**High Doses of Vitamin C and Leukemia: In Vitro Update**

**High Doses of Vitamin C and Leukemia: In Vitro Update**

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.71484

Domenico Mastrangelo, Lauretta Massai, Giuseppe Fioritoni, Francesco Lo Coco, Nèlida Noguera and Ugo Testa Giuseppe Fioritoni, Francesco Lo Coco, Nèlida Noguera and Ugo Testa Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Domenico Mastrangelo, Lauretta Massai,

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.71484

**Abstract**

Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is an essential nutrient with a number of beneficial effects on the human body. Although the majority of mammals can synthesize their own Vitamin C, humans and a few other species, do not produce it and depend on dietary sources for their Vitamin C supply. Among its many effects on cell function and metabolism, Vitamin C has shown, in vitro, a powerful anticancer effect against a number of human tumor cell lines, including myeloid leukemia. There are many different mechanistic explanations for the anticancer/anti-leukemic effects of Vitamin C and the aim of the present review is to illustrate these mechanisms, showing the results of some preliminary in vitro investigations, and outlining their potential clinical relevance.

**Keywords:** Vitamin C, ascorbate, sodium ascorbate, high doses of ascorbate, intravenous ascorbate, cancer, leukemia, antioxidants, pro-oxidants, free radicals, oxidative stress, redox balance

#### **1. Introduction**

Vitamin C is an essential nutrient with a number of beneficial functions, for the organism [1], such as


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In 2012, 76 years after the first observations on the "concentration" of Vitamin C in leukocytes, an investigation on 131 patients affected by different types of leukemia, definitively confirmed that leukemic patients have significant lower plasma Vitamin C than normal controls. The reduction of plasma Vitamin C levels in leukemia, as predicted by Stone, is due to an increased uptake and utilization by the actively proliferating leukocytes, leading to tissue biochemical scurvy and consequent increased tendency to bleeding and infections, which are the hallmark of this pathological condition [9, 10]. Interestingly, low plasma levels of Vitamin C, have been, very recently, found in around 30% of cases of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL), particularly in patients with high bulk disease [11]. With the above data at hand, it is clear that leukemia can be viewed as a condition of functional Vitamin C deficiency, associated with biochemical scurvy, and therefore, all leukemic patients are suitable candidates for the

High Doses of Vitamin C and Leukemia: In Vitro Update http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.71484 157

**3. How much Vitamin C to treat leukemia? The concept of "mega-doses"**

In 1949, Frederik Klenner first reported the successful treatment of bulbar poliomyelitis, with high doses of Vitamin C administered by intramuscular, intravenous, and oral route [12]. Klenner had also established clinical protocols using massive doses of Vitamin C to treat a number of different viral conditions, but only more than two decades later, Stone formally defined the concept and rationale for the use of "*mega-doses*" of Vitamin C. In particular, Stone observed that man and only a few other species do not produce their own Vitamin C, while the great majority of mammals do, according to their physiologic requirements [3]. This observation led the author to hypothesize that due to either insufficient intake or increased consumption of the nutrient, or both, man could easily undergo a condition that he defined "*hypoascorbemia*." Hypoascorbemia is a reduced amount of circulating Vitamin C (also called "ascorbic acid"), due to the lack of the enzyme L-gulonolactone oxidase (GLO), as a consequence of an "inborn error of carbohydrate metabolism" [13–15]. This defect, now very well acknowledged and characterized [16], led Stone to hypothesize that to be in good health, man needs mega-doses of Vitamin C (several grams a day) [17, 18], rather than doses in the order

of milligrams, as stated by the Recommended Daily Allowances (RDAs) [19].

The rationale behind the use of mega-doses of Vitamin C was further refined by the chemist and twofold Nobel Prize, Linus Pauling. Pauling soon became an enthusiastic supporter of the use of this nutrient, in high doses, not only to prevent disease [20–23], but also to treat a number of pathologic conditions, ranging from common cold [24, 25] to cancer [26] and

Studies on dose-concentration relationship in humans, performed by Levine and co-workers [28], revealed that at oral doses exceeding 250 mg/day, the plasma levels of Vitamin C reach a

treatment with this nutrient.

AIDS [27].

**4. Intravenous Vitamin C and cancer**


Though ubiquitous, ascorbate is not produced by humans, guinea pigs, some primates, a particular type of fruit eating bat, the majority of fishes and birds [2], who depend on diet for the assumption and use of this fundamental nutrient.

### **2. Vitamin C and leukemia: historical background**

The first mention of the therapeutic potentialities of Vitamin C in leukemia, can be found in the book "*The healing Factor: Vitamin C against disease*," written by the biochemist Irwin Stone, in 1974 [3]. In his book, Stone refers to a study, performed in 1936 by Stephen and Hawley [4], demonstrating, for the first time, that when the blood is separated into plasma, red blood cells, and white blood cells, there is a 20- to 30-fold concentration of Vitamin C in the white blood cells, as compared to plasma.

Following this report, Barkhan and Howard, by studying a few cases of chronic myelogenous and lymphatic leukemia, added the evidence that leukemic patients have substantially lower than normal plasma levels of Vitamin C [5]. As noted by Stone, although this knowledge could suggest the use of Vitamin C as a therapeutic agent, in leukemia, the first clinical trials showed contrasting results, due to the inappropriately *low doses* administered.

Later on, Vogt, in a literature review [6], confirmed that there are high deficits of Vitamin C in leukemic patients, as also confirmed by the reports of Kyhos and Coll. [7] in 1945, and Waldo and Zipf, in 1955 [8].

According to Stone [3], leukemia reduces the body stores of Vitamin C to very low levels, and any residual Vitamin C circulating in the blood is scavenged and locked in the excessive numbers of leukocytes characterizing this disorder. As a direct consequence, the plasma levels of Vitamin C are reduced to zero or close thereto, and tissues are no longer being supplied with this most important metabolite, since it is accumulated in leukocytes.

Stone [3] defined "*biochemical scurvy*" as the condition of insufficient Vitamin C supply to body tissues, and proposed that its correction required the administration of Vitamin C at a rate of 25 g or more per day.

In 2012, 76 years after the first observations on the "concentration" of Vitamin C in leukocytes, an investigation on 131 patients affected by different types of leukemia, definitively confirmed that leukemic patients have significant lower plasma Vitamin C than normal controls. The reduction of plasma Vitamin C levels in leukemia, as predicted by Stone, is due to an increased uptake and utilization by the actively proliferating leukocytes, leading to tissue biochemical scurvy and consequent increased tendency to bleeding and infections, which are the hallmark of this pathological condition [9, 10]. Interestingly, low plasma levels of Vitamin C, have been, very recently, found in around 30% of cases of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL), particularly in patients with high bulk disease [11]. With the above data at hand, it is clear that leukemia can be viewed as a condition of functional Vitamin C deficiency, associated with biochemical scurvy, and therefore, all leukemic patients are suitable candidates for the treatment with this nutrient.
