For patients receiving conventional medical therapies, this high dosage Vitamin C infusion is clinically proven to help fight tumors and reduce the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation.

Vitamin C (also called L-ascorbic acid or ascorbate) is a nutrient that humans must get from food or dietary supplements since it cannot be made in the body. Vitamin C is an antioxidant and helps prevent oxidative stress. It also works with enzymes to play a key role in making collagen.

When taken by intravenous (IV) infusion, vitamin C can reach much higher levels in the blood than when it is taken by mouth. Studies suggest that these higher levels of vitamin C may cause the death of cancer cells in the laboratory.

A severe deficiency (lack) of vitamin C in the diet causes scurvy, a disease with symptoms of extreme weakness, lethargy, easy bruising, and bleeding. The lack of vitamin C in patients with scurvy makes collagen thinner in texture; when vitamin C is given, collagen becomes thicker again.

This isn’t to say that taking vitamin C orally is of no beneficial effect. To the contrary, high-dose oral intake of vitamin C at tapered doses (Dr. Hoffman says blood levels “max out” at about 500 milligrams (mg) doses) can help maximize your body’s immune system and aid in tissue repair. But when it comes to effectively treating cancer, intravenous administration is the only way to go.

Bypassing the body’s digestive buffers allows intravenous vitamin C to spur the production of hydrogen peroxide deep within bodily tissues. And with the help of disease-fighting white blood cells, this “peroxide-mediated” vitamin C, as Dr. Hoffman puts it, performs unique and key functions in the targeting and eradication of cancer cells wherever they might be lurking in the body.

The mechanism that might explain the potential efficacy of vitamin C in treating lung and brain cancer relates to the cancer cells' metabolism.

As a consequence of the faulty metabolism that occurs inside the cancer cells' mitochondria, these cells produce abnormally high levels of so-called redox active iron molecules. These molecules react with vitamin C and form hydrogen peroxide and hydrogen peroxide-derived free radicals.

Scientists think that these free radicals drive cancer cell death by damaging the cells' DNA. The free radicals are also thought to weaken the cancer cells and make them more vulnerable to radiation therapy and chemotherapy.

High-dose vitamin C has been studied as a treatment for patients with cancer since the 1970s. A Scottish surgeon named Ewan Cameron worked with Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling to study the possible benefits of vitamin C therapy in clinical trials of cancer patients in the late 1970s and early 1980's.

Surveys of healthcare practitioners at United States CAM conferences in recent years have shown that high-dose IV vitamin C is frequently given to patients as a treatment for infections, fatigue, and cancers, including breast cancer.

More than fifty years ago, a study suggested that cancer was a disease of changes in connective tissue caused by a lack of vitamin C. In the 1970's, it was proposed that high-dose ascorbic acid could help build resistance to disease or infection and possibly treat cancer.

An inflammatory component is present in the microenvironment of most neoplastic tissues. Inflammation and elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) are associated with poor prognosis and decreased survival in many types of cancer.

Vitamin C has been suggested as having both a preventative and therapeutic role in a number of pathologies when administered at much higher-than-recommended dietary allowance levels.

Since in vitro studies demonstrated inhibition of pro-inflammatory pathways by millimolar concentrations of vitamin C, we decided to analyze the effects of high dose IVC therapy in suppression of inflammation in cancer patients.

Studies (human and animal) on intravenous vitamin C have shown benefit in every type of cancer, including breast, ovarian, colon, lung, kidney, prostate, liver, pancreatic, skin, thyroid, gastric, brain and blood-borne cancers such as leukemia’s and lymphomas.[65] However, there are many factors that will determine the degree of effectiveness of any given therapy. This includes epigenetic factors (i.e. diet, smoking and other lifestyle factors will influence the effectiveness of therapies), other treatments used synergistically with intravenous vitamin C, individual genetic mutations and variation, as well some unique characteristics of the primary cancer cells and cancer stem cells (CSC’s) or circulating tumor cells (CTC’s).[66-68]

Specialized tests we use at our clinic (from international research centers and laboratories) have been extremely helpful in identifying which treatments in particular (both natural substances and pharmacologic agents) will specifically target the CTC’s and CSC’s in a given patient.

We begin patients with a low dose (15 grams) and raise the dose incrementally with subsequent infusions, until the therapeutic level is attained. We measure post IVC plasma levels to ensure that these levels are being maintained at the recommended frequency. Average frequency of treatments is 2-3 per week. Each infusion takes between 1-3 hours, depending on the amount of IVC administered.

Based on a large and growing body of evidence, the following conclusions about the clinical use of vitamin C are firmly established: