i donãt know about you, but as i get olderi have this sense that it seems like everyone is getting cancer. does anyone share thiswith me? it seems to be a growing problem. i know it does relate to the aging process.to me, it is the fact that a lot of people are still somewhat fatalistic about cancerand look upon it as, if not a death sentence, a very difficult time ahead with the varioustypes of therapies that we have available in conventional medicine. here at the center, for the last 15 years,we have been pioneering a new understanding that can help those patients who get cancermore effectively by treating the cancer, and reducing the side effectsof the treatments they undergo, and hopefully
use this information to prevent cancer. iwant to emphasize that i am speaking about a new understanding.now, many of you may not have heard any of the previous lectures weãve had on vitaminc, so in this lecture iãm going to fill you with a lot of that information. for more detail,we have a series of talks that i have given, as well as other researchers here at the center,on how to monitor iv vitamin c and what really causes cancer. today, i would like to emphasis the mechanismof how vitamin c can help with you, your family member, or a friend fight cancer. more importantly,iãm hoping this information gets out to the medical profession at large, because thereare some misunderstandings about vitamin c
and how it fights cancer that weãre hopingto overcome with better information. today iãm shooting for clarity.i always want my lectures to be clear, but probably more so than ever before. i hopethis group gets a good clear understanding of how vitaminc can be a very effective tool in the fight against cancer.here at the center, the bright spot for health, this has been one of our major research focusareas. we have a lot of patients coming to us thesedays with cancer, to be treated with the iv vitamin c. i would like to dedicate my lecture todayto the first successfully treated cancer patient
here at the center. george williamson developedadenocarcinoma of the right kidney in 1980. his case was written up by dr. james jacksonand published in the journal of orthomolecular medicine, which you can now read online. georgeappropriately had his kidney removed, but by that point he already had metastases, ithad already spread to his lung and his liver. iãm sure most of you know that once it startsto spread, that is a very ominous progression of the disease. based upon dr. riordanãsrelationship with dr. linus pauling, a two-time nobel prize winner, who was very interestedin vitamin c, as well as dr. ewan cameron, a scottish surgeon who was doing ivc researchin scotland. dr. riordan started george on 30 grams of iv intravenous vitamin c, twicea week and george began to feel better.
by the time he had completed 15 months ofthis therapy, he went back to his oncologist. the oncologist verified that the metastaseswere gone and the cancer had cleared up. then 14 years later, at the age of 84, george diedof something completely different than his cancer. earlier this year, his wife, opal,passed away. iãve been very grateful to both of them and their enthusiasm for the center.i always want to remember that we are here at the center to serve people. cancer isnãt something that just happens.it happens to real people ã± people like yourselves and our family members. my wife has had breastcancer, and we have friends who have fallen victim to cancer, so we need really good toolsto help patients overcome this dreaded illness.
iãm going to be talking a little about chemistrytoday, but remember my goal is to make it under-standable, so for all of you who usedto freeze up in school whenever the word ã¬chemistryã® was mentioned, you can relax. iãm going tokeep it simple ã± you need to understand this if you want to understand what makes vitaminc, ascorbate acid, so special in the realm of cancer therapy. there is a term called ã¬redoxã® and it isreally a part of the whole life process. iãm sure youãve heard the word ã¬antioxidantã®.an antioxidant is something likeã–if you cut an apple and you leave it exposed to the oxygen,the oxygen will oxidize the surface of the apple and it will start to turn brown. however,if you squeeze a little bit of lemon juice
on it, thatãs a reducing agent, it is anantioxidant. so, an anti-oxidant reduces the oxidative effect. it sounds a little confusing,but as we go alon, i want you to see that this actually is kind of a circular thingã–youcan oxidize, but you can also reduce, and you can regenerate some of these moleculeslike vitamin cã– to kind of put it back into battle again, recharge it, give it a new lifeso it can do its job better than it otherwise could. thereãs a very interesting phenomenathat occurs around vitamin c and iãm going to try to explain this. you know, most ofus have heard the term vitamin. vitamin c is also ascorbic acid, but we refer to itas ã¬vitamin cã® because vitamins are small amounts of something that does something else.we know vitamin c prevents what disease? scurvy!
rightã–but it only takes a very small amount.the recommended daily allowance to prevent scurvy is like somewhere between 60 to 90,to maybe a little bit more of milligrams of vitamin c. about the amount of vitamin c thatwould fit on the head of a pin. now, do you think that amount would be enoughto treat cancer? noã–we have to think of vitamin c in terms of dosage, so if we are going toget in to using vitamin c, now maybe small amounts of vitamin c could be somewhat helpfulin preventing cancer, but in treating cancer weãre going to have to use larger doses.so at low doses, vitamin c acts almost purely as an antioxidant, which most of us know itas. but what is surprising, and what most oncologists still donãt know or understand,is that at much higher doses, vitamin c can
act as both, an antioxidant and a pro-oxidant.it doesnãt suddenly change, it always is, and always has been, and always will be anantioxidant. but, it enters into a special chemical reaction in the body that createsa pro-oxidant effectã–which we are going to go in to in just a second. here we have vitaminc acting as an antioxidant; basically what antioxidants do is they have theseã–hereãsascorbate acidã–vitamin cã–it has these electrons and it very generously donates them to thistreacherous free radical which can act as a harmful oxidant to your body. we think itãsexcessive oxidants that over time injure the cells, change the dna, and set them up forthe formation of cancer. so, vitamin c (ascorbic acid) can neutralize free radicals. but, whenit does, once it has given its electrons away,
it now becomes dehydroascorbate, this is theoxidized form of vitamin c, and the body gets rid of it. here is a specificexample where two iron atoms are reduced (the +3 is reduced to the +2) by ascorbic acidand now you have reduced iron and the dehydroscorbate acid is excreted in the kidneys. weãre notusing it anymore. what happens to this reduced iron? it interactswith oxygen. what happens when you take a piece of metal, say iron lying on the ground,if left there long enough it rusts? rusting is a form of oxidation, so because it interactswith oxygen, and it forms an oxygen free radical which is very damaging. that results in theformation of something we all are familiar withã–which is hydrogen peroxide. we knowthat hydrogen peroxide can be used to treat
wounds, and if you know a little bit aboutcell biology it has a regulatory effect in the cell, and it can be used to fight infections.so this is how, when you put vitamin c in and it interacts with iron, itcan have a pro-oxidant effect in the body. letãs take this one step further, the peroxideitself can interact with more reduced iron, if it is available, and it will forma very, very harsh free radical called the ã¬hydroxyl radical.ã® this hydroxyl radicalis much more potent as an oxidizing agent than even hydrogen peroxide itself is. nowhereãs the key part, this is the part that most doctors donãt understand, so you aregoing to be ahead of most of the oncologists in the world just by understanding this oneslide. mainly, if you are using vitamin c
in bigger doses, andyou are reducing the iron in your body, or the copper, or any metal in your body, ifyou reduce it then that can go over and interact with theperoxide and form the hydroxyl radical. but, if you cantake this oxidized iron and once again reduce it, do you see how this is starting to forma cycle? what you need though is, you need a continuous supply of high dose vitamin c.this is the iv vitamin c. if we are putting iv vitamin c in, in large amounts, and weãrereducing the iron, and it is interacting with the peroxide, what we have happening is, likea water wheel. and as long as the vitamin c (ascorbic acid) is going in and the oxidizedform is going out, itãs turning the wheel
and producing more and more of the hydroxylradical. itãs the hydroxyl radical thatãs acting as the pro-oxidant to kill tumor cellsif you have the right dosage. ã¬if you have the right dosage.ã® this is why so many doctorsand so many researchers have misunderstood vitamin c. they think of it as a little tracevitamin. but in order to get this pro-oxidant effect, you are going to have to add in largeamounts of vitamin c in order to reach a certain threshold to where the hydroxyl radical isformed. now, this is not just me talking, this phenomenonwas recently verified at the national institutes of health in this particular research project.ascorbate in pharmacologic concentrations, not nutritional, but pharmacologic concentrations,selectively generates the ascorbate radical
and hydrogen peroxidein extra cellular fluid in vivo. in other words, in a living body, this phenomenon happens.you can read about it in the proceedings of the national academy of science. coming back to what role the oxidants playin the body, we were talking about the word ã¬redoxã® ___________ redox environment, asimple rule of thumb is, that an environment of healthy cells is reducing. in other words,the free radicals are controlled, rather than oxidizing. we depend upon oxidation for metabolism,immune defense, and cell signaling purposes, but we must avoid the damage it can cause.in other words, when your oxidation gets out of control thereãs too much damage to theapple surface and it becomes rotten - too
much damage to the iron, you canãt use itanymore because it rusts too much. the bodyãs life is a process of keeping that in balance,keeping it in check. thatãs why we now know, itãs a clearly established fact, that colorfulfruits and vegetables, which are rich in antioxidants, create ã± just what i just said, a healthyreducing environment in ourselves. that helps us prevent the cellular damage that can leadto cancer. so, vitamin c, as an antioxidant, is a great preventive agent. all of your antioxidantshelp to control excess oxidation. what we need, if the damage is already done, and thecancer has emerged, you canãt rely upon just the antioxidant properties of vitamin c, nowwe need something a little tougher, a little bit more potent. that iswhere the high doses of vitamin c comes in
and has been shown to kill tumor cells. thisis what we call ã¬tumor cytotoxicity.ã® itãs toxic tothe cells that make up tumors. so, the high dose intravenous vitamin c generates hydroxylradicals which can damage the cells, except that healthy cells have a protection builtin. since peroxide is a normal part of cellular physiology, healthy cells have their own protectiveenzyme called, catalase. what do you think cancer cells have? do you think they havecatalase? no, they are low in catalase and that is what makes iv vitamin c so slick.that probably isnãt the right scientific word, but the fact that it can, at the sametime, act as an antioxidant and protect your healthy cells, yet generate the hydroxyl radical,a very powerful radical that attacks
the cells that are low in catalase, namelyyour cancer cells, means this is almost like a ã¬smart bombã®or a ã¬smart drugã® in the sense that itãs going to strengthen your basic protectivemechanisms but attack the invading tumor cells. thatãswhy we are so excited about iv vitamin c here at the center. itãs not just us though, therehas been a number of researchers who have demonstrated this phenomenon. we are not theonly ones anymore who are looking into this. i think dr. jackson, our bio-center lab director,did a search on iv vitamin c studies around the world, and i believe he found over 60that are now going on. so, research is starting to get behind this. but, i still think thegeneral understanding of vitamin c is, itãs
just a little vitamin that you drink in yourorange juice, yes itãs good to help you prevent cancer, but when youãve got a really seriousdisease like cancer, vitamin c is not strong enough. well, folks, i think it is strongenough if you use the right dose. this chart shows how oxidation works. normallywhen you increase the level of oxidative stress in any cellular environment, if you injurethe cells, they will start to divide more rapidly. itãs like an inflam-matory responseas they try to adapt to that particular stress. but, if the damage is great enough the p51gene, which will tell the cell ã¬hey itãs time to quit, thereãs too much damage here,ã®it will create an automatic suicide of the cell; thatãs what they call ã¬program celldeathã® apoptosis. so, this is normally what
happens, and this is what chemotherapy andradiation therapy takes advantage of. when you have cancer, the oncologists is pouringon the oxidative stress, hopefully in a focused way to get your tumor cells to die, to getthat tumor cell to shrink. the problem is, this high level of oxidative stresscan be harmful to normal tissues. this is basically the mechanism of how chemotherapyand radiation therapy works. the riordan ivc protocol in a sense is using the same mechanism,oxidative stress in the form of the hydroxyl radical, but atthe same time we are protecting the healthy cells. wedonãt advise this as a stand alone therapy, we think it is best used in conjunction withwhatever type
of conventional treatment you are receiving.in other words, if the oncologist says you need to have radiation therapy and maybe somechemotherapy, do this in conjunction with that therapy. this is where the misunderstandinggets in the way, because a lot of oncologists still think of ivc as only an antioxidant,and if you are taking a chemotherapeutic agent which causes oxidative stress to kill thetumor cells, a lot of doctors are afraid the vitamin c is going to neutralize the effectsof the chemo-therapy. our research tells us differently. even theoretically we would saythat at the same time the vitamin c is protecting the healthy cells, it is going to help thechemotherapy attack the cancer cells. this is written up in a protocol we have availableto practitioners at this time.
weãve been doing a lot of iv vitamin cãsã–wehave a lot of experience. since 1994 the number ofiv vitamin cãs done onsite has continued to grow. basically, what happens as we increasethe dose of iv vitamin c, we usually start people out at 15 grams, then we go up to 25grams, and we keep taking their dose up, then after we infuse the vitamin c we do a measurementof their blood on the other side to see how much vitamin c we have gotten the concentrationup to. if we were to take the vitamin c levels of everyone in the room, assuming that noone has had an iv vitamin c, it would be around ã¬1ã® or ã¬1-1/2ã®. what weãre shooting forwith cancer patients is somewhere around ã¬350 to 400.ã® itãs like 400 times the normalblood level of vitamin c that is required
in order to really generate a good strongdose of hydroxyl radical to attack those tumor cells. we use the post ivc level as a wayof confirming the dose we are giving is right for that particular patient. each patientis different, they have different diets, different diseases, different oxidative stress loads,different cancers; even the same type of cancer can be at different stages in different people.we use that information to help us guide our therapy to make sure we are giving an adequateamount of dosage to each patient. weãve been studying this very carefully; even dr. jacksonhas kept a close eye on the lab and you can see that aswe increase levels we get a higher range. some people, even at 60 grams, have a verylow level because they have a large amount
of oxidative stress. in that case, if thetumor is still there, they need to get it out, they need to change therapies, they needto do something so we can reduce their oxidative stress load and get their vitamin c levelup as high as possible. this is some of the groundbreaking researchthat was done here at the center in the 1990ãs, where we took different lines of cancer cells,then we grew them on culture plates with different concentrations of ascorbate, vitamin c. asyou can see, as the concentration ascorbate in the growth media increased, it killed the% surviving cells and it went down to around 350-400, almost all the various cell typesof cancer were killed by this dose of vitamin c.
i want to show you another study that we didhere that i think is important, and this is the reason whyi tell patients, ã¬you donãt want to rely upon iv vitamin c alone if you have cancer.ã®when we took and grew cancer cells, this was colon cancer cells, on a thin layer cultureplate, it didnãt take very much vitamin c to kill off all of those cancer cells, at200 mg per deciliter. however, if we grew that same type of cancer cell on a dense layer,a thick layer, it took quite a bit more vitamin c to penetrate in,to actually kill those tumor cells. it did kill them, but it took quite a bit more. thendr. casciari, from the international institutes of health, who is one of our consultants,had a model that simulated a tumor. itãs
called the dense hollow fiber model, itãslike a tumor growing in your body. you can see the green line, we never did completelyeradicate those cells because the vitamin c had to try to penetrate in to the tumor.so, what i tell patients is, get the tumor out if you can. remove the tumor if it ispossible. have the radiation therapy to shrink it down. do the chemotherapy to shrink thetumor down as much as you possibly can. thatãs going to get you into the realm where theiv vitamin c is going to work more effectively. and, if youãre going to use the iv vitaminc simultaneously you wonãt have the side effects that a lot of people have with thevarious forms of chemotherapy. now this research i just showed you was replicated,it was done in the 1990ãs, but again it was
replicated at the national institutes of healthand published in 2005, pharmacoloic ascorbate acid concentrations selectively killed cancercells. action as a pro drug to deliver hydrogen peroxide to the tissue. so now we have a validationof what we have been doing, we just need to pick up the action here and find out how wecan do even better. in summary, iv ascorbate reaches cytotoxicplasma levels for only a short duration. this is the second part of the lecture now. wegive the ivãs usually about twice a week, sometimes we give it three timesa week. the plasma levels that we achieve with an iv are only high for several hours,a relatively short duration. we typically do them about twice a week. my concern is,the potential exists for the emergence of
iv redox chemotherapy, which is the way theynow refer to it at ku medical centerã– ã¬iv redox chemotherapyã®. what about resistanttumor cells starting to reimmerge in between ivcs? can we improve the effect of the ivredox with oral vitamin c redox, and something that i am going to call ã¬redox recycling.ã® iãm going to enter into a different discussionwith you now because for awhile we were forgetting about the value of oral vitamin c. there isno question that iv vitamin c, if you have cancer you want to do iv vitamin c. but, canwe improve the results of iv vitamin c by using the appropriate dosages of oral vitaminc in conjunction with other specialized nutrients? letãs talk about redox recycling. remember,i told you the dehydroascorbate, which is
the oxidized form of vitamin c, is excretedrapidly by the kidneys. whereas the ascorbic acid is generally reabsorbed, depending uponwhat blood level you have. so, what we might be able to do, before the dehydroascorbateis jettisoned, what if we reduced it back to vitamin c? what if we put it back intoaction again, and preserved that vitamin c so it could be utilized again? this term iscalled, ã¬redox synergyã®. itãs the technique of using several antioxidants in a synergisticmanner to increase the efficiency of redox recycling. to put thisin graphic terms, here is your dehydroascorbate, the oxidized form, and if you use antioxidants,there are a number of antioxidants that you can use,and donate those electrons to the dehydroascorbate,
now you have ascorbic acid back again, itãsready to go. putting this into my water wheel analogy, hereãs the ascorbic acid comingin, hereãs the dehydro- ascorbate acid being formed, but if we donãtget enough of this weãre going to run out and we may not make enough of the hydrogenperoxide and the hydroxyl radical that we need. but, what if we could some how recyclethe dehydroascorbate back up here and put it back through the loop again one more time.this is what synergistic antioxidants will do. if you are using vitamin e, selenium,b3, zinc, and other forms of antioxidants, you can regenerate ascorbic acid from yourdehydroascorbate and thereby raise your level of the hydroxyl radical in your blood streamusing oral forms of vitamin c. at least this
is the hypothesis that redox synergy can dothis. there was a study done last yearã–it was asmall study, where we looked at healthy volunteers, of whether or not a mixture of oral antioxidantsvs just vitamin c or e by itself, would increase the anti-oxidant capacity of their blood stream.this was measured by looking at the percent inhibition ofinduced lipid peroxidation. thatãs a mouth full, but what it really means is if youãvegot free radicals wandering around in your blood stream, it can damage your cell membranesã–yourcell membranes are made out of lipids. if you get lipid peroxidation, thatãs damagedcell membranes. so, they looked at four different groups in this study, people who were takingvitamin e alone, 400 units; there was another
group taking vitamin c alone, 500 mg; thethird group was taking c+e; and the fourth group was getting a mixture of antioxidantsã± selenium, zinc, folate, the b vitamins. what they found is that, indeed, redox synergydid occur, that the mixture of vitamins and minerals was more efficient than the vitaminc or e aloneã–they presumed because this antioxidant mixture contained various antioxidant compoundswith different redox potential leading to the possible development of a chain reaction.so you can use antioxidants in combination with vitamin c to stop the damaging effectsof free radicals. now, how does this apply to cancer? weãrenot the only ones that have been looking into this question of what do we do about cancer?a good friend of dr. riordanãsã–dr. abram
hoffer, who for the last 50 some years hasbeen a leader in the field of orthomolecular treatments of various diseases, developeda cancer regimen. this was before 1978, when he put it to the test in a 15-year study wherehe looked at 134 advanced cancer patients. he offered them this combination: beta carotene,30,000; b-complex 50-100; 12,000 mg vitamin c; nowadays he has taken them up to as highas 40,000 (this is oral vitamin c); 300 units of vitamin e; 600 units of selenium; and 60of zinc. when you have a serious illness like cancer, your digestive system can handle alot more vitamin c than it can when youãre in your every-day state of health. he offeredthis to 134 patients. some entered the study but didnãt want to do the vitamins, and somedid. what he found was, the people who took
his regimen, they had various types of cancerã± breast, uterine, lung, pancreas, ovary, just all types. he found that the number ofmonths survival was much higher with the people who took the vitamins, compared to the numberof months of those who didnãt. so, the people who took the vitamins had about 45 monthsof survival, compared to 2.6 months. this is also published in the journal of orthomolecularmedicine, totally ignored by conventional medicine. to me, it is an important findingbecause it indicates that maybe redox synergy and high doses of oral vitamin c does havea role to play in enhancing the effectiveness of ivc therapy. letãs look back at another study, one ofthe groundbreaking studies in this whole field
of using vitamin c in cancer patients. thiswas dr. cameron & paulingãs study where they gave terminal cancer patients 10 grams ofiv vitamin c daily for 10 days, then they gave them 10 grams orally to follow. they were able to show a 4-fold increase inlife expectancy. now, what we donãt know, and the reasoniãm going to point this out is, we donãt know if they got it once a day, or severaltimes a day. with 10 grams a day, you can try to take it all at once, or you can splitit up and take it several times during the day. they said in their paper if they wouldhave used higher doses than 10 grams they might even have had better results. iãm goingto show you that maybe they, indeed, would
have. unfortunately, when this was publishedback in the 70ãs mayo clinic said ã¬o.k. weãre going to try to replicate this study.ã®now, when you do a replication, you should at least do the study the same way the originalresearchers did it. the mayo studies did not involve any iv vitamin c, it was all justoral vitamin c given once a day. so, they gave 10 grams of oral vitamin c to 200 latestage cancer patients. there were a lot of questions raised about how well the studywas controlled, but they did not show any statistical benefit. this is one of the reasonswhy conventional medicine said, ã¬hey, letãs just forget the whole vitamin c issue becausethis is the definitive study.ã® well, it really wasnãt, but thatãs what happened back then.now, here we are bringing up the whole vitamin
c thing again because we are getting new researchfindings to suggest that maybe this could be a useful tool in the fight against cancer. dr. riordan was one of the authors on a study,ã¬vitamin c pharmacokineticsã®. it was sponsored bythe national institutes of health. what they did was, they looked at what happened whenyou gave vitamin c orally compared to iv, starting with a very low dose. they took thesubjects and they completely depleted their vitamin c. so, they were starting with subjectswho were really in a state of scurvy. then they looked to see what happenedto their blood levels when they started giving themvery small amounts. the most they got them
up to was 1.25 grams of vitamin c. that waswhat they utilized then to make their calculations. they calculated what would happen if theygave them up to as high as 100 grams of vitamin c. the highest level they were able to getafter 1.25 grams of vitamin c was a blood level of 2.4, which our normal range hereat the center is .6 to 2.0, so it boosted their level a little bit, but not very much.whereas, when they gave that same amount by iv, it boosted their blood level up to 15.6.now, this is a significantly higher level. this led then to the conclusion of their study.they said ã¬we need to think of vitamin c when itãs being given as an iv as somethingdifferent, than when it is being given oral.ã® and, for this reason we should reopen thestudy of vitamin c, looking at
it as an iv therapy for cancer as opposedto an oral therapy. this was just some of their graphics, to show you the blood levelsof vitamin c was much higher by iv, whereas with oral vitamin c the maximum they couldget up to was about 3.9. so, the implications of this study is thatintravenous vitamin c is a plausible means of delivering enough vitamin c (ascorbic acid)to generate the hydroxyl radical. now the average plasma vitamin c level is about 1.2and unfortunately what this report stated was that you really donãt need to take morethan 200 mg per day because, if you do, most of it will be lost in your urine. how manyof you have been to your doctor and told them you were taking vitamin c and he told youall that is doing is giving you expensive
urine. well, a lot of that statement is basedupon this and other studies that 200 mg per day is a saturation dose, therefore letãsnot even pay any attention to oral vitamin c, if weãre going to use it, it has to begiven just iv. donãt get me wrong, if i have cancer i want iv vitamin c as the treatmentof choice. what iãm talking to you about now is that maybe we should consider usingoral vitamin c in-between in order to keep the levels of vitamin c high enough to possiblygenerate the hydroxyl radical. their computer calculated at the highest level you couldpossibly get was 3.9, which iãm going to call the ã¬max-cã®, in other words, basedupon their model if we all took as much vitamin c as our digestive systems could possiblyhandle, the highest we could get would be
3.9. iãm sure all of you are thinking, ã¬well, gosh the treatmentfor cancer, in order to be effective has to be around 350 to 400. it has to be at 100times this amount.ã® so this would make it seem like oral vitamin c doesnãt make anysense at all. but, hereãs the dealã–the role of science is to make predictions; so, theirmodel predicts 3.9. if science says all geese are white, it only takes one black goose toprove them wrong. letãs see if we can find some black geese here. iãm going to show you (2) unpublished studies.one done by steve hickie and another one done by myself. the first one is the pharmaconeticsof oral vitamin c. what hickie wanted to do
was see if he could prove that by using oralvitamin c he could break the barrier ã± in other words, break the sound barrier for vitaminc. indeed, even with just a 5 gram dose of standard vitamin c and a 5 gram dose of somethingcalled lyposomo (?) vitamin c, he was able, at about 3 hours out, to exceed that 3.9.this is the nih study showing that this is about as high as you can go. he did it with5 gramsã–this may be more than you want to know, but vitamin c pharmaconetics has a dualphase to it. if you are less than 1.2 in your blood stream, nature protects us from scurvyby reabsorbing the ascorbic acid in our kidneys. it will work very hard. that is why, evenif we are not getting any vitamin c we wonãt develop scurvy right away because the kidneyswill keep reabsorbing the vitamin c as long
as it can.it does not reabsorb the dehydroascorbate. but, once you get into the phase ii level,1.2 to 3.9 level, then the kidneys excrete the vitamin c about as fast as they can, whichis a half-life of 30 minutes. so, whatever your blood level is, a half anhour later it is going to be half because the vitamin c has excreted so rapidly. onceagain, putting dr. hickieãs numbers in this chart, this is phase ii ã± this is phase i- he was able with just a single dose of vitamin c to exceed the 3.9 barrier. then when hedid a 20 gram dose he was able to exceed it byeven more, then he did a 36 gram dose, which gave him a really bad case of diarrhea, hewas able to really break the barrier in two
subjects. he almost doubled the plasma levelof vitamin c. so, he shared this study with me and it made me think, ã¬well gosh, maybewe can use oral vitamin c as supportive therapy to iv vitamin c and thereby get an even betterresult with the cancer patients that weãre caring for.ã® i thought i would like to trythis with myself. so, i did one study looking at what dr. hickiecalls ã¬dynamic flowã®. the nih computer says that the plasma is going to be saturated afterjust 200 mg of vitamin c, but that is only a single dose. what ifevery 3 hours you took 200 mg? which means in the course of a day, taking vitamin c severaltimes a day, you are going to build up your vitamin c level. using this technique, weshould be able to break this 3.9 barrier without
necessarily going to really high dosages atany one time. the reason why we think this is possible is that one of the pioneers invitamin c, irwin stone, sent a letter to the discoverer of vitamin c, albert st. georgy,that irwin stone had a friend, joe kininger, who had prostate cancer.joe didnãt want to take chemotherapy so he started increasing his oral vitamin c veryslowly over the course of months and months, and he got his daily intake of vitamin c upto 80,000 mg a day, without diarrhea. he was at that level for 2-1/2 years. he was ableto achieve a blood level of 32 mg per deciliter. now remember the nih model says the highestyou can go is 3.9. what he showed here is that maybe the model is not correct, and dr.hickieãs data shows that maybe the model
is not correct. i did a little study myself, hereãs my datafrom the end of one study that i did. i normally take about10 grams of vitamin c a day, so what i did is each day is, i would take vitamin c at7:00, 10:00, 1:00, 4:00, 7:00, and 10:00. every 3 hours i was taking a dose of vitaminc. the first day was 1 gram, so that would be an additional 6 grams, which is 16 grams.the second day was 2 grams every 3 hours, then 3 grams every 3 hours. i finally gotit up to 4 grams every 3 hours, plus the 10 grams that i normally take for a grand totalof 34 grams a day. i had to have my secretaries help me keep track
of all this so iãm not sure how practicalthis is for patients, but this is just to show you that if you take vitamin c frequentlythroughout the day, you should be able to generate some fairly high levels of vitaminc. you can see over here these ã± at 8:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m.i had my blood levels checked. in the course of this experiment i had 51 blood draws. myarms looked like i was a drug addict, but other than that,we were able to get some good data about the ability to raise vitamin c levels. now, normallyin most laboratories, for example here at the bio-center lab, the highest recorded plasmac level weãve ever had was 5.6. and, using the strategy that i used here, i was ableto achieve a level of 5.5. most labs the highest
level is 3.9. so, this method may be a wayof using antioxidants and vitamin c in order to raise a personãs plasma level. this is a summary of the average vitamin clevels for each day. hereãs 10 grams, 16 grams, 22 grams,28 grams, 34 grams, then i kept the 34 going; you can see that each day the blood levelwas going higher and higher. if i was able to sustain this for 2-1/2 years like thatone prostate cancer patient, you can extrapolate that maybe the blood level would just havegotten higher. this to me shows that it got it up to 4.3, so i clearly exceeded the 3.9max just by using oral vitamin c. this is redox cycling. now, what about the abilityto generate the hydroxyl radical? we know
you can use alpha lipoic acid and vitamink to do this. we have a special supplement called ivc max, which has vitamin k, lipoicacid, selenium, and a number of antioxidants which we have found to enhance the effectsof iv vitamin c. now, with lipoic acid you can see that the redox cycling phenomena thatwe were doing, with just vitamin c alone, can be achieved with lipoic acid, as well.actually, this research was done here at the center showing that by adding lipoic acidto vitamin c you reduce the amount of vitamin c you need in order to kill tumor cells. theother one that does this is vitamin k; vitamin k will also redox cycle and generate the hydroxylradical. now, what i did in my research study was addthe ivc max to the 34 grams of vitamin c that
i was taking per day. i really did not knowwhat was going to happen. i thought that maybe the anti-oxidants would take my levels evenhigher, but what actually happened when i got up to 12 ivc max capsules a day, in additionto the other things that i was taking, interestingly enough the blood levels of my vitamin c startedto go down. the only explanation i could come up with at this point was that i was startingto create the hydroxyl radical which was neutralizing the vitamin c. my average vitamin c levelstarted to go down once i added the ivc max, which to me at first was some what disappoint-ing,but then i realized this must be the oxidative stress that we shoot for with iv vitamin c,achieved with using an oral program. the reason why this can be important is, if you lookat the research that has already been done,
you can achieve apoptosis with vitamin c injust a couple of hours. nih data showed that there was 30% death of the burketts lymphomacells with an ascorbate acid level of only 5.3 mg per deciliter with an exposure of onlyone hour. i want to show you my data here. i had two readings where by blood level wasover 5.3 ã± hereãs a 5.3 and hereãs a 5.5 ã± just using oral vitamin c,so had i had a lymphoma, just using vitamin c for that short period of time, that wouldhave been creating a selective toxicity to that type of tumor cell. this looks at thewhole study, how it went up, then when i started adding the ivc max it started to go back down.this to me is evidence of oral vitamin c, redox induced, apoptosis. whatweãre doing here is enhancing ivc redox by
maintaining low grade oxidative pressure betweenivc infusions and hopefully that will reduce the likelihood of developing ivc resistance.there are some patients that are doing very well with iv vitamin c and then suddenly thetumor starts to grow again. weãre hoping this will reduce the risk of cancer recurrence,enhance survivability and quality of life, and possibly lower cost and lower toxicity.if you can think of iv vitamin c as an adjunct to chemotherapy and radiation, oral vitaminc is an adjunct to iv vitamin c. my concluding points are that high dose ivvitamin c has been demonstrated to generate tumor cytotoxic doses of the hydroxal radicalthrough redox cycling. and, twice a week iv vitamin c creates short verse of this cytotoxicity.it may make it a very good adjunct therapy
to standard chemotherapy and radiation. but,what about using oral vitamin c in high dosages in order to make the ivc work even better?the frequency and level of dosing of oral vitamin c is a critical component of any redoxsynergy strategy. so, the next phase of our research is what level of oral vitamin c docancer patients need to have in order to achieve these results? we do know that if you addlipoic acid, vitamin k and copper, you can possibly induce this hydroxal radical formation,using just oral strategies along with the iv strategies. again, our goal here at the center is notjust to treat cancer, but to take care of cancer patients.our goal is to give you a level of hope that
goes beyond just conventional treatment. itãsconventional treatment, plus using innovative nutritional strategies that will protect yourwhite blood cells, protect your immune system, and protect yourhealth, while you are fighting the cancer. while atthe meantime improve your overall quality of life. so, this lecture would not be possibletoday without the insight and vision and efforts of dr.hugh riordan. this is our contribution thus far.
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