Molecular and Clinical Nutrition Section, Digestive Diseases Branch, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Some clinicians and alternative therapy practitioners advocate megadose intravenous and oral ascorbate treatment of cancer. Randomized control studies using oral ascorbate showed no benefit. Recent data show that intravenous but not oral administration of ascorbate can produce millimolar plasma concentrations, which are toxic to many cancer cell lines. We propose that ascorbate treatment of cancer should be reexamined by rigorous scientific scrutiny in the light of new evidence.