From: woodgold@emr1.emr.ca (Cathy Woodgold)
Subject: Cancer and vitamin C
Organization: Energy, Mines, and Resources, Ottawa
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 21:18:09 GMT

The book How To Live Longer And Feel Better by Linus Pauling has a 26-page
chapter on cancer.  Much of what follows is quoted from that chapter.

"In 1951 it was reported that patients with cancer have usually a very
small concentration of vitamin C in the blood plasma and in the leucocytes
[white blood cells] of the blood, often only about half the value for
other people ... The level ... is usually so low that the leucocytes are not
able to carry out their important function of phagocytosis, of engulfing
and digesting bacteria and other foreign cells, including malignant cells,
in the body.  A reasonable explanation of the low level of vitamin C in
the blood of cancer patients is that their bodies are using up the vitamin
in an effort to control the disease.  The low level suggests that they 
should be given a large amount of the vitamin in order to keep their
bodily defenses as effective as possible."

Pauling goes on to describe various trials that were carried out, in
which the results were generally that human cancer patients taking 
large amounts of vitamin C felt better and sometimes experienced
regression of the cancer.  Many of these were carried out by Ewan
Cameron, who later collaborated with Linus Pauling.  "In one paper
[Cameron and his coworkers] reported that the vitamin C seemed to 
control pain quite effectively, so that patients who had been receiving
large doses of morphine or diamorphine could stop taking the narcotic
drug (Cameron and Baird, 1973).  [O]ne patient ...seemed to recover
completely from cancer when treated with vitamin C, in whom, however,
the cancer returned when the intake of vitamin C was stopped, and
who again recovered completely when the treatment with vitamin C
was resumed.  This patient continues to take vitamin C, 12.5 g per
day, and after twelve years seems to be in excellent health (Cameron,
Campbell, and Jack, 1975)."

I find the results of one study particularly fascinating.  "Upon being
judged untreatable, one hundred patients under the care of Ewan Cameron
at the Vale of Leven Hospital in Scotland were treated with vitamin C,
usually 10g per day. ... The one thousand controls ... provided ten 
control patients for each ascorbate-treated patient, ... matched as
to sex, age, primary tumour type, and clinical status of 'untreatability'.
We employed an outside doctor, who had no knowledge of the survival times
of the ascorbate-treated patients, to examine the case histories of
the control patients ...

"The results were surprising, even to us.  By 10 August 1976 all of the
one thousand control patients had died, whereas eighteen of the one
hundred ascorbate-treated patients were still living.  On that date
the average time of survival after the date of "untreatability" was
4.2 times as great for the ascorbate-treated patients as for their
matched controls ... Moreover, a few of them continue to survive,
still taking their daily doses of sodium ascorbate, and some of them
might well be considered to have been 'cured' ... in that they are
free of overt manifestations of cancer and leading normal lives." 
(Original study is Cameron and Pauling, 1978;  quotations are still
from the book How To Live Longer And Feel Better)  In a refinement of 
this study, (Cameron and Pauling, 1978b) the same results were examined
separately according to type of cancer.  The results were very similar
for each of the 8 categories of cancer studied.

"...Better results are obtained with intakes greater than 10g per day."
(From chapter 14)  "[Dr. Robert Fulton Cathcart III] makes it his 
practice to establish for each of his patients their bowel-tolerance
intake of vitamin C -- that amount of vitamin C taken by mouth that is
a little less than the amount that has a troublesome laxative effect.
He found that vitamin C is most effective as an adjunct to appropriate
conventional therapy, when needed, if it is ingested at the bowel-
tolerance intake.  This intake is different for different people and
different for the same person at different times.  Cathcart observed
that the bowel-tolerance intake is usually very large for seriously ill
patients and becomes smaller as the patient's health improves.  He was
astonished that for some severely ill patients the bowel-tolerance limit
was more than 200 g per day.  [that's 200 grams, or the equivalent of
400 tablets of 500 mg each, each day.]  Within a few days, as the disease
was controlled, the limit would fall toward the normal value, 4 to 15 g
per day."  According to him, the bowel-tolerance intake (BTI) is 30-60 g
for someone with a mild cold;  60-100 g for a severe cold;  and 15-100 g
for someone with cancer.

The fact that a sick person can ingest much larger amounts of vitamin C
before experiencing overdose symptoms is excellent evidence that the
sick person's body is able to utilize the larger amounts.  There's other 
evidence:  mammals who produce their own vitamin C in their livers
normally produce an amount (scaled to body weight) roughly equivalent to
the normal BTI for humans of 4 to 15 g;  a sick animal produces much 
larger amounts, roughly equivalent to the BTI of a sick human.

I don't have cancer.  I normally take 12 g of vitamin C per day, which
is approximately my BTI.  When I have a cold, I usually take 20-30 g.
Once with a severe cold I took 70 g in one day.  I took vitamin C throughout
pregnancy and while breastfeeding my son.  He is very healthy;  now at
age 3, he has had no serious illnesses in his life -- just several colds
and flus.  No ear infections or diarrhoea. His worst illnesses were his
reactions to some of his immunization shots.  I'm much healthier than 
before I started taking supplemental vitamin C.  I still get colds, but
I don't feel nearly as miserable during them and the symptoms are milder.
I stopped getting urinary tract infections, which I used to have
yearly.  I get depressed much less often and much less severely.  Even
my fingernails are stronger.

References:
Cameron, E. and Baird, G. (1973).  Ascorbic Acid and Dependence on Opiates
in Patients with Advanced Disseminated Cancer.  IRCS Letter to the Editor,
August.

Cameron, E., Campbell, A. and Jack, T. (1975).  The Orthomolecular 
Treatment of Cancer.  III. Reticulum Cell Sarcoma:  Double Complete
Regression Induced by High-dose Ascorbic Acid Therapy.  Chemical-Biological
Interactions 11:387-393.

Cameron, E. and Pauling, L. (1978b).  Supplemental Ascorbate in the Supportive
Treatment of Cancer:  Reevaluation of Prolongation of Survival Times
in Terminal Human Cancer.  Proceedings of the National Academy of 
Sciences USA 75:4538-4542.

Cameron, E. and Pauling, L. (1978)  Experimental Studies Designed to Evaluate
the Management of Patients with Incurable Cancer.  Proceedings of the 
National Academy of Sciences USA 75:6252.

Cathy Woodgold
woodgold@seismo.emr.ca  OR  woodgold@emr1.emr.ca
There is so such a thing as a free lunch!
(This posting is from me personally and does not represent
the policy of any organization.)