CANCER
Over half a million people in the United States develop cancer each year and over 280,000 will die in the year ahead. More than 700,000 people are under treatment at all times. It is the number two scourge and one of every five of us is likely to be afflicted; under present conditions it will send one of every eight of us to the grave.
Cancer is not a single disease entity but a large group of closely related, yet different, diseases. Essentially, cancerous growth is uncontrolled tissue development and expansion and is due to the tissue losing the normal restraints on cell divisions and growth. The cancer grows in a wild manner at the expense of the surrounding normal tissues. Cancer can arise in any organ or tissue of the body and, like the infectious diseases, the causes are varied and different. In severity it can range from a relatively innocuous minor illness to a life-threatening disease. The pattern of cancer incidence has been changing over the years, with fewer stomach and uterine cancers and more lung cancer and leukemia.
Present-Day Cancer Therapy
In the therapy of cancer, the first important step is a diagnosis. After diagnosis, the physician has three different paths or a combination of them from which to choose: irradiation, chemotherapy, or surgery. Irradiation is localized exposure to X rays or to the radiant energy of radioactive sources, such a s radium or cobalt 60, to try to kill the fast-growing cancerous tissue without doing too much damage to the rest of the body. Chemotherapy involves the use of chemical substances that tend to damage the cancer tissue more than the normal cells and thus retard the cancer development. Surgery, of course, is the direct approach of going in and physically removing the cancerous tissue, when possible.
Ever since the discovery of ascorbic acid in the early 1930s, there has been a vast amount of animal experimentation and clinical research conducted on the relationship of ascorbic acid to cancer. This has resulted in a mass of conflicting and confusing reports as to the value of ascorbic acid in cancer treatments. Some investigators reported good results in their tests, others reported no effects on the growth of cancer tissue, while still others took the stand that tit stimulated tumor growth. Detailed discussion of the possible reasons for the conflicts of opinion in this work is beyond the scope of this chapter, except to speculate that it may be due to the wide variety of experimental animals, cancer types, and experimental conditions employed by the numerous investigators, As a first step in future cancer research h on ascorbic acid, a responsible, unbiased research agency should review this large volume of early work and assess its value in the light of the more recent research and newer concepts. Any research work which may be required to resolve these unanswered questions and conflicting opinions should be conducted. Because of the long-standing disagreement nd the resulting confusion, there has reportedly been a tendency for research workers to shy away from this area.
One thing, however, is certain. Cancer and its present-day therapy are intense biochemical stresses which deplete the bodies of cancer victims of their ascorbic acid. The irradiation, the surgery, or the chemotherapy wit highly toxic materials, are all severe biochemical stresses. Biochemical stresses, in the majority of the mammals which are able to produce their own ascorbic acid, cause them to produce more ascorbic acid to combat the stresses. Because of their defective genetic inheritance, mammals such as guinea pigs, monkeys, and man are dependent on their food intake for ascorbic acid and their response to stress is ascorbic acid depletion.
Experiments on rats, mice, and guinea pigs are enlightening on this point. When rats and mice (animals that can make their own ascorbic acid) are exposed to cancer-producing agents (carcinogens), they start producing much more ascorbic acid in their livers (1). However, when guinea pigs (animals which, like man, cannot produce their own ascorbic acid) are exposed to the same carcinogens, their ascorbic acid is used up and not replaced (2); to quote the authors of this 1955 paper, when mammals are exposed to carcinogens this will "excite an increased demand for this compound (ascorbic acid) to which the animals capable of synthesizing it respond by over protection, whereas in those lacking this power the store is depleted."
In another experiment on guinea pigs, Russell (3), in 1952, showed that cancers developed sooner in guinea pigs exposed to carcinogens and fed a diet deficient in ascorbic acid as compared to guinea pigs exposed to the same carcinogens but on an adequate ascorbic acid diet. Can we extrapolate this observation to humans and say that people who do not fully "correct" their genetic disease, hypoascorbemia, by continuously taking high levels of ascorbic acid are more susceptible to cancer than fully "corrected" individuals?
An opposite view is taken in the 1955 paper by Miller and Sokologg (3), who proposed that a prescorbutic state in the cancer victim may have beneficial effects on cancer patients during radiation therapy. To settle this question once and for all should not entail much additional research. A person afflicted with cancer will almost always be nearly depleted of ascorbic acid before the usual course of therapy is begun. Radiation therapy using radiant energy in the form of X rays or gamma rays is a potent form of biochemical stress for the body. Exposing a cancer victim to radiant energy only further aggravates a serious shortage of this metabolite and prevents the body from maintaining biochemical homeostasis under the onslaughts of the additional radiation stresses. There have been other papers published which suggested giving ascorbic acid to cancer patients before exposure to radiation and noting its benefits (4). In spite of these many suggestions, further large-scale conclusive research has not been conducted and the practice is little used. These scientists, in their clinical work used, at most, a few grams of ascorbic acid a day. This is another virgin area of megascorbic therapy, just awaiting someone to go in and try it.
Cancer chemotherapy is the use of certain chemicals to selectively poison the cancer cells without killing the patient. We will not go into the chemistry of the different materials used other than to say that they are all very poisonous and dangerous (host toxic). This, of course, limits the amounts which can be given the patient at any one time. One group of materials used in cancer chemotherapy is the so-called nitrogen mustards, which are derivatives of the mustard gases of World War I; you can conceive the type of material used in this therapy. While the chemotherapeutic agent will attack the cancer cells, the patient is left without means to overcome the toxic manifestations of the medicament. In spite of the fact that ascorbic acid has been known to be an efficient detoxicating agent for poisonous substances (see Chapter 24) no reports have been found in the medical literature for the combined administration of these toxic medicaments along with large doses of ascorbic acid as a supportive measure. The presence of high optimal levels of ascorbic acid might also improve the toxic action on the cancer cells(5), but we will never know unless it is thoroughly investigated. The potential benefits, if successful, would seem to make these clinical trials an urgent necessity.
The data contained in the 1969 paper from dean Burk and his group (5) at the National Cancer Institute are very pertinent at this point. They showed that ascorbate is highly toxic to the cancer cells they used (Ehrlich ascites carcinoma cells) and caused profound structural changes in the cancer in their laboratory cultures. They mention that:
The great advantage that ascorbates ... possess as potential anticancer agents is that they are, like penicillin, remarkably nontoxic to normal body tissues, and they may be administered to animals in extremely large doses (up to 5 or more grams per kilogram) without notable harmful pharmacological effects.
5 grams per kilogram on a 70-kilogram adult would amount to 350 grams of ascorbic acid per day. They further state:
In our view, the future of effective cancer chemotherapy will not rest on the use of host-toxic compounds now so widely employed, but upon virtually host-nontoxic compounds that are lethal to cancer cells, of which ascorbate ... represents an excellent prototype example.
They also bring out the amazing fact that in the screening program that has been going on for years to find new cancer-killing materials at the Cancer Chemotherapy National Service Center, ascorbic acid has been bypassed, excluded from consideration, and never tested for its cancer-killing properties. The reason given for not screening ascorbic acid is even more fantastic -- ascorbic acid was too nontoxic to fit into their program!
An almost immediate confirmation of Dean Burk's proposals was contained in the research conducted at Tulane University School of Medicine by Schlegel and coworkers and published in 1969 (5). It was shown that bladder cancer due to smoking and other causes could be prevented by ascorbic acid. They recommended the intake of 1.5 grams of ascorbic acid a day to avoid the recurrence of bladder tumors.
The remaining are of cancer therapy, surgery, is one where ascorbic acid may now be used to some extent. It may be used, not so much for its direct effect on the cancer, but for its beneficial effects in wound healing. For this purpose it is generally used at a gram or so a day, which may be quite inadequate to handle the biochemical stresses of anesthesia, surgical shock, and hemorrhagic shock on an already depleted cancer victim. Full "correction" of the victim's hypoascorbemia may require instituting a preoperative. operative, and postoperative regime at much higher levels. Additional research on a regime of this sort may uncover possibilities for survival and cure far beyond today's hopes.
Use of Ascorbic Acid in Cancer Therapy
Present-day cancer therapy thus virtually ignores the potential of ascorbic acid as a biochemical stress combatant, a detoxicant, an anticarcinogenic agent, a means for maintaining homeostasis, and a mechanism for improving the well-being and survival of the patient.
During the past forty years there have been many papers published in the medical literature in which ascorbic acid has been used for cancer therapy. But no one in all this time has consistently used ascorbic acid in the large doses which may be required to demonstrate a therapeutic effect. There has never been a well-planned program to test ascorbic acid in cancer therapy and no one has used more than a gram or, at most, several grams a day (except in one case, discussed later).
Deucher (4), in 1940, used up to 4 grams of ascorbic acid a day for several days in treating his cancer patients and found it had a remarkably favorable effect on their general condition and increased their tolerance to X rays. On the other hand, Szenes (4), in 1942, stated that the administration of ascorbic acid is contraindicated in tumor patients because it intensifies tumor growth.
It was also use in combination with vitamin A, which only further complicated the picture, in a series of tests. Von Wendt, in 1949, 1950, and 1951, and Huber, in 1953, used 2 grams of ascorbic acid a day combined with large doses of vitamin A and reported favorable effects. Schneider, in 1954, 1955, and 1956, also used ascorbic acid, 1 gram daily in combination with vitamin A and found it "arrested" cancers and that it was more useful against epitheliomas than against sarcomas (6).
Of interest also are three papers by McCormick (7), in 1954, 1959,and 1963, in which he postulates the theory that the factor which preconditions the body to the development of cancer is the degenerative changes caused by continued low levels of ascorbic acid in the body. He gives evidence to support his hypothesis and states, "We maintain that the degree of malignancy is determined inversely by the degree of connective tissue resistance, which in turn is dependent upon the adequacy of vitamin C status." McCormick's ideas have never been adequately tested.
Some additional evidence for the support of this hypothesis comes from the work of Goth and Littmann (8), in 1948, who found that cancers most frequently originate in organs whose ascorbic acid levels are below 4.5 mg % and rarely grow in organs containing ascorbic acid above this concentration. Fully corrected individuals should have tissue levels of ascorbic acid in excess of this seemingly critical 4.5 mg %.
Detoxication of Carcinogens
Another piece of research which has not been properly followed through was reported by Warren (9), in 1943, who showed that certain carcinogens, anthracene, and 3:4-benzpyrene (the type of carcinogen in tobacco smoke), are susceptible to oxidation in the presence of ascorbic acid. In the oxidized form they are no longer carcinogenic.
Here is a possible means for preventing the induction of cancer after exposure to carcinogens merely by maintaining the necessary levels of ascorbic acid in the exposed tissues. This is an area of research that has been stagnant for two decades, which would have the most important consequences for smokers or city dwellers forced to breathe polluted air, or for others exposed to carcinogens.
Leukemia
Leukemia is a cancerous disease of the blood-forming tissues in which there is an over production of the white blood cells (leukocytes). Different types of leukemia are named after the different varieties of leukocytes involved in the disease process. The over-production of the leukocytes causes, i most cases,a marked rise in the number of white blood cells in the circulating blood.
Research work connecting ascorbic acid, the blood elements, and leukemia was started not long after the discovery of ascorbic acid. Stephen and Hawley (10), in 1936, showed that when the blood was separated into plasma, red blood cells, and white blood cells, there was a 20- to 30-fold concentration of ascorbic acid in the white blood cells.
Hemorrhage, being a symptom of both leukemia and scurvy, caused clinicians to early investigate the use of ascorbic acid in leukemia because of its dramatic effects on hemorrhage in scurvy. Eufinger and Gaehtgens (11), in 1936, reported giving 200 milligrams of ascorbic acid a day and came to the conclusion that it had a normalizing influence on the blood picture. Schnetz (11), in 1940, came to the same conclusion: when the leukocytes are high ascorbic acid tends to reduce them, and when they are low it tends to increase them. He used 200 to 900 milligrams a day by injection.
Here is a marked example of the ancient mammalian mechanism of ascorbic acid homeostasis.
In 1936, Plum and Thomsen (12), injecting 200 milligrams of ascorbic acid a day, obtained remissions in two cases of myeloid leukemia, and Heinild and Schiedt (12), using two 100-milligram injections daily, obtained uncertain, variable results. Thiele (12), in 1938, using 500 milligrams of ascorbic acid a day by injections, found no effect in chronic myeloid leukemia, while both Palenque (4) and van Nieuwenhuizen (12), in 1943, observed slight decreases in the white blood counts. Such variable and confusing results are typical when submarginal an inadequate dosages are employed.
Vogt, in 1940, in a review of the work conducted on ascorbic acid in leukemia up to that time, cited twenty-one references. About the only conclusion he reached was that there were high deficits of ascorbic acid i leukemics. These deficits and the very low blood plasma levels of ascorbic acid in leukemics were confirmed in later papers by Kyhos et al., in 1945, and Waldo and Zipf, in 1955, and yet, in all these years, no one was inspired to get away from these pitifully small doses of ascorbic acid and make some clinical tests with heroic doses (13).
In a leukemic, the biochemical stresses of the disease process has reduced the body stores of ascorbic acid to very low levels. Any ascorbic acid circulating in the blood has been scavenged and locked in the excessive numbers of white blood cells contained in the blood. the plasmas level of ascorbic acid is usually zero or close thereto. A zero level in the blood plasma means that he tissues of the body are not being supplied with this most important metabolite. The ascorbic acid contained in the leukocytes are unavailable for the tissues. The tissues are in a condition of biochemical scurvy and this explains why these depleted tissues are so susceptible to the characteristic hemorrhaging of leukemia and the infections that kill so many of the leukemics. A leukemic is not only suffering from leukemia but also from a bad case of biochemical scurvy. To correct this condition, ascorbic acid has to be administered in sufficiently large doses not only to saturate the excess of white blood cells but to provide adequate spillover into the blood plasma and tissues so that the seriously ill leukemic will be given a fighting chance to combat the disease. This may require the administration of ascorbic acid at the rate of 25 or more grams per day, as noted in the following case of leukemia treated with megascorbic levels of ascorbic acid.
This case history, reported by Greer (14), in 1954, was of a seventy-one-year-old executive of an oil company, who was first seen for alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver and polycythemia (excess of red blood cells); some months earlier, symptoms of chronic myocarditis had appeared. Shortly thereafter, he was hospitalized and passed a large uric acid bladder stone, and a diagnosis of chronic myelogenous leukemia was established. He also had intractable pyorrhea and his remaining 17 teeth were removed at one operation. At this time he started taking ascorbic acid at the rate of 24.5 grams to 42 grams per day, "because he reported he felt much better when he took these large doses." Since the diagnosis of leukemia and the removal of the teeth, "the patient has repeatedly remarked about his feeling of well-being and has continued his vocation as executive of an oil company." On two occasions, at the insistence of his attending physician, he stopped taking the ascorbic acid and both times his spleen and liver enlarged and became tender, his temperature rose to 101o, and he complained of general malaise and fatigue (typical leukemia symptoms). When he started the ascorbic acid again, the symptoms cleared and his temperature became normal within 6 hours. Over a year and a half later the patient had a severe attack of epidemic diarrhea and died of acute cardiac decompensation. At the time of death, the spleen was firm, not tender, and had not enlarged since taking the ascorbic acid. The doctor also reported that "the polycythemia, leukemia, cirrhosis, and the myocarditis had shown no progression: in the year and a half while taking the ascorbic acid. The case history concludes with the statement, "The intake of the huge doses of ascorbic acid appeared essential for the welfare of the patient."
One would believe that the exciting results in this 1954 case would be immediately picked up and explored further by the leukemia groups in the national government or the foundations that are continually asking the public for more research money, but no follow-up work has been found in the medical literature of the past sixteen years. If megascorbic therapy could do so much for an aged leukemic with so many other complications, what could it do for the young, uncomplicated leukemic? The answer to this question could be obtained easily and each day lost may mean more lives wasted. At the present time, millions of dollars are spent in screening all sorts of poisonous chemicals for use in leukemia, while a harmless substance like ascorbic acid, with so much potential, lies around neglected and ignored.
Recent work has brought forward evidence that human leukemia may be caused by a virus. While viruses are known to product cancer like diseases in animals, none have been proved in man. If the cause of human leukemia is eventually shown to be due to a virus, the rationale for the use of megascorbic therapy in leukemia will be further strengthened because it has been shown that ascorbic acid is a potent, wide-spectrum, nontoxic virucide when used at megascorbic dosage levels (see Chapter 13).
