Hello again Anne....Here is some information that I hope will be very helpful for your Dad. I am sorry for the length of the first message but I received it as a PDF file and am not able to attach it here as such so have had to just cut and paste. The second message is an excerpt from clinical trials which has great value for colon cancer patients. Again, this trial information was very lengthy so I just cut and pasted the section regarding Vitamin C. I will add the search link that the complete trial was located on in case you would like more information..................................
New Study Confirms Vitamin C Effective As Cancer Treatment....... High-dose vitamin C has proven highly effective in treating cancer, according to research published by the US National Academy of Science. This confirms studies in the 1970s by the Nobel prize winner Dr Linus Pauling, who gave 100 terminally ill cancer patients 10 grams (10,000mg) of vitamin C each day, the equivalent of 220 oranges, and compared their outcome with 1,000 cancer patients given conventional therapy. The survival rate was five times higher in those taking vitamin C and while all of the 1,000 “control patients” died, 13 of the vitamin C patients were still alive ten years later, with 12 apparently free from cancer. In the 1990’s Drs Murata and Morishige of Saga University in Japan showed that cancer patients on 5 to 30grams of vitamin C lived 6 times longer than those on 4 grams or less, while those suffering from cancer of the uterus lived 15 times longer on vitamin C therapy. However, Pauling’s findings were discredited, largely due to an apparent ‘replication’ of their study by the Mayo Clinic in the US . There were, however, two major differences between the original trial and that of the Mayo Clinic. The ‘terminal’ patients in the original trial kept taking vitamin C every day, while those in the Mayo Clinic trial stopped after an average of 75 days. Also, in Pauling’s study patients were given a combination of oral and intravenous vitamin C, while in the Mayo Clinic study only oral vitamin C was used. In a comprehensive study of the effects of intravenous vitamin C by researchers from the US National Institutes of Health, led by Dr Qi Chen, intravenous vitamin C has proven to cause cancer cell death across a wide range of cancers including lymphoma, breast, lung, colon, kidney and skin (melanomas) in both animal and human cancer cells. This high dose vitamin C led to the formation of hydrogen peroxide, a chemical that can kill cancer cells. Normal cells were not affected by vitamin C at any concentration. This research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science this week, proves that intravenous vitamin C is a potentially highly effective and inexpensive non-toxic form of chemotherapy. This may also explain why high dietary intakes of vitamin C are associated with lower risk for cancer. In a comprehensive review of over 100 studies, author Dr Gladys Block, formerly with the National Cancer Institute, concludes, “Approximately 90 epidemiologic studies have examined the role of vitamin C or vitamin-C-rich foods in cancer prevention, and the vast majority have found statistically significant protective effects. Evidence is strong for cancers of the oesophagus, oral cavity, stomach and pancreas. There is also substantial evidence of a protective effect in cancers of the cervix, rectum and breast. Even in lung cancer there is recent evidence of a role for vitamin C.”
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As increased oxidative stress coupled with membrane damage due to lipid peroxidation antioxidant enzymes, a scavenger of oxygen radicals, might have increased as a compensatory mechanism; an antioxidant enzyme could enhance the cytotoxic ability of macrophages to scavenge free radicals. They are present mainly intracellularly, whereas non-enzymatic antioxidants are present both extracellularly and intracellularly, thus presenting at the site of generation and also at the site of action of ROS in an adequate amount. As chemical scavengers, they prevent radical-induced cellular damage. It has been observed that ascorbic acid deficiency could result in accumulation of lipid peroxide, which is an intermediate product of lipid peroxidation [34]. Moreover, it is known that vitamin C plays an important role in the synthesis of connective tissue proteins such as collagen, and deficiency of it, therefore affects the integrity of intracellular matrix and has a permissive effect on tumour growth. Deficiency of vitamin C could hinder tumo encapsulation. Our results have proved that non-enzymatic level of antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E as well as GSH decreased in colorectal cancer. In such a situation non-enzymatic antioxidants are not able to prevent oxidative modifications of cell components. Their levels decrease with progression of colorectal cancer and are therefore higher in clinical stage II and lower in stage IV of colorectal cancer. The present results and the findings of previous studies show that colorectal carcinogenesis is associated with serious oxidative stress and that advancement of oxidative-antioxidative disorders is followed by progression of colorectal cancer. ..............http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=Lipid+peroxidation+and+antioxidant+status+in+colorectal+cancer&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8