Linus was Right!
Not the cartoon Linus, but Linus Pauling. I had a chance to meet the man prior to his death. Linus Pauling is considered the father of modern biochemistry. He is the only man in history to receive two Nobel Prizes. Despite this the scientific community turned its back on Pauling when he began to promote vitamin C as a treatment for colds and for cancer. Pauling and Cameron reported that when vitamin C was given by injection cancer patients could live four times as long as those not supplied with the vitamin.
Recent research has shown that there is generally a hierarchy of cancer cells in the body. The most essential cells for cancer growth and spread are cancer stem cells. Cancer stem-like cells are thought to be the root cause of resistance of cancer to chemotherapy and radiation. As a result researchers are madly testing different compounds to find out which ones have the property of inhibiting these cancer cells with the characteristic of "stemness."
A new research paper has reported that vitamin C is a powerful inhibitor of cancer stem cells. Vitamin C was actually about ten times more powerful in inhibiting cancer stem cell proliferation than a drug called 2-DG used for this purpose. The advantage of vitamin C over many drugs being researched is that it is safe and cheap. It would not surprise me to see vitamin C linked to pharmaceutical drugs to target cancer stem cells.
References:
No comments:
Post a Comment