Originally published in February 2003 icon
Are There Safer Ways of Killing Cancer Cells?
Conventional oncology largely uses chemotherapy to destroy cancer cells.
There can be no doubt that chemotherapy works, and that in every cancer case, cancer cells need destroying.
Chemotherapy is backed by high quality clinical trials and has been studied extensively for nearly 40 years.
Practically every known solid tumour has a solid evidence base and the oncologist will be able to give you a pretty accurate percentage success rate for any particular treatment regime, in any particular solid cancer. However, clearly, chemotherapy has a downside as it is a highly toxic treatment and in many patients is poorly tolerated. There are studies in conventional oncology literature implying that a significant number of patients can die of chemotherapy, as opposed to the cancer.
A play on BBC2, called WIT, enacted a harrowing story about an English Professor dying of cancer. The heroine was brilliantly acted by Emma Thompson. The dramatic high point came when the heroine said to camera:
"It´s not the Cancer that´s killing me; It´s the treatment"
"Everyone in medicine understands that a great deal of uncertainty about what to do for people, will always remain in any illness. Human disease and lives are too complicated for reality to be otherwise". This is taken from a recent book by Atul Gawande entitled "Complications: A Surgeon´s Notes on an Imperfect Science".
 What happens if you do not wish to have a conventional
treatment such as
chemotherapy? Cancer is just such a complex illness. Current medicine is evidence based as outlined earlier in this article. However, what happens if you do not wish to have a conventional treatment such as chemotherapy? Are there alternatives? Yes, there are, but they currently have a poor evidence base, and are never likely to have the quality of evidence base which backs chemotherapy. Providing the cancer sufferer knows what the evidence is, then they can make treatment choices on an informed consent basis. In my view, it´s unethical for patients to be offered any treatment with a less good evidence base than chemotherapy, other than on an informed consent basis.
High dose intravenous vitamin C is one of these treatments, and we use it extensively in our clinic. It is one of our most effective treatments.
Clearly, because of the poor evidence base, we largely see chemotherapy and radiotherapy failures, but interestingly enough, those patients who deliberately seek us out and wish to try these approaches as a first line option, tend to be the "more well informed" public, and these include some doctors, which is indeed a curious situation.
Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is a major water-soluble antioxidant with a variety of biological functions. It may be important in maintaining proper immune cell function. Even though vitamin C commonly functions as an antioxidant, it can also act as a pro-oxidant, that is actually oxidising tissues, which is what chemotherapy does.
Vitamin C converts free radicals into hydrogen peroxide, a molecule that can damage cell membranes if not neutralised by an enzyme inside the cell called catalase.
The avoidance of vitamin C, and indeed all antioxidants when going through a chemotherapy programme, is
important
Tumour cells have 10-1 00 times less catalase than normal cells, and are therefore more sensitive than normal to hydrogen peroxide. Vitamin C accumulates in solid tumours at concentrations higher than those in surrounding normal tissue. The accumulation of vitamin C preferentially in cancer tissues has raised concerns that vitamin C may provide tumours with anti-oxidant protection from chemotherapeutic agents. In practice therefore, the avoidance of vitamin C and indeed all antioxidants, when going through a chemotherapy programme, is important.
To obtain vitamin C at pro-oxidant levels, at which it destroys cancer cells, is only achievable by intravenous infusion.
Plasma levels of vitamin C between 300-400 milligrams per 100cc are required in order to kill significant numbers of cancer cells. This requires intravenous infusions of 75 grams of vitamin C, (in some cases less, depending on the size of the patient and the tumour cell mass), infused intravenously on a daily basis for three weeks in order to be able to attain these plasma levels. It´s important to realise that the highest plasma level of vitamin C achievable in humans using oral supplementation is 4.5 milligrams per 100cc.
Many studies have been done on this approach in the laboratory and Phase I and Phase II clinical trials have been completed on this approach. (Phase II clinical trials have been carried out in Nebraska, USA and are about to be published). Phase III clinical studies are in discussion.
Our most common protocol is the use of 75 grams of vitamin C, in sterile water, with a number of minerals, particularly magnesium, zinc, chromium, selenium, B12 and some B vitamins.
The patient is infused over 2.5 hours daily for 3 weeks (excluding weekends). The vitamin C level at the end of the infusion course is tested and if this is sufficiently high then some significant tumour kill has happened. If it isn´t, then this regime may have to be repeated.
Lipoic acid has been found to enhance the cancer killing effect of vitamin
The advantage of using this approach is that it doesn´t carry the downsides of chemotherapy, and can be repeated many times.
The main downside is that if we are working with patients who have fluid accumulation in the chest, say from a lung cancer, or in the abdomen, say from ovarian cancer, then the fluid load that these intravenous infusions involve can make the situation worse. So in those patients we choose other safe options to kill cancer cells.
Concurrently with the high dose intravenous vitamin C, we use supplements, the most important of which is lipoic acid.
Lipoic acid has been found to enhance the cancer killing effect of vitamin C, and the mechanism for this is unknown.
The only side effect we see in this treatment is tiredness due to tumour cell death, as well as increased fluid accumulation in particular groups of patients, as mentioned above.
So in conclusion, even though chemotherapy has such a high quality evidence base, it doesn´t mean that other, less well-researched treatments do not also work.
Dr Julian Kenyon (Medical Director)
The Dove Clinic for Integrated Medicine, London & Winchester.
Dr Julian Kenyon started life as an academic surgeon then, soon after the cultural revolution, went to China, having been fascinated by traditional Chinese medicine.
On his return he founded the British Medical Acupuncture Society.
He is founder president of the British Society of Integrated Medicine and Medical Director of the Dove Clinic of Integrated Medicine, London and Winchester.
His main clinical interests are complex illnesses, particularly chronic fatigue syndrome, and cancer.
Website address: www.doveclinic.com.
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