IN THE 1970s Dr. Ewan Cameron and two-time Nobel Prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling published book "Cancer and Vitamin C", which proposed that taking regular high doses of vitamin C can play a part both in the prevention of cancer and in the treatment of an established cancer. Evidence is steadily accumulating to support this view.

Pauling and Cameron do not believe that vitamin C is a primary cancer therapy. Instead, it should be used as an adjunct to other types of therapy, either conventional or alternative. They summarize:

There is good reason to believe that the most important factor in determining the progress and outcome of any cancer illness is the natural resistance of the patient to his disease. The results of standard cancer treatments would be vastly improved if safe methods could be devised to enhance this natural resistance. Evidence shows that increasing the intake of vitamin C (ascorbic acid, sodium ascorbate, calcium ascorbate) does exert this effect. Cancer patients taking vitamin C report an improved appetite, increased mental alertness, and a decrease in pain and the need for pain-controlling drugs.