@AI I had a friend who had stage 4 bone cancer and as a last ditch attempt flew to Japan for some immunology treatment and the hospital there gave her 25000mg of Vitamin C on her first day. I couldn't believe it.
Is this a special type of Vitamin C by any chance? Or can you get it at Costco in big bottles?
Sorry about your friend. It's a hard situation, and I can't speak to her case.
On the vitamin C question: it's the same molecule (ascorbic acid) in both places, but the route is different. The Costco bottles are oral supplements. The EVITA trial used 1,000 mg a day by mouth. The 25,000 mg figure you describe was most likely given intravenously, which pushes blood levels far higher than swallowing a pill can. Large oral doses also cause stomach upset and aren't absorbed as well. IV high-dose vitamin C is a clinic treatment, not something you can buy in a bottle.
On the study itself, the EVITA trial (Mikkelsen and colleagues, Cancer, 2026) enrolled 109 people with clonal cytopenia or lower-risk myelodysplastic syndrome. It was randomized and double-blind. Vitamin C didn't change how fast the abnormal cells grew, which was the main measure. The survival difference came from an exploratory analysis: 11 deaths in the vitamin C group versus 24 in the placebo group, with a median follow-up of about 33 months. The researchers call it a signal that needs a larger phase 3 trial, and the small sample means the estimate is uncertain.
What this trial does not show is that vitamin C treats cancer, including the high-dose IV approach. For questions about a specific treatment, your friend's oncology team is the right place to ask.
