Hacker News Reader

Comment by koonsolo | Hacker News Reader

I might get downvoted for this, so please do your own research first before just dismissing it.

There is this cheap thing of Vitamin C injections staight into the blood. A cure that has been "well known" for centuries, but dismissed because oral intake studies weren't promising.

I love science, but in studies where a lot of money is made or can be lost, there is so much manipulation going on it makes you sick. I'm talking about pharmacy and food industry here.

Loads of money are made with chemo and cancer research. If Vitamin C injections really are better way to treat cancer, can you imagine how many billions will be lost?

View on HN

My mother died of kidney cancer last year. Doctor said unfortunately modern medicine had nothing to offer her.

She turned to alternatives, tried everything from vegan diet to juicing to vitamin c (intravenous twice a week over 6 months). No salt diet. Stone heat mattress. Hydrogen rich water. She exercised daily getting as much sun because someone told her that's good.

That didn't stop the metastasis spreading all over her body. She passed away 8 months after her diagnosis, coincidentally exactly what the doctor guessed when pressed for her honest prognosis.

You accuse the pharma industry of preying on the desperate for money, but in my experience it was the opposite. Pharma told her sorry nothing we can do. In desperation she turned to alternatives. I was willing to believe anything if it cured my mum.

Hey, sorry to hear that. It is a nasty disease. I also have people close to me who died of cancer, including a 17 year old girl, and my friend who was 20 at the time.

But it upsets me that so little research is done on high doses of vitamin C, while the research that is done is actually positive.

Loads of money are made with chemo and cancer research. If Vitamin C injections really are better way to treat cancer, can you imagine how many billions will be lost?

Do you think they are so stupid that they'd not immediately funnel the money into researching other diseases that aren't cancer? Or that this one thing is somehow a cure-all for all cancers? What do you think vaccines that prevent infections that can lead to cancer? Shouldn't they, theoretically, be losing money developing such things? Wouldn't the drug companies be able to better sell their drugs by advertising they were the company that beat cancer? Furthermore, wouldn't that also make all the governments that have taxpayer-funded health care stupid or part of the conspiracy as well? Why would a country like Norway pay for chemo if a simple vitamin proved to actually work?

I very highly doubt those sorts of claims, plus any that claim to have a "wonder drug" for cancer. Cancers seem to vary widely and have a variety of initial causes, after all, and some of the most promising developments seem to be tailored to either the individual or the type of cancer (HPV vaccines, for example, among others).

First of all, you are trying to discredit me: I never said vaccines are bad, I never said it is a cure-all for all cancers.

To answer your other more sane questions:

Are governments influenced by companies? Certainly, especially in US.

Is research influenced by companies? Most definitely, sometimes researchers are even bribed.

So you doubt those sorts of claims on Vitamin C? Look into the research that was actually done.

I love science, and probably so do you. But I've already seen too much "science", where results of research was twisted just to be able to publish in a journal.

Don't dismiss me for some alternative medicine dude, I'm not. But I'm also old enough not to believe every fairy-tale that is told claiming to be "science". Especially not in fields where a lot of money goes around.

> I never said it is a cure-all for all cancers.

> There is this cheap thing of Vitamin C injections staight into the blood. A cure that has been "well known" for centuries

Maybe it will be beneficial. It's not going to be a cure, though, it will be something for specific case profiles, and to be combined with other treatments. There are studies which are there, and they say 'no clear evidence', 'may slow the growth', or 'potentially important'. You are talking as if it's going to be a replacement for oncology, and are getting downvoted correspondingly.

Let me be your quack susceptibilibuddy: http://www.quackwatch.org The "Vitamin C cure" has been soundly debunked.

Again, they talk about oral intake, not about injections.

Unless you have any reason to suspect the delivery mechanism affects anything significant, this is exactly the same...

In this case, the vitamin C amounts need to be really high. Your body can't handle those amounts from oral intake.

Listen, you don't have to take my word for it. Just look up the little research that is done on it, and make sure you make a distinction between oral intake and injections.

I'm not condoning it as a cure, but you can absorb large amounts of vitamin C orally if you combine it with a lecithin. It's called liposomal Vitamin C.

You're getting down voted because of your conspiracy nonsense. "X treatment is being suppressed because it would hurt drug companies".

Well it's not being suppressed and it's been studied since 1970. TDLR; It may help patient quality of life during chemo, it reduces tumors in some models but it reduces effectiveness of chemo in other models.

Here, read this: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/cam/patient/vi...

(Warning - it's from the National Cancer Institute Complementary Medicine section so it's not considered a valid approved treatment in the US. That means something where cancer is subject.

You really need to bring citations into an argument if you're going to say vitamin c injections can cure cancer.

  A cure that has been "well known" for centuries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_C#Discovery

Damn, I meant decades... oops. I was actually referring to the 70's. But back then they did the oral studies instead of the injection ones. But injections are also not that new.

>But back then they did the oral studies instead of the injection ones.

So? Who said oral vs injection would have much different effects?

Besides both have been studied:

http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/content/20/2/210

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0054448/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com