Vitamin C and Antibiotics — A Winning Combo Against Cancer Stem Cells

Studies have also shown vitamin C can be used as an adjunct to cancer therapy. Vitamin C is selectively cytotoxic to cancer cells by generating hydrogen peroxide when administered intravenously in high doses, and recent research suggests vitamin C in combination with antibiotics helps kill cancer stem cells — cancer cells responsible for metastasis of lethal tumors.

Here, researchers at the University of Salford in the U.K. used the antibiotic Doxycycline, followed by IV vitamin C and, again, it's all about the combination. It's well-known that that cancer cells can survive chemotherapy and develop resistance to the drug. The study in question was designed to determine how this occurs.

They suspected the answer cold be found in metabolically flexible cancer cells — in other words, cells capable of switching from one fuel source to another. Science Daily reports:32

"The researchers say their method offers a new explanation for how to prevent cancer cells from becoming treatment-resistant and how combinations therapies can be developed to overcome drug resistance. Professor Michael Lisanti, who designed the study, explained … 'Thus, when the drug treatment reduces the availability of a particular nutrient, the flexible cancer cells can feed themselves with an alternative energy source.'

This new combination approach prevents cancer cells from changing their diet (metabolically inflexible), and effectively starves them, by preventing them from using any other available types of biofuels.

The team … added Doxycycline in ever increasing doses over a three-month period, to induce metabolic inflexibility. The result was to leave the cancer cells … severely attenuated and depleted, so that they would be much more susceptible to starvation, by a second metabolic "punch."

First, the researchers inhibited the tumor cell mitochondria, by restricting the cancer cells only to glucose as a fuel source; then, they took away their glucose, effectively starving the cancer cells to death. 'In this scenario, vitamin C behaves as an inhibitor of glycolysis, which fuels energy production in mitochondria, the 'powerhouse' of the cell,' explained co-author Dr. Federica Sotgia."
Vitamin C Is an Excellent Emergency Kit Staple

Vitamin C by itself outperformed 2-Deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG, a glycolytic inhibitor33) by as much as 10 times when it came to preventing cancer cell growth. When combined with an antibiotic, the treatment is nearly 100 times more effective. Best of all, while antibiotics do have health risks (since they decimate your gut microbiome), antibiotics and vitamin C are far safer than most cancer drugs, dramatically reducing a patient's risk of adverse treatment effects.

The team also identified eight additional products that can be used in lieu of vitamin C, including berberine — a natural plant compound shown to work as well as metformin for diabetes. As noted by Lisanti, "This is further evidence that vitamin C and other nontoxic compounds may have a role to play in the fight against cancer."

Indeed, while I do not recommend taking high doses of vitamin C on a daily basis, I'm absolutely convinced it is a key staple that belongs in everyone's home emergency kit. In cases of acute illness, I recommend taking 2 to 3 grams of vitamin C per HOUR until you feel better. Note that most people will get loose stools with conventional oral vitamin C, which is why the vitamin C should be liposomal. This prevents the loose stools and provides blood levels similar to IV vitamin C without the expense or inconvenience.

In my experience, this high dose liposomal C every hour will typically reverse acute illnesses within 24 hours or so. Just make sure it is liposomal vitamin C. I always travel with a bottle of this and regularly give it away to clinicians I see who have come down with an acute infection.

For general health, it's fairly easy to get sufficient amounts of vitamin C from food, so supplements are usually not necessary. I grow acerola cherries, which are particularly high in vitamin C. Each cherry provides about 80 mg of vitamin C. I will sometimes eat up to 100 cherries a day, giving me about 8 grams of vitamin C — far above the recommended daily intake of 90 mg/day.

Still, if I were to become ill, I would not hesitate to take high doses of vitamin C, including the use of IV vitamin C if the situation were sufficiently dire — although I would start with hourly high dose liposomal C as I think it would work just as well, and only progress to IV if the high dose liposomal C was not working.

Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/a...mp;et_cid=DM151311&et_rid=2085276556