Vitamin C and Cancer

This issue of the Journal contains the most recent chapter in a very interesting and probably unfinished story: Does ascorbic acid have a role in the treatment of human cancer? By the late 1960s several lines of evidence led to the notion that this vitamin might act to control or inhibit the growth of malignant tumors. Ascorbate was postulated to increase host resistance against cancer by a variety of mechanisms, including enhancing lymphocyte function, increasing the resistance of the intercellular ground substance to hydrolysis by hyaluronidase elaborated by tumor cells, and protecting the pituitary–adrenal axis from the effects of stress. . . .