Vitamin C is in almost everyone's medicine cabinet or supplement shelf in the kitchen or pantry. It's the number one supplement people grab for when they are coming down with a cold, flu or infection of any type. And rightfully so, since vitamin C plays an important role in fighting bacterial and viral infections and boosting the immune system as an antioxidant.

Many childhood diseases can be prevented with vitamin C, including measles, polio, encephalitis, tuberculosis, diphtheria, staphylococcus, herpes, pneumonia and tetanus. When vitamin C therapy was given to those who had whooping cough, the vitamin prevented the disease from progressing to the spasmodic stage in 75% of the cases.

Vitamin C plays such a strong role in the immune system that researchers in Arizona checked levels of the vitamin in the blood of those with cancer. Every cancer patient checked had levels that were extremely low, and amounts of 46 grams per day were given in an IV for two weeks before levels came back to normal. In some cases, vitamin C stopped the metastases of cancer.

In February 2007, researchers reported an improvement in health, daily function and cancer symptoms after administration of high doses vitamin C through IVs. In 2008, a reported 50% decrease in tumor weight and growth rate in mice was discussed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The cancers were that of the brain, ovaries and pancreas.