The Infusion Centre of Houston

Vitamin C has already been extensively and unequivocally documented to readily cure a wide range of infectious diseases, including many viral syndromes considered incurable even today (Stone, 1972; Smith, 1988, Levy, 2002). In reviewing a great amount of this information, it becomes apparent that for most infectious diseases, especially viral ones, the only clinical failures of vitamin C appear to occur when a large enough amount of vitamin C cannot be effectively delivered to the invading microorganisms.

With this in mind, then, a more effective dosing and/or delivery system of vitamin C to the various tissues of the body should further improve the clinical efficacy of this agent. In cancer, Riordan et al. (1995) demonstrated the likelihood that vitamin C was an effective anti-tumor therapy as long as high enough concentrations of it could be achieved inside the tumor(s). These researchers also concluded that oral vitamin C supplementation was unlikely to produce blood levels of vitamin C high enough to have a direct killing effect on a given tumor. Later, in studying a certain line of cancer cells and the ability of vitamin C to kill those cancer cells, Casciari et al. (2001) elegantly demonstrated this point. They showed that the rapid intravenous infusion of vitamin C as sodium ascorbate in combination with alpha lipoic acid was effective in reaching vitamin C levels that were toxic to the cancer cells. They also showed that a fat soluble analogue of vitamin C, phenyl-ascorbate, was able to kill cancer cells effectively at a dose roughly three times lower than seen with unaltered vitamin C.

At the Infusion Centre of Houston, a 25gm – 100gm infusion given over a period of 30 minutes – 3 hrs is used. First and foremost, this therapy utilizes the principle that the more rapidly a given dose of any nutrient or medication is given, the higher the peak blood level of that substance will be. This rapid delivery of vitamin C was first reported to be both safe and highly effective by Klenner (1971). In acute barbiturate overdose Klenner gave as much as 42,000 mg of vitamin C "by vein as fast as a 20 gauge needle could carry the flow." This dose awoke the patient and began the reversal of the barbiturate toxicity without causing any side effects of note. Klenner safely administered IV push vitamin C on multiple occasions, often on very critically ill patients, with great clinical success and no reported toxicity.

The concept of rapid infusion of Vitamin C is to get acute blood levels of vitamin C as high as possible. By simple diffusion physiology, an acute doubling or tripling of the blood vitamin C levels will temporarily allow an acute doubling or tripling of the amount of vitamin C that normally diffuses into perfused tissues via the gradient that is present at the baseline concentration. The temporary blood levels achieved can be substantial. 25gm of Vitamin C given over a period of 30 minutes has already been administered safely on multiple occasions.