Nobel Prize Winner Linus Pauling Pt 2 (Heretics of Science - 1994) Vitamin C and Cancer

http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/staff/freibio.html

Research @ http://www.youtube.com/sn1pe352

http://youtu.be/9ak6mAGpgFA

http://youtu.be/T__IF8JlxLI

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Since white blood cells have long been known to produce hydrogen peroxide, one obvious way to initiate chemical production would be to inflict a small wound onto the fish, and then, using microscopy, observe patterns of this chemical as white blood cells gathered around the wound.

But much to the researchers surprise, they found that hydrogen peroxide immediately appeared at the wound site, prior to the arrival of any white blood cell, and quickly disseminated into neighboring tissue.

They repeated the experiment, this time in zebrafish where theyd disabled a protein that was previously discovered to produce hydrogen peroxide in the human thyroid gland. Not only did hydrogen peroxide not appear at the wound site, but white blood cells failed to respond to the injury.

This was our real eureka! moment, says Niethammer. We werent too surprised that we could block hydrogen peroxide production through this technique, but what we didnt expect at all was that white blood cells wouldnt respond. This proved that the white blood cells *needed* hydrogen peroxide to sense the wound, and move towards it.

Of course, zebrafish are not people, and while our genomes share many similarities with these tiny fish, it isnt yet clear that natural selection has conserved this process throughout the evolutionary family tree. Still, these findings offer something of a conceptual shift in how to view human conditions where hydrogen peroxide plays a role.

When we look at how hydrogen peroxide works in people, this really starts getting intriguing, says Mitchison.

In the human body, hydrogen peroxide is produced primarily in three places: lung, gut, and thyroid gland. Because hydrogen peroxide, and the proteins responsible for producing other ROS molecules, are especially present in lung and gut, the researchers hypothesize that human diseases relevant to these findings would include any in the lung and gut that involve disproportionate levels of white blood cells, like asthma, chronic pulmonary obstruction, and some inflammatory gut diseases.

Our lungs are supposed to be sterile; our guts are anything but, says Mitchison. Its very logical that both those tissues produce hydrogen peroxide all the time. Perhaps in conditions like asthma, the lung epithelia is producing too much hydrogen peroxide because its chronically irritated, which, if our findings translate to humans, would explain inappropriate levels of white blood cells. This is certainly a question worth pursuing.

Mitchison is currently laying the groundwork for investigating this hypothesis.

This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Written by David Cameron

CITATION:

Nature, June 3, 2009; 459 (7247)

A tissue-scale gradient of hydrogen peroxide mediates rapid wound detection in zebrafish

Philipp Niethammer(1), Clemens Grabher(2, 3), A. Thomas Look(2, 4), Timothy J. Mitchison(1)

(1) Departement of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston MA
(2) Department of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
(3) Current address: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany
(4) Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Pediatrics, Childrens Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA A

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Recall how hydrogen peroxide is poured on wounds to kill germs. Well now researchers clearly show high-dose vitamin C, when administered intravenously, can increase hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) levels within cancer cells and kills them. I.V. vitamin C was also demonstrated to kill germs and may be an effective therapy for infectious disease.

With a growing body of evidence mounting, National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers conceded today that intravenous vitamin C may be an effective treatment for cancer. Last year the same researchers reported a similar study but the news media failed to publish it.

The latest study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, confirms the work of Nobel-Prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling who conducted cancer research in the 1970s with vitamin C. Dr. Pauling's studies were discredited at the time by poorly conducted research studies at the Mayo Clinic.

Unlike cancer drugs, I.V. vitamin C selectively killed cancer cells, but not healthy cells, and showed no toxicity.

The ability of intravenous vitamin C to kill lymphoma cells was remarkable almost 100% at easily achievable blood serum concentrations.

The NIH also offered no explanation why it has taken 35 years to confirm the work of Dr. Linus Pauling.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Nobel
• Prize
• Winner
• Linus
• Pauling
• Pt
• (Heretics
• of
• Science
• 1994)
• Vitamin
• and
• Cancer

[sn1pe352]

(1) Departement of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston MA

(2) Department of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

(3) Current address: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany

(4) Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Pediatrics, Childrens Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA A

[sn1pe352]

Nature, June 3, 2009; 459 (7247)

A tissue-scale gradient of hydrogen peroxide mediates rapid wound detection in zebrafish

Philipp Niethammer(1), Clemens Grabher(2, 3), A. Thomas Look(2, 4), Timothy J. Mitchison(1)

[sn1pe352]

Recall how hydrogen peroxide is poured on wounds to kill germs.

Well now researchers clearly show high-dose vitamin C, when administered intravenously, can increase hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) levels within cancer cells and kills them. I.V. vitamin C was also demonstrated to kill germs and may be an effective therapy for infectious disease.

[sn1pe352]

With a growing body of evidence mounting, National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers conceded today that intravenous vitamin C may be an effective treatment for cancer. Last year the same researchers reported a similar study but the news media failed to publish it.

[sn1pe352]

The latest study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, confirms the work of Nobel-Prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling who conducted cancer research in the 1970s with vitamin C. Dr. Pauling's studies were discredited at the time by poorly conducted research studies at the Mayo Clinic.

[sn1pe352]

Unlike cancer drugs, I.V. vitamin C selectively killed cancer cells, but not healthy cells, and showed no toxicity.

The ability of intravenous vitamin C to kill lymphoma cells was remarkable almost 100% at easily achievable blood serum concentrations.

The NIH also offered no explanation why it has taken 35 years to confirm the work of Dr. Linus Pauling