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Vitamin C: Anti Cancer Nutrient

By On · Add Comment · In anti-cancerous, cancer, hydrogen peroxide, Linus Pauling, nutrient, nutritional, tumors, vitamin C

Great news coming out of the National Institute of Health: Researchers there have discovered that high doses on vitamin C decreased cancerous tumors in mice by 50%. The vitamin showed anti-cancerous effects on 75% of the cancer cell lines tested. Wow! And I remember a time when nutritional remedies were thought to be severely limited, at least in medical circles–and now this!

Vitamin C, or ascorbate, is an essential nutrient that acts as a cofactor in enzymatic reactions, an antioxidant, and is a major player involved in collagen formation. The anti-cancerous properties of vitamin C appear to be from the formation of hydrogen peroxide which surrounds the tumors in their extracellular matrix. The hydrogen peroxide is damaging to the cancer cells but leaves normal cells alone.

Researchers report that the high doses of vitamin C had to be administered by injection because taking mega-doses orally are actually regulated by the gut, and is therefore harder to reach the high concentrations needed to fight cancer. Saying this, however, high doses (up to 10 grams per day) taken orally can be quite beneficial prophylactically for people without cancer. This, at least, was Linus Pauling’s belief, and I happen to agree.

So if you are suffering from cancer, print the material I’ve linked to on this post and give it to your treating doctor. See if he or she will start administering high doses of vitamin C immediately. And if you aren’t a cancer patient, you can start taking high doses of vitamin C for you general health. Since it’s water soluble, it can’t hurt you (maybe a little diarrhea in the beginning, so increase incrementally). Many experts believe that increasing your vitamin C to optimal levels is the secret to preventing many of today’s chronic degenerative disorders. Now you know.

Check out this great vitamin C website, Cforyourself.

Good Nutrition Leads to Bigger Bucks

By On · Add Comment · In childhood, childhood feeding programs, earning power, feeding, growth, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), nutrient, nutrition, nutritious foods, poverty, real food

There’s a popular belief that earning power leads to better nutrition. Seems like a simple cause and effect. I personally don’t buy it, as I know that fast-food restaurants do quite well in poorer neighborhoods; and fast-food isn’t cheap. Nutritious foods can be purchased for the same amount of money–or less!

But now we know for sure that the reverse is true; that better nutrition, especially in early childhood, can lead to greater earning power later in life. So says a long-term study conducted in Guatemala, which researchers point out could lead to less poverty through childhood feeding programs. Hallelujah! Now that’s science that makes sense. Finally a study that doesn’t try to squeeze the data to fit a particular (and often political when it comes to poverty) viewpoint. Just plain ol’ data collection, analysis and final conclusions. Crazy thing that science.

The study looked at 1,500 people that had been involved in a nutrition study between 1969 and 1977 with some receiving a nutrient-rich protein porridge-like drink and others receiving a less nutritious placebo. They found that men who had received the nutritious porridge before the age of three earned 46% more per hour than those who did not. Children over three years old receiving the nutritious porridge showed no increase in earning power. These results show that early childhood nutrition through feeding is crucial, especially since many well-known programs–like the United Nation’s World Food Program–focus on early childhood nutrition through supplementation and save the feeding programs for older kids.

I always say that there is no substitute for real food–regardless of age. Supplements are good to supplement real food, not substitute for them. And real food should be the focus for all children, especially at the early age. So much development happens in the first few years of life, and young children need basic building blocks for proper growth and tissue formation; and this can only be gotten from real food. Bravo to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) for conducting this study–it should help developing nations, and it should help us here at home.

Don’t You Just Hate When Mom is Wrong?

By On · Add Comment · In aging, antioxidant, cancer, chicken soup, collagen, common cold, conventional wisdom, degenerative diseases, free radicals, health, healthy blood vessels, healthy skin, natural, nutrient, vitamin C

Just another blow to conventional wisdom: A review of 30 published studies confirms it even further – vitamin C does nothing to fight the common cold. I know, I know, that’s not what Mom said. Take plenty of vitamin C along with chicken soup and you’ll beat that cold in no time. Also, don’t go out with your hair wet or without a jacket, you might catch cold. Didn’t mom tell you that one, too?

Well, I hate to be the one to discredit Mom, but researchers at the University of Helsinki, Finland looked at people who took high-doses of vitamin C and found it did very little to reduce their risk of catching a cold (so small as to be clinically useless). Furthermore, it did nothing to reduce the duration of a cold or its symptoms.

That doesn’t mean vitamin C is useless, though. As I point out in my upcoming book – The Six Keys To Optimal Health – this nutrient is absolutely essential to achieving and maintaining great health. Vitamin C is a natural antioxidant, so it fights oxidizing free radicals, which can lead to aging and the development of many degenerative diseases, like cancer. It’s also an important player in the formation of collagen, so…that means healthy skin and healthy blood vessels and healthy joints and healthy ligaments and on and on and on. I think that vitamin C is so important that I believe, to have truly optimal health, you need to supplement with 1,000 mg per day.
But don’t feel badly for mom. She’s right about the chicken soup thing. I guess one out of two ain’t bad, now, is it?
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