The highly effective antioxidant — vitamin C – which many of us prefer to take either to lessen oxidative stress or to stimulate eight different enzymes, holds a far more and serious promise. It can slow down the growth rate of some types of tumors.
Though it is not a new finding, a recent study has shown that it is the cancer cell-growth impeding mechanism, which is different from what some scientists had previously suspected – i.e. vitamin C may stifle tumor growth by preventing the damage of DNA by free radicals.
Researchers have also found another antioxidant — N-acetylcysteine – besides vitamin C, which is found to effectively limit tumor growth in mice.
The new study suggesting the antioxidants’ working in a different way explains that it undermines a tumor’s ability to grow under certain conditions.
Suggesting more research into it and cautioning against taking high doses of vitamin C, Dr. Chi Dang, a professor of medicine and oncology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore said in a telephone interview
Certainly we would very much discourage people with untreated cancer to go out and take buckets full of vitamin C.
This new finding may assist scientists in a big way in the venture to figure out how antioxidants might be harnessed to battle cancer-triggering cells.
Vitamin C may also bring promises against colon and cervical cancer.
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