9 IV Vitamin C.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
9 IV Vitamin C.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Speaker1:
Welcome to the Cancer Secrets podcast. Changing the Cancer Paradigm. Hosted by Dr. Jonathan Steagall, a medical doctor and cancer specialist practicing in Atlanta, Georgia, deeply affected by his grandmother's death from stomach cancer, as well as patients he cared for in medical training, he realized there has to be a better way to treat cancer. Dr. Stegall has a unique and innovative approach to treating cancer called integrative oncology, combining modern medicine with alternative therapies personalized to each patient. This podcast is designed to educate, support and give you a positive voice you can trust. We invite you to join us on this journey as we seek to change the cancer paradigm.
Speaker2:
Hi. This is Dr. Stegall. I'm so glad you're enjoying the Cancer Secrets podcast. Do you have a question you would like answered in a future episode? If so, please go to Cancer Secrets dot com and click on podcast at the top of the page. Look for the tab on the right side of the page that says Send voice mail. You can record your question straight from your smartphone or computer with your question. Be sure to tell us your first name, where you're from, and why you listen to the show. I will choose from the best questions and answer them on the air. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Hello and welcome back to the Cancer Secrets podcast. I'm your host, doctor Jonathan Segall. Today's episode is episode number nine. We're going to talk about vitamin C and more specifically, intravenous vitamin C and its role as an anticancer agent. If you're new to the show, please go back and listen to my introductory episode to learn more about me and my vision for this podcast. I also invite you to grab a family member or friend and listen in together. Today's show is going to be a great one. If you've spent any length of time researching alternative and natural cancer treatments, you've certainly come across Vitamin C. Vitamin C has a really interesting history, also known as ascorbic acid. Vitamin C was first isolated in the late 1920s.
Speaker2:
Further research on vitamin C was conducted throughout the 1930s, and by the 1940s, vitamin C was actually used to treat various bacterial and viral infections. These vitamin C treatments were often given as injections into the muscle. According to some accounts, vitamin C injections showed some promise against polio. But the development of the polio vaccine and its widespread use in the 1950s and 1960s rendered Vitamin C an afterthought. However, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Linus Pauling began researching Vitamin C. Around that time, a Scottish surgeon, Dr. Ewan Cameron, reportedly became aware of Pauling's research and began using higher doses on his cancer patients. He noted that these patients tended to live longer and at this point Pauling and Cameron began working together in their research. Amazingly, they got funding from the National Institutes of Health to conduct research on vitamin C. However, some other researchers involved in this study were sure to make sure that vitamin C given was oral and not intravenous. Not surprisingly, the results of this study were not favourable. And unfortunately for vitamin C, the study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most prominent medical journals out there, news headlines stated that high dose vitamin C does not work. Never mind the fact that the wrong form of vitamin C was used. Thankfully, research into vitamin C did not end there.
Speaker2:
A scientist at the NIH, Dr. Mark Levine, began researching Vitamin C to look at blood levels. More specifically, he looked at blood levels of vitamin C after receiving oral vitamin C compared to levels after receiving intravenous vitamin C. Not surprisingly, he found that intravenous doses of vitamin C result in much higher blood levels than can be obtained orally. And this is consistent with what we routinely see with other medications and substances as well. There's a limit to how much can be obtained orally. Most estimates of orally administered substances or that we absorb a maximum of about 30% of that substance when we ingested orally compared to nearly 100% when that substance is administered intravenously. Well, the obvious question then is why can't we just take a lot of oral vitamin C? Why can't we just take a number of capsules or tablets and overcome that limitation? Well, the problem is that once you reach a certain point, vitamin C taken orally is going to cause some digestive side effects, such as bloating, nausea and diarrhea. And this is going to occur at different levels for each patient. But typically between about 5010 thousand milligrams, which is 5 to 10 grams, you're going to see these issues. So that's one reason why we definitely want to give vitamin C intravenously rather than orally. We also know that we really need to go higher on the dosing with vitamin C to get a true anticancer effect.
Speaker2:
Now, even though that study in the 1970s it was published in the New England Journal of Medicine was not a favorable one in terms of the public view of vitamin C. We have other researchers who have carried the baton since then. Dr. Hugh Reardon and Dr. Jean Driscoll have both kept vitamin C research going in the 1990s and into the 2000s. Unfortunately, Dr. Reardon passed away in the early 2000s, but Dr. Briscoe is still practicing and has collaborated with the University of Kansas to have a very robust intravenous Vitamin C program for cancer patients. I spoke with Dr. Driscoll and they have seen very good results with intravenous vitamin C, and not surprisingly, the best results they see are in patients who are receiving intravenous vitamin C alongside standard of care treatments such as chemotherapy. From the research that's available. It seems that we need to get at least 40 or 50 grams of intravenous vitamin C per treatment, up to even 75 or 80 grams. And keep in mind that 40 grams is the same as 40,000 milligrams and 80 grams is the same as 80,000 milligrams. So way more than you can get from oral dosing alone. Hi, this is Dr. Jonathan Segal, medical doctor and specialist in integrative oncology. And I want to tell you about my new bestselling book, Cancer Secrets.
Speaker2:
This book is packed with valuable information you need to know about whether you're searching for information for yourself or for a loved one. In my book, you'll learn what cancer is and what it is not, as well as which treatments you should be focusing on from both modern medicine as well as alternative medicine. You'll also learn the ins and outs of nutrition and supplementation, as well as important information about having the proper mindset. I'm in the trenches every day with patients and I've shared my secrets in this book with you. Please go to Cancer Secrets and buy your copy now. Now I want to talk a little bit about how I use intravenous vitamin C in my practice. I don't feel that it's good as a standalone treatment. It's not a magical cancer cure on its own. However, there are some advantages to it, and the first is that it's very well tolerated. Assuming that the patient has acceptable lab values for liver function and kidney function and is able to properly metabolize the intravenous vitamin C, which is measured by a lab test called G six PD that stands for glucose six phosphate dehydrogenase, provided that all those criteria are met. Vitamin C is very well tolerated. We don't really see any side effects from it. The only thing we have to watch is in patients who have chronic anemia.
Speaker2:
In order to work properly, vitamin C has to be taken up by cancer cells, and iron is part of this process. So part of using vitamin C requires that iron be removed from the blood and ushered into the cancer cell. So we don't want to make anemia worse in a patient who's already very anemic. But once we do get into the cancer cell with vitamin C, it is turned into hydrogen peroxide and that helps kill the cancer cell. Thankfully, this does not happen in normal, healthy cells. These cells have the proper mechanism to break down vitamin C and render it harmless. So we have a nice advantage here that vitamin C is potentially harmful to cancer cells, but not to the body's normal healthy cells. Vitamin C can be given safely, intravenously, as often as several times a week. Now, I typically like to combine vitamin C with a couple of things in the treatment protocol, the first of which is chemotherapy. There have been studies showing that intravenous vitamin C is actually synergistic with chemotherapy, meaning that the combination of the two produce better results than just chemotherapy alone. Now, these should not be given on the same treatment day, but as part of the same treatment protocol, they can be a powerful one two punch. And I typically like to give intravenous vitamin C and chemotherapy about a day or two apart.
Speaker2:
The other treatment I like to combine with vitamin C intravenously is the antibiotic doxycycline. Now, doxycycline has been around a long time and is used to treat various bacterial infections. But some interesting research has shown us that doxycycline and this can be oral doxycycline actually helps intravenous vitamin C work better. So what I like to do is put patients on a moderate dose of oral doxycycline to be taken around the time of the intravenous vitamin C administration. Now, obviously, we don't want to do this at high doses over a long period of time because we have to be careful about protecting the health of the small intestine in a large intestine. So I don't do this for extended periods of time. And I also make sure that the patient is on a high dose, high quality probiotic. And finally, another advantage to intravenous vitamin C is that we can put other beneficial vitamins and minerals in the bag with the IV vitamin C. So typically we'll have a bag of between 500 millilitres and 1000 milliliters of fluid and we usually use sterile water. And after we do some calculations, we can decide which other ingredients and at what doses those ingredients can be included. So things like magnesium, potassium, selenium, zinc, we have many different things we can consider. And of course this allows us to tailor the treatment to that specific patient, their type of cancer, their stage and their treatment goals.
Speaker2:
So the obvious question at this point is why aren't more doctors using intravenous vitamin C? And unfortunately, it's a complex answer, but basically, insurance has not yet recognize the value of intravenous vitamin C. So until insurance decides it wants to pay for intravenous vitamin C, we're not going to see IV Vitamin C as part of the standard of care. And this illustrates our location between a rock and a hard place with a lot of alternative and natural therapies. I want more research to be done on some of these substances because I see them make a difference for my patients. Unfortunately, to have the robust, long term, double blind, randomized, placebo controlled trials that have to be done, we need a significant source of funding. And unfortunately, that funding typically is going to have to come from a drug company or a very large organization. And those companies and organizations don't have an incentive to study something like intravenous vitamin C because that can't be patented in mass produced. So unfortunately, we probably will never have the research that I would like and that many other proponents of Vitamin C would like in order to justify it as a part of a standard of care and to prove that it works and how it works and that it's safe. So in the meantime, we're left with a treatment that has some good research on it and some smaller studies.
Speaker2:
And we certainly have case reports and clinical practice that suggests that vitamin C works very well and that it's complementary to other therapies. But we're not going to see it catch on as a popular treatment in most oncology offices. So to summarize, intravenous vitamin C is an excellent supportive treatment, not a stand alone treatment, but supportive treatment in a variety of cancers. It has to be done properly. It has to be done under the guidance of a physician who's experienced in its use, and it can also be enhanced by doxycycline and also giving it as part of the same protocol as chemotherapy. And finally, it can be given along with other valuable vitamins and minerals in that IV treatment. I hope you found this information helpful and I hope it's cleared up some confusion or misconceptions you might have had about vitamin C and whether it should be taken orally or intravenously and how it should be inserted into an integrative cancer treatment protocol. If you're as fascinated as I am by the off label use of medications such as Doxycycline with IV Vitamin C, you're going to love our next episode. We're going to talk more about the off label use of medications and how these medications can be repurposed for our treatment against cancer. Enjoy the rest of your day until next time.
Speaker1:
Thank you for listening to the Cancer Secrets podcast. If you were encouraged by this show, please share it with a loved one or friend. Help support the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. The more reviews, the more friends like you can find the show. Finally, to learn more, visit us online at Doctor Stay Google.com, The Cancer Secrets Podcast Changing the Cancer Paradigm.
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