Coors "High C for Hep C" (HCHC) Trial
High Dose Intravenous Vitamin C in the Treatment of Hepatitis C

On April 1, 2008, the Adolph Coors Foundation of Denver, Colorado awarded a major funding grant to the not-for-profit Health Innovations -- Frontier Research Institute to support the first clinical trial to study the use of high-dose, intravenous vitamin C in patients with chronic hepatitis C infection.

The Coors Foundation of Denver, Colorado has awarded two major funding grants to Health Innovations - Frontier Research Institute: the first grant of $75,000 was awarded in 2007 and enabled Health Innovations/Frontier Research Institute to perform a feasibility analysis and design the formal study. After successful completion of this phase, a second grant for $500,000 was awarded on April 1, 2008 to support completion of a clinical trial of the use of high-dose, intravenous vitamin C in patients with chronic hepatitis C infection. The clinical trial is scheduled to begin during the second quarter of 2008 and should be completed by mid-2009.

Hepatitis C was discovered in 1988 and is now the most common chronic blood-borne infection in the United States, affecting an estimated 180 million people worldwide, including 2.7 million people in the U.S. Often presenting with no symptoms until late in its course, chronic hepatitis C often leads to cirrhosis and liver cancer and is a frequent cause for liver transplantation.

Current therapy for hepatitis C infection consists of weekly injections of peglyated interferon alpha combined with twice daily oral doses of ribavarin. This therapy is given over 48 weeks and sometimes needs to be repeated. The therapy is very expensive and is also associated with significant and sometimes serious side effects. This conventional treatment is only effective in 40 percent of genotype 1 cases, the most common type of hepatitis C found in the U.S.

The principal investigator for the trial will be Jeanne Drisko, M.D., chief of Integrative Medicine at Kansas University Medical Center. Dr. Drisko is also president of the American College for Advancement of Medicine (ACAM) and the leading clinical researcher in the U.S. of high-dose intravenous vitamin C in patients with cancer.

Mark Levine, M.D., chief of the molecular and clinical nutrition section at the National Institutes of Health will serve as co-investigator for the trial. Dr. Levine has performed ground-breaking research elucidating the mechanisms by which high-dose, intravenous vitamin C generates anti-cancer and anti-viral levels of hydrogen peroxide in the body without apparent injury to normal cells.

The study was formulated by the medical director of Health Innovations/ Frontier Research Institute, Terry Grossman, M.D. who has extensive experience in the use of high dose intravenous vitamin C in his clinical practice. Dr. Grossman is medical director of Frontier Medical Institute in Golden, Colorado and has authored three books on longevity medicine, The Baby Boomers' Guide to Living Forever (2000), Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever (2004) and Your Fantastic Voyage to Staying Young … Forever (for publication November 2008). The latter two were coauthored by world renowned inventor/futurist Ray Kurzweil.

Study design was completed by Health Innovations/ Frontier Research Institute's research director Michael Catalano M.D., who has nine years of experience performing pharmaceutical drug trials.