We do believe in taking vitamins and supplements for our health, but since hubby has PCa I've tried my best to research what he should and shouldn't take! There's SO much info out there and fighting this beast gets so overwhelming, that I feel I just can't do enough to stay on top of all the research! I'm doing my best and spending a massive amount of time to "research" what's best for him, but it's getting so confusing, since I can read one thing that says "yes, do it" and the next that says "no, don't do it" about the very EXACT thing! Sometimes I just think I should give up researching EVERYTHING and just love him and our time together!
Sorry for all the venting... my question is about him taking oral Vit C. He gets 175mg in his multi-vitamin and he takes an addition 500mg with Rose Hips. I just read on this forum that low dose Vit C is bad for PCa?? Should he stop taking the 500mg? He takes it to help not get colds, flu etc. He didn't get sick at all this past flu/cold season and he's around different people daily with his job, since he travels. We were so pleased that he did so well, when so many others were getting sick and now I read this! HELP!!
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sjc2
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Here's a tip on evaluating "research": not all research has the same value. Most of the studies you find are mouse/lab studies- they are useless for the patient - everything works in those lucky mice. The next step up are epidemiological studies - notorious for yielding erroneous conclusions because of all the unmeasured variables. A little better are database and other retrospective studies, which also have unmeasured variables and are crippled by selection bias (the people who got a certain therapy were chosen because of their differences). The gold standard is the large, confirmed, randomized clinical trial (RCTs) (double blinded, preferably). In between, are smaller RCTs and studies that simulate randomization (e.g., some kinds of propensity score matching and Mendelian randomization). Anything less than an RCT is for hypothesis generation only.
I know that reactive oxygen species are critical to our body's natural defences against cancer, and Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and other antioxidants may interfere with that. How much is necessary to tip the balance towards unleashing the cancer? I don't know. But why would you tamper with your body's biochemistry when you (not just you - I mean everyone) have no real knowledge of what you are tampering with? Your body is fully capable of drawing whatever it needs from your food and discarding the rest. Why not rely on your body to do what millions of years of evolution have designed it to do?
Searching for the word "prostate" I found a number of places where the NCI scientists cite research reports indicating some anti-cancer properties of vitamin C in prostate cancer. They didn't indicate strong anti-cancer activity, but I didn't see anything indicating that vitamin C was problematic except in patients with certain specific conditions. See the "Adverse Effects" and "Drug Interactions" section.
The "Drug Interactions" section does mention a possible interference of vitamin C in chemotherapy. Checking some citations in the article, it appears to me that vitamin C, an "anti-oxidant", is thought to interfere with treatments that depend on "oxidation" (removal of electrons) of molecules in the tumor cells. Some chemotherapies may rely on oxidation and radiation therapy also uses oxidation. However there are also both chemotherapy and radiation treatments for specific cancers (prostate cancer wasn't mentioned) that seem to benefit from vitamin C.
In almost all of the research that I've seen, the researchers talked about "high-dose" vitamin C. By their definitions, your husband is not taking high doses. Apparently, you can't get the kind of high doses they're talking about from taking pills, only by direct intravenous injections.
Here is a citation to a Canadian prevention study that argues, based on retrospective examination of records of almost 4,000 men, that vitamin C has no particular association with prostate cancer, i.e., it neither promotes it nor prevents it:
My inexpert conclusions from all this are that it's worth asking your husband's doctors if they are aware of any drug interactions with drugs that he is taking, but the odds are that he's doing himself no harm, and maybe some good, from the vitamin. If it were me, I would probably continue taking it (and in fact I do take it.) Perhaps one of our scientist members can weigh in with a more expert opinion.
We are always very cautious about supplements, because recent research links many to a higher overall mortality. That's not just for cancer patients: that's in general. Taking supplements is not the same as getting vitamins from dietary sources. In addition, supplements can contain fillers that are not so super.
With regard to research, my magic phrase is "meta analysis." Those studies look at all the available research to see if there's a trend for helpful/neutral/harmful. I haven't seen anything for Vit C that would personally cause me to want to add it to our pill case.
1- oral- after 10 grams it becomes bowel intolerant
2- IV C- The German & Mexican clinics use this method a lot- you can get high doses into the blood stream w/o problems.
3- Liposomal- this is an oral method that combines C with a lipid component. This makes for a better entry into the cells. This also can take a higher dose w/o problems. Stay away from Dr. Mercola's Liposomal. It isn't a true liposomal product. Read on Liposomal and see what you think.
Jane Mclellands book promotes HIGH DOSE IV for aPCa treatment while LOW DOSE is only for prevention. So low dose is no no for you. I am not a doc. Only reporting what I read.
Linus Pauling had prostate cancer from age 72 and died in his 90's . He too 12,000 mg or more every. He has some interesting books out. I don't know what is true or not but some things speak for themselves. I don't think it hurt him.
Yeah, most of us wish we could do as well with this cancer as Pauling did.
He is also the only person to win two unshared Nobel prizes. Plenty of people disagree with his work on vitamin C, but it is much more difficult to refute his arguments. The man was incredibly smart, and one of only two people to win Nobel prizes in different fields. Marie Curie, no slouch herself, was the other.
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