This post could save your life – or the life of someone close to you.
Thirty years ago, Nobel laureate Linus Pauling advocated high-dose vitamin C as part of the treatment of cancer. His recommendations were based on a small number of patients who had been given either oral or intravenous (IV) vitamin C. Subsequent clinical trials at the Mayo Clinic failed to demonstrate any benefits from oral vitamin C, and the therapy was rejected by conventional medicine.
Recent experimental studies, however, have found that IV vitamin C can raise blood levels of vitamin C 25 to 70 times higher than those achievable through oral supplements. That’s significant because such high doses are toxic to cancer cells, but not normal cells.
To explain, large amounts of oral vitamin C increase blood levels up to 70 to 220 μmol/L – far less than the 1,000 μmol/L needed to destroy many types of cancer cells. With IV vitamin C, blood concentrations can be increased up to 14,000 μmol/L of blood. In a report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Mark Levine, MD, PhD, of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and his colleagues described three people treated with IV vitamin C and other supplements. Two of the patients are still alive, and the third (a long-standing cigarette smoker) lived much longer than expected.
One of the cases was a 49-year-old man diagnosed in 1996 with a primary bladder cancer that was starting to metastasize. The tumors were removed surgically, and the patient declined chemo and radiation therapy. The patient decided to receive IV vitamin C at the Bright Spot for Health, a nutritional medicine clinic in Wichita, Kansas. He received two 30-gram IVs weekly for three months, followed by 30 grams once every month or so for four years. “Now, nine years after diagnosis, the patient is in good health with no symptoms of recurrence or metastasis,” wrote Levine and his coauthors.
In a separate report published in the Puerto Rico Health Sciences Journal, doctors described the safety of high-dose IV vitamin C in 24 late-stage terminal cancer patients. The patients were given 10,000 to 50,000 mg of IV vitamin C daily. Most had been deficient in vitamin C before treatment, and side effects were infrequent and mild.
Levine and his colleagues believe that vitamin C produces large amounts of hydrogen peroxide, a potent generator of free radicals, inside tumors. The mechanism is similar to conventional chemotherapy, but without the side effects.
However, a recent report in the journal Nature suggests another mechanism to vitamin C’s benefits. Cancer cells produce large amounts of the enzyme lysyl oxidase, which promotes metastasis. However, an earlier study found that vitamin C inhibited the activity of lysyl oxidase.
If you'd like to read the scientific basis for what I've written, check out the references below at www.pubmed.gov. For more general information on nutrition and health, explore my website at www.nutritionreporter.com
Scientific References: Padayatty SJ, Riordan HD, Hewitt SM, et al. Intravenously administered vitamin C as cancer therapy: three cases. CMAJ, 2006;174:937-942. Riordan HD, Casciari JJ, Gonzalez MJ, et al. A pilot clinical study of continuous intravenous ascorbate in terminal cancer patients. Puerto Rico Health Sciences Journal, 2005;24:269-276. Erler JT, Bennewith KL, Nicolau M, et al. Lysyl oxidase is essential for hypoxia- induced metastasis. Nature, 2006;440:1222-1226. Kuroyanagi M, Shimamura E, Kim M, et al. Effects of L-ascorbic acide on lysyl oxidase in the formation of collagen cross-links. Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry, 2002;66:2077-2082.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Maintaining an Acid-Alkaline Balance
When I first heard, years ago, that acidic foods could somehow contribute to disease, I thought the idea was pretty far fetched. It struck me as a particularly odd prohibition against eating certain foods.
Recently, I became a believer. It turns out that acid and alkaline foods do have a bearing on health, but that the science has often been misunderstood or misrepresented. (See the article that follows.) The body functions best at a neutral or slightly alkaline pH. The problem has nothing to do with whether foods are acidic or alkaline per se. Rather, it’s about whether foods have an acid or alkaline effect after digestion and when they reach the kidneys.
Because the body strives to maintain a neutral pH, acid-yielding foods trigger the release of calcium and magnesium from bone and ammonia from the protein in muscles. The calcium, magnesium, and ammonia neutralize the acid, but they do so at a serious price: both bones and muscles weaken, over the long term setting the stage of osteoporosis and age-related loss of muscle mass and strength.
The principal acid-generating foods are animal proteins, grains, dairy products, and any food with a lot of added salt. The salt yields both sodium and chloride, which shift the body toward an acidic pH. Large amounts of animal protein release sulfuric acid through the metabolism of sulfur-containing amino acids, also contributing to an acidic pH.
Potassium bicarbonate, which is sold by prescription, can reduce acidity. Some other mineral supplements, such as those in citrate and carbonate forms, can also reduce acidity.
But the biggest alkaline effect comes from eating lots of fruits and vegetables. Even citrus fruits and tomatoes, which are acidic, have a net alkaline yield. That's because fruits and vegetables are rich in potassium and bicarbonate, both of which produce an alkaline pH. Eating 35 percent of your calories as fruits and vegetables is enough to maintain alkalinity – and help preserve your bones and muscle.
And Speaking of Acid-Alkaline Balance…
A lack of magnesium and calcium can contribute to many serious health problems including arrhythmias, osteoporosis, migraine, and fatal heart attack. The body’s levels of these essential minerals are strongly influenced by dietary levels – and by whether the overall diet produces an acid or alkaline load.
Ragnar Rylander, PhD, Thomas Remer, PhD, and their colleagues at the University of Goteborg, Sweden, studied 85 men and women, most in their sixties. The researchers measured the subject’s urine levels of magnesium, calcium, potassium, and acidity over 24 hours.
Rylander and Remer found that both magnesium and calcium losses in the urine were highest when urine was the most acidic. The loss of magnesium was not influenced by magnesium intake.
“Magnesium deficiency could thus, apart from insufficient intake, partly be caused by the acid load in the body,” wrote the researchers.
They also noted that “the Western diet induces a chronic low-grade metabolic acidosis.” Reference: Rylander R, Remer T, Berkemeyer S, et al. Acid-base status affects renal magnesium losses in healthy, elderly persons. Journal of Nutrition, 2006;136:2374-2377.
Recently, I became a believer. It turns out that acid and alkaline foods do have a bearing on health, but that the science has often been misunderstood or misrepresented. (See the article that follows.) The body functions best at a neutral or slightly alkaline pH. The problem has nothing to do with whether foods are acidic or alkaline per se. Rather, it’s about whether foods have an acid or alkaline effect after digestion and when they reach the kidneys.
Because the body strives to maintain a neutral pH, acid-yielding foods trigger the release of calcium and magnesium from bone and ammonia from the protein in muscles. The calcium, magnesium, and ammonia neutralize the acid, but they do so at a serious price: both bones and muscles weaken, over the long term setting the stage of osteoporosis and age-related loss of muscle mass and strength.
The principal acid-generating foods are animal proteins, grains, dairy products, and any food with a lot of added salt. The salt yields both sodium and chloride, which shift the body toward an acidic pH. Large amounts of animal protein release sulfuric acid through the metabolism of sulfur-containing amino acids, also contributing to an acidic pH.
Potassium bicarbonate, which is sold by prescription, can reduce acidity. Some other mineral supplements, such as those in citrate and carbonate forms, can also reduce acidity.
But the biggest alkaline effect comes from eating lots of fruits and vegetables. Even citrus fruits and tomatoes, which are acidic, have a net alkaline yield. That's because fruits and vegetables are rich in potassium and bicarbonate, both of which produce an alkaline pH. Eating 35 percent of your calories as fruits and vegetables is enough to maintain alkalinity – and help preserve your bones and muscle.
And Speaking of Acid-Alkaline Balance…
A lack of magnesium and calcium can contribute to many serious health problems including arrhythmias, osteoporosis, migraine, and fatal heart attack. The body’s levels of these essential minerals are strongly influenced by dietary levels – and by whether the overall diet produces an acid or alkaline load.
Ragnar Rylander, PhD, Thomas Remer, PhD, and their colleagues at the University of Goteborg, Sweden, studied 85 men and women, most in their sixties. The researchers measured the subject’s urine levels of magnesium, calcium, potassium, and acidity over 24 hours.
Rylander and Remer found that both magnesium and calcium losses in the urine were highest when urine was the most acidic. The loss of magnesium was not influenced by magnesium intake.
“Magnesium deficiency could thus, apart from insufficient intake, partly be caused by the acid load in the body,” wrote the researchers.
They also noted that “the Western diet induces a chronic low-grade metabolic acidosis.” Reference: Rylander R, Remer T, Berkemeyer S, et al. Acid-base status affects renal magnesium losses in healthy, elderly persons. Journal of Nutrition, 2006;136:2374-2377.
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