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The use of high doses of Vitamin C to treat serious illness has been a controversial one.
Back in 2010 the current affairs show 60 Minutes reported on a case of a man seriously ill with swine flu, who doctors said would likely die. His family used legal threats to insist he receive high dose Vitamin C. Doctors eventually agreed despite saying it would make no difference.
He made a remarkable recovery
That lead to many families of seriously ill people making similar demands, including cancer patients. The New Zealand Medical Journal published a piece later that year saying the hype around high dose Vitamin C was unjustified
But now the University of Otago is trialing the use of intravenous high dose Vitamin C for patients with sepsis, because smaller clinical trials overseas have shown remarkable results
Jesse Mulligan speaks to lead researcher Associate Professor Anitra Carr about the new study, as well as other studies being done on using intravenous Vitamin C to treat cancer patients.
