Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospital shows it can be done

Re:Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospita... by cyberax on Thursday November 28, 2024 @12:36AM (#42262739)

> That's interesting. I was just reading about how high dose IV vitamin c can induce cell death in a wide variety of cancers, but somehow, despite this being known for decades, nobody has done rigorous research on it.

Sigh. Vitamin C quackery again.

Vitamin C at high doses is cytotoxic, so it works against rapidly dividing cells. Cancer cells also preferentially concentrate vitamin C because they are under oxidative stress.

However, just like with most of other generally cytotoxic treatments, cancer cells quickly evolve resistance to it. And the overall toxicity of vitamin C makes it uninteresting as a treatment.

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Re:Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospita... by mahkeiro on Thursday November 28, 2024 @01:57AM (#42263054)

This was just published by UI showing a potent effect of high dose vitamin C + chemotherapy: https://medicine.uiowa.edu/content/high-dose-iv-vitamin-c-pl... and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221323172...

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Re:Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospita... by cyberax on Thursday November 28, 2024 @04:14PM (#42268566)

That's actually pretty interesting. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive cancers, and without many therapeutic options. Vitamin C is basically another drug to complement the existing standard-of-care drugs. Not a silver bullet, but definitely helpful.

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Re:Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospita... by akoboldfrying on Thursday November 28, 2024 @01:21AM (#42262912)

Thanks for providing a plausible explanation. Do you know of any links (ideally peer- reviewed research) supporting the quick evolution of resistance to vitamin C? If not I'll google around.

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Re:Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospita... by cyberax on Thursday November 28, 2024 @03:49PM (#42268433)

That's a generic cancer resistance mechanism. That's why most of cancer treatments fail eventually, the cancer cells evolve to tolerate the levels of chemotherapy agents that are lethal to regular cells.

In the articles linked in this thread, large-dose vitamin C prolonged survival, but didn't clear the cancer. It's exactly what you'd expect from a chemo treatment.

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Re:Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospita... by pfdietz on Thursday November 28, 2024 @10:03AM (#42265731)

There is evidence that high doses of antioxidants can make cancer worse, probably because cancer cells are under oxidative stress.

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2015...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8127329/

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Re:Developing a cancer drug without Big Pharma: this hospita... by cyberax on Thursday November 28, 2024 @03:45PM (#42268418)

Vitamin C in large doses becomes a pro-oxidant because it reduces metal ions, and they in turn then become catalysts for oxidative reactions or even directly oxidize stuff.

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