Vitamin C and Cancer

This new study accomplishes two important things: it adds more evidence that vitamin C helps fight cancer, and it adds more evidence that antioxidants help chemotherapy rather than interfering with it. . . . 

Ovarian cancer is very difficult to treat. This pilot study of twenty-seven women with either stage III or stage IV ovarian cancer administered either the chemotherapy drugs carboplatin or paclitaxel alone or with the addition of IV vitamin C. 

In the women who were getting the vitamin C, the chemo caused less toxicity of the brain, bone marrow and major organs. The women who added the vitamin C also added 8.75 more months to the time they went without relapse or progression of their cancer compared to the women getting the chemo without the vitamin.

This study once again suggests a benefit to vitamin C and once again refutes the too familiar claim that antioxidants interfere with chemotherapy. Once again, the addition of an antioxidant not only did not interfere with the chemo, it enhanced its effectiveness while protecting against its debilitating side effects.

For more on antioxidants and chemotherapy, see “The Cruelest Lie Ever Told” in Vol. 12.2 of The Natural Path. For natural solutions to the most common side effects of chemotherapy, see Vol. 17.4 of The Natural Path.

Sci Transl Med 2014;6:222ra18