Todd Feeback — The Hale Center for Journalism
A study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine points to vitamin C’s ability to help kill cancer cells without harming normal tissues. Vitamin C, administered in high doses along with conventional chemotherapy drugs, can also reduce the toxic effects of chemotherapy. According to an article from KU Medical Center’s website, the clinical study used 27 patients with newly diagnosed Stage 3 or Stage 4 ovarian cancer.
Qi Chen, who holds a doctorate in biochemistry, is an assistant professor at KU Medical Center and is senior author of the study. She said that vitamin C was used in the 1970s as an “unorthodox therapy for cancer.” The use of vitamin C was abandoned by conventional oncologists after oral doses weren’t effective in two cancer clinical trials.
“Physicians practicing complementary and alternative medicine continued to use it, so we felt further study was in order,” Chen said.
For more on this research, read C.J. Janovy’s story on KU Medical Center website.
Major Funding for Health coverage on KCPT provided by Assurant Employee Benefits and the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City.
Reading these stories is free, but telling them is not. Start your monthly gift now to support Flatland’s community-focused reporting.
Related Stories
Caregiving Squeezes Households Between Young and Old
Melissa Johnson knows her life is hardly unique. The Oak Grove, Missouri, woman cares for her infirm 72-year-old mother, who lives in her own home nearby. She calls her mother daily. She brings dinner to her several times a week. Johnson, who coordinates care with her aunt, a team of therapists, and a nurse, is…
Feeding Tubes and Defibrillators
Let’s begin with two stories about the growing and important field of bioethics. The first is from Ryan Pferdehirt, the newly named Flanigan Chair in Bioethics at the Kansas City-based Center for Practical Bioethics. A hospital once asked him to consult on a bioethics case in which a son thought his desperately ill, hospitalized mother…
After Tuberculosis Outbreak, Wyandotte County Parts Ways with Health Director
The director of the Wyandotte County Public Health Department is no longer with the agency, a spokesperson confirmed Tuesday. It comes after turmoil during the handling of the major tuberculosis outbreak, shown by emails obtained by the Kansas News Service. Elisha Caldwell had been head of the local health department while an outbreak of TB grew…