By Donnie Yance
“The noblest foundation for medicine is love. It is love that teaches us the art of healing. Without love true healing can never be born.” – Paracelsus
Intravenous (IV) nutrient therapy, which most often includes vitamins, minerals, and sometimes botanical isolates has become very popular these days. IV vitamin C and cancer is a big topic in the world today. In very specific circumstances IV vitamin therapy can be excellent for people who have digestive disorders that prevent proper absorption of nutrients; however, don’t be fooled into thinking that this is an all-natural holistic medicine. It is extremely invasive, and at the massive pharmacological doses used, I don’t believe it’s good for you. We need to get back to gentle nourishing medicine that supports innate healing in a more unitive way.
Both Eastern and Western healing traditions have long known that strengthening vitality is the basis for improving health and recovering from illness or injury. All traditional medical models are based on the healing concept often referred to as the “Vitalistic Healing Model.” Just as Nature has intelligence guiding the ‘Life Force,’ so it can be said of our internal self. The Life Force enlivens the physical mechanism to sustain life and all its working parts. This model believes the best medicine is primarily gentle in nature and works in harmony with the Life Force by building robustness and helping all the inner networks to autoregulate more efficiently.
Early American herbal systems such as the Eclectic Medical tradition understood this concept as central to healing. As their name implies, the Eclectics encouraged exploration of every system of medicine, regardless of its origins, to discover and apply the most useful principles for the wellbeing of humanity.
This is why herbal medicine and “Naturized” nutrients serve as the foundation of the Mederi Care Model. I believe we have made a grave mistake in our depiction of herbs and herbal medicine as it relates to health and disease. We have attempted to utilize both the current medical system and understanding of health and disease, as well as the current terminology used to represent the methodology of disease mechanism and treatment.
Herbal medicine(s) are botanical mixtures which present synergies of poly-pharmacological phyto-combinations. They modulate the activity of the target networks of the underlying disease phenotypes and are more efficient than purified compounds due to their favorable “synergistic” interactions.1
High-Dose IV Vitamin C as an Anti-Cancer Therapy
Vitamin C (VC) was discovered by Albert Szent-Gyorgyi in 1932, and then renowned chemist and two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling popularized higher-doses of vitamin C (above 1 g per day) for a broad range of disorders beginning in the 1970’s. Conventional medicine, however, is highly skeptical that these higher ranges of vitamin C intake can be utilized by the body.
“Utilizing high doses of vitamin C as a cancer therapy is no exception to this controversy. Nearly 60 years ago, Toronto physician William McCormick observed that cancer patients often presented with severely low levels of vitamin C in their blood and featured scurvy-like symptoms, leading him to postulate that vitamin C might protect against cancer by increasing collagen synthesis. In 1972, extending this theory, Ewan Cameron, a Scottish surgeon, hypothesized that ascorbate could suppress cancer development by inhibiting hyaluronidase, which otherwise weakens the extracellular matrix and enables cancer to metastasize. He began treating terminally ill cancer patients and published a case report of 50 patients in which some of the treated patients benefited from high-dose vitamin C.”2
Numerous studies carried out on cancer cell lines and animal models demonstrated that millimolar VC concentrations inhibit tumor-cell viability, especially in association with chemotherapy. IV vitamin C and cancer is a sometimes useful combination. Studies have shown that pharmacological doses of vitamin C target many of the mechanisms that cancer cells utilize for their survival and growth.3
High-Dose IV Vitamin C Acts as a Pro‐oxidant
High concentrations of Vitamin C act as a pro-oxidant, causing hydrogen peroxide–dependent cytotoxicity in cancer cells without adversely affecting normal cells.4 This mechanism is based on the VC redox capacity of metals, such as iron or copper, both generally abundant in tumor cells and involved in important enzyme catalytic activities.5,6,7
The pro-oxidative activity of ascorbic acid is associated with the interaction with transition metal ions (especially iron and copper). Under conditions of high-millimolar ascorbate concentration, VC catalyzes the reduction of free transition metal ions, which causes the formation of oxygen radicals.8
Animal Model of Colon Cancer High-Dose IV Vitamin C Suppressed Angiogenesis
A recent study investigated the effect of high-dose VC (4 g/kg) on vascular endothelial growth in mice with xenografts of a rectal cancer cell line referred to as Colon 26. Male mice harboring Colon 26 tumors were established, and high-dose VC solution was orally administered once daily for 14 days. On the final day of the study, the lower limb tumor tissues and serum samples were collected and analyzed for the expression of tumor angiogenesis related proteins as well as the levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS).
Oral VC administration decreased tumor volumes and increased p53 and endostatin levels. P53 is a tumor suppressor protein that regulates DNA repair, and endostatin is a protein being studied for its angiogenesis-blocking properties. In addition, plasma and in-tumor ROS levels and tissue hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) were reduced by VC administration. The levels of vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) and vascular endothelial growth factor D (VEGFD) were also decreased by VC administration. These results suggest that one of VC’s mechanisms of action is suppressing tumor angiogenesis.9
In 2006, a team of researchers found that early clinical studies of high-dose vitamin C given both orally and intravenously (IV) “may improve symptoms and prolong life in patients with terminal cancer.” The findings, however, did not provide “definitive proof” that vitamin C alone was responsible for the favorable outcomes.10 Rather, the findings suggested that further evaluation was needed. The studied cases only “increase the clinical plausibility of the notion that IV vitamin C administered might have effects on cancer under certain circumstances,” the researchers wrote.
Similarly, a 2016 study published in Oncotarget reported that vitamin C could curb the growth of KRAS mutant colon cancer in mice.11
KRAS mutations are common in difficult-to-treat cancers like colon and pancreatic cancer. These mutations are closely linked to significant changes in normal cell metabolism and resistance to chemotherapy.
In 1931, Otto Warburg, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine, proposed that cancer was primarily caused by altered metabolism affecting normal cell energy processing. A key characteristic of cancer cells, known as the Warburg effect, is their increased rate of glycolysis (sugar breakdown) even when oxygen is present.
In the late 1970s, Linus Pauling and Ewan Cameron reported that vitamin C might have beneficial effects in cancer treatment. However, the precise mechanisms of this activity are still not well understood.
Recent research has uncovered a unique anti-tumor mechanism of vitamin C in KRAS mutant colorectal cancer:
- It disrupts Warburg metabolism by downregulating key metabolic checkpoints in KRAS mutant cells.
- Importantly, it does not harm normal colon cells.
- Vitamin C causes RAS proteins to detach from the cell membrane, inhibiting ERK 1/2 and PKM2 phosphorylation.
- This leads to a significant decrease in the expression of the glucose transporter (GLUT-1) and pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2)-PTB dependent proteins.
- The result is a major blockage of the Warburg effect, causing energetic stress in cancer cells.
Based on these findings, the researchers propose combining conventional chemotherapy with other metabolic strategies, including IV vitamin C and cancer support. This approach could open up new possibilities in integrative oncology treatments.
Vitamin C ensures the proper functioning of TET (methylcytosine oxidase ten-eleven translocation) proteins according to K-Ras, oncogene product of KRAS gene; TET methylcytosine oxidase ten-eleven translocation proteins; 5-mC= 5-methylcytosine; 5-hmC= 5-hydroxymethylcytosine; 5-fC=5-formylocytosine; 5-caC=5-carboxycytosine.12
Based on a Cochrane review of IV-C in 2014,13 which included 897 records, a total of 39 reports of 37 studies were included: 2 randomized controlled trials (RCTs), 15 uncontrolled trials, 6 observational studies, and 14 case reports. IV-C dosing ranged from 1 g to over 200 g per infusion, typically administered 2 to 3 times weekly.
One of the RCTs, along with data from uncontrolled human trials, suggest that IV vitamin C may improve time to relapse and possibly enhance reductions in tumor mass and improve survival in combination with chemotherapy. IV vitamin C may improve quality of life, physical function, and toxicities associated with chemotherapy, including fatigue, nausea, insomnia, constipation, and depression.
In a 2021 study, researchers concluded that “mounting evidence indicates that IV vitamin C has the potential to be a potent anti-cancer agent when administered intravenously and in high doses.”14
However, a 2022 review was published in Frontiers in Nutrition that evaluated over 3,560 articles to test the quality of the research about the role of IV vitamin C in treating cancer. After analyzing 57 of those meta-analyses, the researchers concluded that vitamin C was related to a lower risk of multiple cancers, but that limitations in the quality of the analyzed data hindered these findings. Many of the studies, for example, were observational.15
In another 2022 study, high-dose IV vitamin C and cancer monotherapy did not show any anti-cancer activity. Researchers also concluded that clinical trials assessing high-dose IV vitamin C concomitantly with chemotherapy do not demonstrate tumor control or overall survival benefit.16
Some preliminary cell-line research also demonstrates a synergistic antitumor effect when combining IV Vitamin C with Vitamin K3.17,18,19
The bottom line is that IV Vitamin C and cancer therapy has had a controversial past and present. What has been intriguing are small clinical trials that suggest some responses, but with no clear rationale for why cancers should respond to vitamin C or a path forward for explaining which patients are most likely to respond.
At this time, Mederi-Care does not embrace IV Vitamin C, though we believe it could be of some benefit in certain cases. IV vitamin C at these doses, is heroic medicine acting as a pro-oxidant, so I think of it as a non-toxic (or at least a less toxic) version of chemotherapy, rather than nutritional medicine.
High-Dose IV Vitamin C in COVID-19 and Sepsis
A systematic review and meta-analysis evaluating the administration of IV vitamin C in treating patients with COVID-19 did not influence disease severity in comparison with a control group. The results of this meta-analysis demonstrated that short-term IVC treatment also did not reduce mortality in patients with COVID-19.20
A meta-analysis of eighteen randomized controlled trials that explored the outcome of IV vitamin C in sepsis or septic shock patients was not associated with a reduction in short-term mortality and had higher adverse events.21
Two harmonized randomized clinical trials posed the question: does vitamin C administered intravenously to patients hospitalized with COVID-19 improve organ-support–free days (composite outcome of in-hospital mortality and days alive and free of intensive care unit–based respiratory and cardiovascular support) up to day 21?
The findings showed that the use of vitamin C vs control (placebo or no vitamin C) yielded posterior probabilities for efficacy of 8.6% among 1568 critically ill patients and 2.9% among 1022 patients who were not critically ill regarding the odds of improvement for organ-support–free days.
The conclusion that these researchers came to is that among hospitalized patients with COVID-19, there was a low probability that vitamin C improved organ-support–free days. 22
Whatever tools you decide to implement into your healing program, such as IV drips, remember that they must be additional to the most important thing: the human-to-human healing relationship. Always see the “WHOLE” in relation to the “PARTS”, and the “PARTS” in relation to the “WHOLE”. This is the important application of clinical hermeneutics.
Hermeneutics comes from a Greek word meaning, “to explain or translate,” and refers to the art of understanding and of making oneself understood. We must learn and understand each others’ stories.
Love has to be at the center of everything we do.
“Understanding someone’s suffering is the best gift you can give another person. Understanding is love’s other name. If you don’t understand, you can’t love.” –Thich Nhat Hanh
The Mederi Care Philosophy Regarding Vitamin Supplementation
Vitamin and mineral isolates do not act in proper relationship with our innate healing life force; and intravenous (IV) vitamins and minerals are potentially even more problematic. It is the opposite of gentle, bioregulatory, self-healing, holistic medicine. To me, it is no different than pharmaceuticals, which have their place, such as in acute disease; but should not be a primary means to support people toward health. I refer to such therapies as topical and honeymoon-like, because of their short-term surface-level thinking. What works during the honeymoon phase doesn’t nourish a marriage for a lifetime, and short-term acute care does not create long-term wellness. Nourish the root system of the tree and the tree will be healthy and strong.
IV therapy is extremely invasive, and it is not just giving vitamin and mineral isolates directly into the bloodstream, but at the doses used, it is an outright downpour rather than a sprinkle. Just as the earth is nourished through a gentle rain, so are our cells and tissues nourished through whole food and, in the case of supplementation, “Naturized” vitamins and minerals. Vitamins in nature are part of a network of other vitamins and phyto-molecules; when you isolate a vitamin, it acts very differently from the original vitamin matrix created by God and nature. “Naturized” supplements contain a host of interactive secondary metabolites that enhance the nutrient bioavailability, and provide additional health-promoting effects, just as healthy eating does.
Think of IV vitamins and minerals as well as plant isolates in the same way you think about drugs, because they are so far removed from the natural environment they once dwelled in. They are often synthesized using harsh chemicals.
For example, when ascorbic acid, a common synthetic vitamin C, is ingested, the liver has to convert it into dehydroascorbic acid. A study also found that synthetic vitamin C is absorbed better when taken with bioflavonoids rather than consumed isolated.
In nature, Vitamin C is part of a complex, or matrix, that serves a purpose when it is a part of the whole. However, it cannot do the job of the entire complex by itself.23 An analogy could be likening VC to the pistons of a V8 motor, and expecting the pistons to run the car by themselves without the help of fuel injectors, belts, air hoses, and other critical parts.
The Matrix Effect
The food matrix can be described as a symphony of various physical and chemical interactions that take place between the compounds in the food. Just as a musical symphony contains hundreds of notes for dozens of instruments, the food matrix requires all of its constituents playing together to create nutritional harmony. The food matrix may also be seen as a physical domain that contains or interacts with specific components of a food (e.g. a nutrient) providing functionalities and behaviors which are different from those exhibited by those components in isolation.24
Both IV nutrients, and the nutritional supplements many people take, like a one-a-day multivitamin, do not benefit from the food complexity and synergism of all the compounds that have been left out. 81% of the population 55 and over take some kind of vitamin supplement, most often an over-the-counter multivitamin.25
Usage of dietary supplements among U.S. adults in 2020, by age group
26
“Synergy means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of their parts”
― Buckminster Fuller
Complex food matrices are of either plant or animal origin, and are either natural or processed. They can be minimally or highly processed, and/or recombined, with important consequences to the interactions of the various micronutrients with other compounds such as fiber, which helps to form the short-chain fatty acids that contribute to a healthy gut microbiome.27, 28
What is most beautiful about saturating the body with oral whole-food nutrient complexes is the inter-relationship that takes place within the gut. Recently, we are learning so much more about this and it is an exciting time. Foods, herbs, and whole-food nutrients that we ingest form a multitude of new metabolites, which it turns out, are often the actual biologically-active healing compounds; at the same time, the gut microbiome is improved by the increased nutrient diversity.
I suggest you build health with whole foods and whole-food concentrates, oral herbal formulas, Naturized (whole-food-matrix) supplements, and lifestyle improvement, and reserve IV therapies for only very specific acute indications.
“Naturized” supplements are formed from either baker’s yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or the beneficial bacteria used to make yogurt, Lactobacillus d. bulgaricus. Baker’s yeast contains protein, trace minerals, and vitamins including the B-group, and many intrinsic secondary nutrients such as beta glucans. Thus, using yeast as the matrix for the production of nutrients will provide valuable co-factors that both enhance the bioavailability of the nutrients as well as provide intrinsic benefits themselves. For example, the beta glucans and SOD found in yeast can enhance immune and antioxidant function.
Yeast also has the benefit of having a low environmental footprint.29 As a eukaryote, Saccharomyces cerevisiae has a similar internal cell structure to plants and animals.30
Regulating Biology
As the book, Bioregulatory Medicine, teaches, “Our bodies have many bioregulating systems, including the cardiovascular, digestive, neurological, respiratory, endocrine, and so on. Bioregulatory medicine is a comprehensive and holistic approach to health that advocates the use of natural healing methods to support and restore the body’s intrinsic self-regulating and self-healing mechanisms, as opposed to simply treating symptoms with integrative therapies.” 31
Holistic-natural-healing medicine is a gentler medicine that features “NATURE” as the great healer and is directed at health optimization through a foundational basis of self-regulation and building nonspecific robustness (i.e. strengthening the Vital or Life Force). It is bioregulatory network medicine at the molecular, cellular, and organ system level.
The therapeutic objective of Mederi-care utilizes primarily herbal medicine, “Naturized” nutrients, diet, and life-style to enhance the following goals:
- Increase robustness
- Proper self-regulation
- Revitalize adaptability
- Acting broadly and gently on the entire network
- Focus on innate self-healing
Bioregulatory Medicine continues, “The term “regulate” when applied to bioregulatory medicine refers to the inherent flexibility, dynamicity, and natural rhythm of the organism. The therapeutic promotion of the body’s regulation process is of central importance.
The term “adapt,” as it applies to bioregulatory medicine involves the concept of achieving and maintaining equilibrium within changing environmental, emotional, and psychic circumstances. This involves maintaining the integrity of the central and autonomic nervous system, humoral and cellular immunity, endocrine function, and the other energetic vital forces that govern adaptation to one’s environment.”32
Conclusion
While IV-C therapy may have its place in rare acute cases, it acts more like an invasive pro-oxidant drug than a nutrient. It does have some evidence for promoting apoptosis, slowing angiogenesis, and improving quality of life during chemotherapy. However, I believe that Mederi-care’s focus on gentle, holistic, natural medicine that enhances the Vital Force is more effective for increasing vitality and wellness in the long run.
About the Author:
Donald R. Yance is the founder of the Mederi Center. A Clinical Master Herbalist and Certified Nutritionist, Donnie is renowned for his extraordinary knowledge and deep understanding of the healing properties of plants and nutrition, as well as of epigenetics, laboratory medicine, oncologic pathology, and molecular oncology. He is a professional member of the American Herbalists Guild, National Association of Nutrition Professionals, Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine, and the Society for Integrative Oncology.
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