#1 Glucose

      #2   Ascorbic Acid

Cancer Cells Self-Destruct When "SWEET TOOTH" Is Thwarted

Johns Hopkins Press Release February 16, 1998

.Johns Hopkins researchers have found evidence that some cancer cells are such incredible sugar junkies that they'll self-destruct when deprived of glucose, their biological sweet of choice.

..."The change when we took away glucose was dramatic," says Chi Van Dang, M.D., Ph.D., director of hematology. "By the next day, we knew very quickly that the cells we had altered to resemble cancers were dying off in large numbers."

..Scientists have long suspected that the cancer cell's heavy reliance on glucose, its main source of strength and vitality, also could be one of its great weaknesses, and Dang's new results are among the most direct proofs yet of the idea.

Results of the study, published in the February 17 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that drugs which cut off the glucose supply may be a potent way of fighting cancer with few ill effects on healthy tissues.

Doctors Warns Against Big Doses Of Vitamin C [ascorbic acid] During Cancer Treatment Source: Cancer Research September 1999 March 27, 2000

The concern is based on the discovery that some cells actually contain large amounts of vitamin C {ascorbic acid], which appears to protect them from oxygen damage.

.Dr. David Golde, physician-in-chief at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, warned against too much vitamin C in a presentation Monday at a meeting of the American Cancer Society.

They found that an oxidized form of vitamin C called ehydroascorbic acid enters cells through the same opening used by sugar. Once inside. it is immediately converted back to vitamin C ascorbic acid.

He said a key feature of many cancers is they have many more of these sugar openings than do ordinary cells. This allows them to take in the energy they need to grow.

But he said cancer cells often also have a very high concentrations of vitamin C. The exact function of the vitamin inside cancer is unknown.

"My experience as a biologist would say it is no accident," said Golde.