An unexpected result: scientists in the United States found that vitamin C may make chemotherapy less effective in cancer patients.
Treating human cancer cells in the lab with vitamin C cut the ability of chemotherapy drugs to kill them by 30 to 70%. In mice with human tumours, giving vitamin C two hours before chemotherapy made the tumours grow faster.
How does vitamin C protect the cancer cells? Several studies have looked at how it interferes with chemotherapy drugs such as methotrexate, cisplatin and vincristine, each of which kills tumours differently. It turns out that vitamin C doesn't change how the drugs work but hides their effect, and the finger points at its effect on the mitochondria, the cell's power plants, rather than its antioxidant role.
Some chemotherapy drugs damage the mitochondria in cancer cells, which sends signals that make the cell die. Vitamin C helps protect the mitochondria and so stops the drugs from working properly.
So combining vitamin C with chemotherapy may backfire, although some studies have argued for combining them to benefit from the vitamin's antioxidant properties. In healthy tissue, vitamin C is useful, protecting mitochondria and lengthening cell life, but it doesn't help kill cancer cells. People having cancer treatment should ask their oncologist before taking any supplements.
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