High-dose vitamin C doubles survival rates for pancreatic cancer patients

Life expectancy with chemotherapy alone is 8 months, while adding high-dose intravenous vitamin C extended survival by 16 months

By Cara Michelle Miller for The Epoch Times, November 29, 2024 (Original article here )

Adding high-dose vitamin C to cancer treatment could double survival times, according to a clinical trial in patients with pancreatic cancer.

Usually diagnosed at an advanced stage, pancreatic cancer has a poor prognosis and leaves patients with limited treatment options, with most surviving only eight months with standard chemotherapy.

“When we started the trial, we thought it would be a success if we reached 12 months of survival, but we doubled overall survival to 16 months,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Joe Cullen, professor of surgery and radiation oncology at the University of Iowa in the United States, in a press release.

“The results were so strong that we were able to stop the trial early.”

Published in the November issue of Redox Biology, the study suggests that high doses of vitamin C could not only help slow or even kill cancer cells, but also reduce the physical suffering of people undergoing chemotherapy.

Better Tolerability and Fewer Side Effects

The phase 2 trial showed that 34 patients with stage 4 metastatic pancreatic cancer who received both chemotherapy and high-dose vitamin C survived an average of 16 months, double the 8 months seen in patients treated with chemotherapy alone. In addition to the survival benefit, patients who received vitamin C experienced fewer side effects and were able to complete more treatment cycles without dose delays or reductions.

“Not only does vitamin C increase overall survival, but patients seem to feel better on treatment,” Dr. Cullen said.

The chemotherapy regimen included two drugs: gemcitabine, which interferes with the division of cancer cells, and nab-paclitaxel, which stops cancer cells from replicating. These drugs are commonly used to treat pancreatic cancer, but they can cause nausea and fatigue and weaken the immune system.

According to the study, vitamin C appears to help protect healthy cells from these side effects by reducing the oxidative stress and inflammation triggered by chemotherapy. As a result, patients were able to tolerate treatment and continue their cycles without interruption.

Researchers found that patients who received a high dose of vitamin C experienced fewer side effects from chemotherapy. This helped them adhere to their treatment and reduce the risks associated with chemotherapy.

More than half of the patients in the vitamin C group had stable white blood cell counts and did not develop fever. In contrast, nearly two-thirds of patients in the chemotherapy-only group experienced low white blood cell counts, putting them at increased risk of infection. Additionally, more than 12% of patients in the chemotherapy-only group developed fever due to low white blood cell counts, which can lead to hospitalization.

About 95% of patients in the vitamin C group had stable platelet counts, while more than 12% of patients in the chemotherapy-alone group had low platelet counts, which increased the risk of bleeding.

In addition to having fewer side effects, patients who received high doses of intravenous vitamin C also had an additional two months of progression-free survival, during which the cancer did not grow or spread.

IV Is The Key

A key factor in this success is how high-dose vitamin C, given explicitly intravenously, works in the body.

Previous research by Dr. Cullen and his team has shown that vitamin C given intravenously reaches much higher blood concentrations than when given orally. These higher concentrations trigger chemical reactions that target cancer cells while leaving healthy cells largely unaffected.

According to the researchers, intravenous vitamin C generates hydrogen peroxide in the bloodstream, which is toxic to cancer cells but relatively harmless to healthy cells.

“Cancer cells are much less efficient at clearing hydrogen peroxide than normal cells,” Garry Buettner, a professor of radiation oncology at the University of Iowa, said in a statement about the previous research. “So cancer cells are much more likely to be damaged and killed by a lot of hydrogen peroxide.”

Dr. Buettner explains that this selective targeting is because cancer cells have lower levels of an enzyme called catalase, which normally breaks down hydrogen peroxide. “That explains why very, very high levels of vitamin C … don’t affect normal tissues, but can be damaging to tumor tissues.”

“In one of our phase 1 trials in pancreatic cancer, where we’re combining high doses of intravenous vitamin C with radiation, we still have three long-term survivors,” Dr. Cullen said in the recent release. “They’ve survived nine years at this point, which is well beyond the usual survival range.” »

Role of Vitamin C in Treating Other Cancers

This new study adds to the growing body of evidence supporting the use of high doses of intravenous vitamin C as a valuable adjunct to cancer treatment. In January, the University of Iowa team published the results of another phase 2 clinical trial that showed that combining intravenous vitamin C with chemotherapy and radiation therapy significantly improved survival rates for patients with glioblastoma.

Glioblastoma is an aggressive, fast-growing type of brain cancer known for its poor prognosis and resistance to treatment, making it one of the most difficult cancers to treat. In the study, glioblastoma patients who received high-dose vitamin C in addition to chemotherapy and radiation survived an average of 19.6 months, nearly 5 months longer than patients who received standard treatment alone.

A third phase 2 trial of intravenous vitamin C in non-small cell lung cancer is ongoing, with results expected in late 2024.

“Our goal is to show that adding high-dose intravenous vitamin C, which is very inexpensive and very well tolerated, can improve treatment for these most deadly cancers,” Dr. Cullen said.