A Younger Look for the New Year

Is Vitamin C Really A Natural Treatment For Skin Cancer?

You may have heard that Vitamin C can be an effective means of treating certain forms of skin cancer. Whether you approach this claim with hope or disbelief, it will help if you understand a little about how Vitamin C works on cancer cells.

What Is Vitamin C

You probably think you're familiar with Vitamin C. It's in most citrus fruit as well as various vegetables, and you can find it added to many other products. Vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, is an antioxidant that helps the human body form and maintain connective tissue. There are also many other benefits from Vitamin C, and you can gain many of these benefits just from adding Vitamin C to your diet.

When it comes to some skin cancers, small doses of Vitamin C aren't enough. You must look to high-dose Vitamin C treatments.

Vitamin C Treatments for Skin Cancer

Vitamin C can kill cancer cells if administered in high dosages. You can take high doses orally or intravenously. The Vitamin C breaks down in the body, leaving behind hydrogen peroxide.

Normal cells can remove hydrogen peroxide, but tumor cells have a lot more trouble doing so. The hydrogen peroxide goes to work breaking down the tumor cells, while keeping the normal cells intact.

There are also topical Vitamin C applications for skin cancer. Some claim it can eliminate some forms of skin cancer, such as basal cell carcinoma.

Understand that Vitamin C treatments are still under the microscope. There's no definitive conclusion on how much help it really can offer for skin cancer. Trials, studies, and other experiments have shown conflicting evidence. Anecdotal evidence abounds that say Vitamin C can certainly work. Some dermatologists do include Vitamin C treatments in their overall treatment plans.

No matter what, Vitamin C is a help to the human body. So, even if it's not a full cancer killer, it's still a help for your overall wellbeing.

Vitamin C Can Certainly Help

It's true there's some conflicting evidence for the effectiveness of treating skin cancer with Vitamin C. However, many studies show Vitamin C can help a lot when used with other skin cancer treatments.

Vitamin C works as a pro-oxidant because of its ability release hydrogen peroxide. This allows other cancer fighting methods to do their job more effectively on the tumor cells.

Speak to Your Dermatologist

Before doing anything at home, or trying any new Vitamin C approach, speak to your dermatologist. Skin cancer comes in many varieties and your doctor will know the best skin cancer treatments for your case.

Vitamin C can help you in general, but you need to make sure it can help you deal with your specific type of skin cancer. Your dermatologist can help you figure out if it's worth it to try high-dose Vitamin C, or if you should just consider adding more of the vitamin to your diet.


Share