A new study suggests that a high dose of Vitamin C can kill cancer cells that cause colorectal cancer, Latinos Post reports.
The study was published at Science.
According to the report by Medical News Today, a team led by Dr. Lewis Cantley of Weill Cornel Medicine in New York found out that a large volume of Vitamin C weakened and killed the mutated BRAF and KRAS genes in mice.
When Vitamin C entered our arteries, it is oxidized and some of it's the parts of Vitamin C are converted to dehydroascorbic acid (DHA).
In the study, Dr. Cantley and his team revealed that when the DHA is inside, natural antioxidants try to revert it to ascorbic acid. However, instead of doing so, the natural antioxidants diminish eventually causing the cancer cell to die due to "oxidative stress", turning off the enzyme necessary for the mutated cells to reproduce.
The researchers said that since BRAF and KRAS mutant cells require a lot of antioxidants to survive, the effect of DHA on the said cells are greater.
"More than half of human colorectal cancers carry either KRAS or BRAF mutations, and are often refractory to approved targeted therapies," the authors write in the abstract, according to Medical Daily.
"We report that cultured colorectal cancer cells harboring KRAS or BRAF mutations are selectively killed when exposed to high levels of vitamin C."
According to Nature World Report, Clinical trials suggest that higher doses of vitamin C could actually play a role in inhibiting the growth and spread of colon, liver, prostate, pancreatic, and many different kinds of cancer.
Dr. Cantley and his team said that this study would aid in developing treatments for colorectal cancer. However, they pointed out that a lot of research is still needed on the possible effects of the presence of a high volume of Vitamin C in normal cells.
