that there will be good high-dose vitamin C therapies in the future, perhaps IV H2O2 therapies also, but right now they are still simplistic and largely ineffective.

After seeing thousands of cancer sufferers on both sides of the border get every type of cancer treatment imaginable, I do have a few opinions. The conventional US clinics are very invested in maintaining the status quo. If cancer is routinely, easily, and cheaply cured what are all the docs, researchers, and pharmaceutical companies going to do--try to eek out a living wringing perfume out of civet cats? (How many of you think that cops, prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys, probation officers, prison guards and social workers want to stop all crime?)

What about the US cancer clinics that advertise their use of various adjuvant alternatives? Perhaps a better choice, but they are also too conservative so as to protect their licenses. If they participate in double blind studies (even crossovers) rather than relying on easily available historical data, then they are into research grants and not patient welfare. How do you get public money to research a cancer treatment? That's easy--describe the candidate med in terms of percent inhibition against growth rates of control tumors. This is music to the ears of the pharmaceutical companies (long term profit from each patient) and it is a delight to the government as it guarantees the demise of a useless eater thus sparing the social security coffers.

Most of the Mexican alternative cancer clinics either have their own (sometimes self-delusional) scam, or they all to often, with reckless abandon, throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. With most clinics the patients do satisfactorily while there, but all to often their programs to not lend themselves to home use. There are a couple of small clinics where the patients routinely do excellently, but I'm reluctant to see them publicised as I imagine the quality of practice will sink if they get a big influx of patients. Mass production clinical services end up as mindless and inept formulary medicine whether you get it at "Sloan Kettering" or at "Flaco's Cancer Cure Drive Thru".

Every Mexican clinic has a few true believers. Ignore the testimonies and ask about the welfare of the first fifty patients who walked through the door at the beginning of last year and of the year before. I bet all the clinics will tell you that unfortunately they just don't have the money to follow up the way they'd like to. Then they will tell you that most of their patients come from the US after the patient's insurance and immune system has expired. If they don't follow up on their patients, how do they generate those high cure-rate numbers?

I see unconventional methods work every day with just about every patient. But I don't know what I'm seeing with all the bad alternative advice over the internet. I don't know which is worse--Nasdaq medicine or Web medicine.

The solution to all this is obvious: No Cure, No Pay. But try running this up the flag pole as a potential medical-economic philosophy and the Healers-of-the-World will give ten thousand reasons why it would never work--while they quietly haul your butt out back and stone you.

Cancer Tumors Shown to Consume Large Amounts of Vitamin C Researchers are cautious about cancer patients taking vitamin C supplements

New York, September 15 - Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have found that cancer tumors consume large amounts of vitamin C. Their findings, which are reported in the September 15 issue of Cancer Research, may shed new light on the nutritional needs of tumors.

"This study is the first to demonstrate exactly how cancer cells acquire large quantities of vitamin C," said Dr. Golde, senior author of the study and Physician-in-Chief of Memorial Hospital.

Although the role that vitamin C plays in tumors is not yet known, recent studies have shown that there may be possible interactions between dietary antioxidants and chemotherapy treatment. Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant that consumes free radicals - or toxic substances in the body that can also be generated from chemotherapy agents to destroy cancer cells.

"It's possible that taking large amounts of vitamin C could interfere with the effects of chemotherapy or even radiation therapy, since these therapies often kill cells in part by using oxidative mechanisms. It's conceivable then, that vitamin C might make cancer treatment less effective and therefore, reasonable that cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy should avoid taking large amounts of this vitamin," said Dr. Golde.

Earlier research by Dr. Golde and his colleagues had established that specific glucose transporter molecules were responsible for transporting vitamin C into cells. This process occurs when vitamin C, which is used by cells in the form of ascorbic acid, is converted into the form of dehydroascorbic acid and transported into the cell. Once inside, the vitamin is converted back to ascorbic acid.

This discovery prompted Dr. Golde's team to explore whether glucose transporter molecules and vitamin C might function in cancer cells, as malignant cells devour more glucose than normal cells to obtain the energy they need to grow. Subsequently, their laboratory studies with myeloid leukemia cells showed that the cells accumulated high levels of vitamin C through their glucose transporters.

Building on this research, the researchers hypothesized that human leukemia, breast and prostate cancer cells would acquire large amounts of vitamin C in the same way. To find out, mice were injected with human cancer cells of the breast, prostate and blood and, after tumors had developed, were injected with ascorbic acid, dehydroascorbic acid, or sucrose (as a measure of blood volume). All tumors were subsequently analyzed for vitamin C content. The researchers found that the tumors readily took up vitamin C by a process involving the conversion of ascorbic acid to dehydroascorbic acid.

"Now we know that tumors acquire and retain large amounts of vitamin C. So, it appears that tumors have nutritional needs, similar to other healthy cells that take in large amounts of the vitamin," said Dr. Agus, first author of the study and an oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. "More studies need to be done to determine what the tumor cells do with the vitamin C once they get it."