High-Dose Vitamin C Kills Mutant Colorectal Cancer Cells, Suggesting New

Research into the potential applications of Vitamin C in tumor treatment began with Linus Pauling in the 1970s. Studies later revealed that vitamins need to be intravenously administered in order to provide a dosage which was high enough for eliminating cancer cells. The investigators say their study could lead to the development of new biomarkers that could help physicians determine who would most benefit from treatment. Now, a study published online this week by Science reports that vitamin C can kill tumor cells that carry a common cancer-causing mutation and, in mice, can curb the growth of tumors with the mutation. These insights may also have implications for other hard-to-treat cancers that express high levels of GLUT1 transporter, such as renal cell carcinoma, bladder cancer and pancreatic cancer.

Furthermore, the researchers emphasized that since BRAF and KRAS mutant cells require a lot of antioxidants to survive, the effect of DHA on the said cells are greater. Around half of those cases harbor mutations in the KRAS and BRAF genes; these forms of the disease are more aggressive and don’t respond well to current therapies or chemotherapy.

Scientists have known for a few time that a specific membrane protein, known as glucose transporter GLUT1, enables both glucose and DHA to enter cells, but that ascorbic acid can not do so. Once inside, natural antioxidants inside the cancer cell attempt to convert the DHA back to ascorbic acid; in the process, these antioxidants are depleted and the cell dies from oxidative stress. As such, Yun suggested that cancer cells may be targeted with large amounts of DHA, weakening them and triggering the body’s response to the invasive cancer cells. The primary area that must be investigated in that of the effects that DHA can have on normal cells when absorbed into the human body in such high amounts.

Even though these findings have been quite encouraging, scientists have said that there is lots more research required to turn this knowledge into an effective course of treatment for colorectal cancer since there is a lot of information they don’t have on reactions of DHA.

Jihye Yun, who is a postdoctoral fellow with the Weill Cornell Medicine, New York made a remarkable discovery while he was still a graduate student with the John Hopkins University, Baltimore. When these mutated cells were exposed to high plasma levels of vitamin C, the researchers found that the cells take in the oxidized form of vitamin C through a certain receptor that happens to be over-expressed in mutated cells.

In the study, the researchers tested this out in mice; the vitamin C proved to destroy the mutated cancer cells.