Vit C, hep C, cancer

I am tired of the articles claiming that vit C intravenous will heal this and that. I read that will heal hep c and that it will also heal cancer. There is an entire alternative industry built on lies and claims which are not supported by any research. I always hear them winging about lack of money to do trials. Really? The same excuse is used for the last 30 years. Give me a break, if vit c is so great I am sure that money could have been put together from donations to proof that is healing cancer, or hep c or anything else.

I personally have tried IV vit C and is doing absolutely nothing, no changes in blood results either. I was looking for something, a change, any change!!!

Did you have any experience with vit c? Did you have any changes from taking it ? Do you personally know anybody who had benefited from it?

[Bali05]

I had a few high dose Vit C IVs once and did a blood test 2 days later to
check Vit C levels. It came back low in Vit C  .... lol.
Vit C does not stay in your body very long.
In my opionion if you are looking to increase VitC levels
a time release version of the supplement works best in
giving you a steady level. However with liver disease you
also have to be careful with your iron level and VitC increases
iron absorption.
What is your reason behind looking into Vit C ?

[Dannyboi7]

  Pros and cons of Vit C,it boosts your immune system to fight off infections,but as Bali said if you have liver disease not so great to take since vitamin C increases iron levels.Personally I've been taking Vit C for over 10 years now and I never get the flu or colds and it helps fight off my UTI s  .I kept on taking it throughout my treatment and I'm sure it helped in a way.Mind you as far as I know I don't have cirrhosis and anyone with Hep C who takes Vit C should have there iron levels checked regularly.


    As far as I know I never heard of anyone being cured of Hep C by using Vit C.There is no hard evidence of anyone being cured of any disease using Vit C. alone....On another note clinical trials on new meds or clinical studies can cost up to a 100 million dollars each.  

[Diana66]

I have tried it for the lymphoma and for the hep c with absolutely no results. I mean intravenous high dose vit c ( and yes I was checking the iron levels, all in the safe range)

I came across an article claiming that vit c is healing cancer, hep c etc and I expressed my opinion base on my experience - hoho I was mobbed by the proponents who are charging big $ for so called cured. What I found outrageous that they are giving half truths as evidence. They are mentioning some well known people who have tried vit c. But they stopped short of mentioning that those people in fact died !!!!

I am still looking for evidence "from the horses mouth" that maybe this approach works but unfortunately I could not find anyone who can show me a set of paper showing a cancer remission or a hep c UND

[HectorSF]

Vitamin C should never be taken by a patient with iron overload such as hemochromatosis. Vitamin C will increase the absorption of iron and further damage the liver. Iron overload is an important co-factor in the development of liver disease in alcoholics.

What my be benign in one patient can be dangerous for another. There is no one answer to anything as complex as liver disease or cancer.

Hector

[BoceprevirGal]

   I never read anywhere that it would clear Hep C, but came up with the idea on my own..only not I.V....I took it in chewable form, when I felt run down with a sore throat. It used to get rid of that feeling.
   Of course, later on I read what Hector above mentioned, and was horrified that I may have given myself hem0chromatosis.  Luckily, my liver biopsy showed no iron-overload, but it is a perfect example of how the alternative medicine movement can be very dangerous.
  Another stupid thing I did a few years ago: I consulted a German Homeeopathic barefoot Doctor on Youtub, who told me "there is no such thing as Hep C" and that the whole problem was the mercury in my fillings. I even went as far as to have a tooth pulled :(
    A year later, my low platelets showed up, Hep C is real as we all know, and has the capacity to do TONS of damage, as you can see, by reading our posts on here~

[Dannyboi7]

  This whole platelet thing I could never figure out.At baseline mine started at 179 and during treatment half the time they went up to 220.Now 6 months post treatment they are at 152,don't know if that means my liver got worst.Yet my ALT started at 137 at baseline and now they are at 12 six months post treatment.

[Diana66]

My understanding (after my few visits to the hematologist is that low platelets can be from an enlarged spleen (they are either hold or destroyed in the spleen)

Or, bone marrow suppression, not enough being produced

Or some sort of injury and the platelets are actually contributing to healing hence not many are showing up in the blood test

Other than that platelets are still a mystery to me, mine are not very high unfortunately, I started  tx with 120 and now they are 50

[Bali05]

Ribavirin can make your platelets go up and INF usually does the oposite.
In some people these effects equal each other out so that your platelets
stay close to the same during tx. That happend to me. Pre tx my platelets
were always around mid to lower 200s. I predosed Riba for several wks
during which they steadily went up to 300. Than I added INF and they
dropped like a stone to around 200 again. After tx they dropped further
to around 160 and now 1.5 years post are back to where I started.

Initially lower platelets after tx I assume has to do with the "wear and tear"
of INF on your bone marrow . It should straighten itself out again over time.


b

[Diana66]

Somehow I had the oposite impression, that the Riba in fcat contibutes at lowerinf platelest and neutrophils.

Why am I saying that?

@ weeks ago my hemoglobin was 88, platelets 39 and neutrophils 0.56. My Riba dose was reduced from 100mg to 800 mg for one week after which
Hemoglobin was 97, platelets 51 and neutrophils 0.82.

I am back on full dose Riba now and I will have blood tests on Thu morning. Adding one Riba pill back will certainly change again the values and I am curious to see what they are. Will post again with results on Thu afternoon

[rk2761]

I've never seen anything, a study or otherwise, that promoted Vitamin C as a cure for hep c.

I have seen a few other studies, though, on the use of Vit D and the use of Omega 3s during treatment. But all of the studies were with pretty small sample sizes and one did not look very professional. All studies showed increased SVR rates. I'd like to see those replicated using large sample sizes.

rk

[mikesimon]

Vitamin C Supplements May Increase Kidney Stone Risk

Lara C. Pullen, PhD
Feb 05, 2013

Men who take ascorbic acid supplements daily (approximately 1000 mg) were at increased risk for first incident cases of kidney stones (rate difference, 147/100,000 compared with men who do not take ascorbic acid supplements). This represents a dose-dependent, 2-fold increased risk for kidney stone formation.

Laura D.K. Thomas, MSc, from the Institute of Environmental Medicine, Division of Nutritional Epidemiology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues published the results of their large, population-based prospective cohort study online February 4 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The study was performed in the Cohort of Swedish Men and included 48,850 men aged 45 to 79 years. The authors estimated, but were not able to accurately assess, the dose of vitamin C consumed by the men in the study.

The authors controlled for age, education level, body mass index, tea and coffee use, smoking status, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus. They did not control for dehydration, immobilization, use of loop diuretics, corticosteroids, or vitamin D.

They found high-dose (1000 mg) vitamin C to be associated with a single new kidney stone per 680 high-dose users per year. They found no association between multivitamin use and kidney stone risk (relative risk, 0.86; 95% confidence interval, 0.62 - 1.191).

The study included only men, and the authors note that the results may not be generalizable to women.

In an accompanying editorial, Robert H. Fletcher, MD, from Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, discussed the benefits and risks of vitamin supplementation. He began his editorial by describing the original purpose of vitamin supplementation, which was to avoid vitamin-deficiency diseases such as pellagra, rickets, and scurvy. Since that time, however, vitamin supplements have been consumed with the intention of preventing or treating chronic diseases.

Treatment with vitamin C, for example, began in the 1700s as a response to the scurvy experienced by sailors who spent months at sea. In the 1900s, the Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling, PhD, proposed that vitamin C was an effective treatment for the common cold, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Dr. Pauling's enthusiasm for vitamin C inspired numerous clinical trials that were unable to support the use of vitamin D to prevent mortality.

Recently, evidence has been accumulating that vitamin C supplementation may also be unsafe in that it promotes the formation of kidney stones. Results from the current study are consistent with other studies that have linked vitamin C supplementation and kidney stone formation.

The research was funded by the Swedish Research Council/Research Infrastructures and the Karolinska Institutet. The investigators and Dr. Fletcher have disclosed no other relevant financial relationships.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/778769?nlid=27860_1049&src=wnl_edit_dail