New Research on IVC and Prostate Cancer
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Riordan Clinic Research Institute Publishes Study, “Changes in the rate of PSA progression and the level of alkaline phosphatase during high dose vitamin C treatment of patients with prostate cancer”
Wichita, KS USA………… 2017
Riordan Clinic scientist Nina Mikirova, PhD and medical doctor Ronald Hunninghake, MD have recently had an article published in the Journal of Functional Food for Health and Disease entitled “Changes in the rate of PSA progression and the level of alkaline phosphatase during high dose vitamin C treatment of patients with prostate cancer.”
Intravenous high dose vitamin C (IVC) is a commonly used therapy among naturopathic doctors and other integrative oncology healthcare practitioners. Many studies demonstrated evidence of a good safety profile of IVC treatments and improvement of the quality of life in cancer patients. IVC has been proposed as a treatment for cancer as an adjuvant in conjunction with other therapies.
To investigate high dose ascorbic acid potential in treating prostate cancer, a retrospective study was conducted using clinical data from the Riordan Clinic database that covered 20 years of patients’ treatment (1994-2015).
The purpose of this study was to determine if IVC therapy could suppress tumor growth in prostate cancer patients and has effect of on suppression of metastatic osteoclastic processes in bones expressed by alkaline phosphatase levels.
We collected data on the following patient characteristics at diagnosis and during the courses of IVC therapy: tumor stage, Gleason score, serum prostate specific antigen (PSA), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) levels, and location of metastases.
In cases where pharmacokinetic data are available, we found that patients with higher Gleason scores and/or with metastases attain lower plasma ascorbate levels with a given dose infusion. In addition, PSA and ALP concentrations correlated with Gleason scores and the presence of metastasis in our patient group.
There appears to be a correlation between the frequency of high dose vitamin C treatments and the tumor growth, with decreasing of the rate of tumor marker PSA growth as IVC frequency increases. As the PSA concentration varies depending upon tumor differentiation, tumor volume, and the extent of disease, the relationship between the PSA rate of change and frequencies of IVC treatment may indicate inhibitory effect of the treatment on the prostate cancer.
Our study is the first to address dynamic changes of the easily available biomarker of metastasis ALP during alternative therapy by high dose IVC. ALP levels have been associated with the progression of skeletal metastases in patients with prostate cancer and have also been shown to be significant predictors of early death.
While osteoclastic processes are seen as a potential target for prostate cancer therapy, chemotherapeutic drugs aimed at inhibition these processes offer only a few months advantage over placebo in prolonging survival time, and often carry very serious side effects.
We underlined the possibility of ALP decline, which is a marker of suppression of osteoblast bone formation by IVC treatment. In the several cases where we found both PSA and ALP measurements recorded, these variables tended to track each other, and they tended to both decrease during IVC therapy.
Both these dependencies of tumor marker PSA and metastatic marker ALP, resulted from the analysis of the data, demonstrated the clinical benefit of IVC for prostate cancer patients.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE
The full text of the article can be found at our website: https://www.riordanclinic.org/research/journal-articles.html.
The Riordan Clinic is a progressive nutrition-based medical clinic located in Wichita, Kansas. For more than 40 years, the Riordan Clinic has integrated lifestyle and nutrition to help patients find the underlying causes of their illness. Since the inception in 1975, the mission has been clear and unwavering to “…stimulate an epidemic of health.”
