Research Proposal - The Use of Vitamin C for the Treatment of Cancer

Running head: Research proposal
RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
1 Title: The use of Vitamin C for the treatment of Cancer
2 Abstract
Cancer is a major health care issue in the global context and various advancements are
done in field of health care processes in order to address the same (Mata et al., 2016). The
health care is affected by the health’s social determinants that in turn affects the quality of life
and also gives rise to various factors that leads to the causation of cancer and other diseases
(Lee et al., 2017). A literature review will be used as a data collection method in order to
understand vitamin C’s effect on the prevention and treatment of cancer and whether the
same is almost applicable or not. A meta-analysis of the chosen articles will be performed to
create the themes of which a thematic analysis will follow the interventions involving the
application of vitamin C on the management of cancer will be studied (Singer, Karrer &
Berneburg, 2019) and various themes will be developed pertaining to Vitamin C’s effect on
prevention of cancer and the implications will be revealed. The various underpinnings of the
application and use of Vitamin C in pertinence to the sociocultural health factors will be
studied and various analysis related to the credibility of the information presented in the
researches, will be analyzed as well.
3 Study Aim

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Vitamin C has been used in the cancer prevention for many years and the scientific
evidences for the anticancer property of the vitamin C was formulated about 40 years ago.
However, although many studies pointed to the positive results by incorporating the effect
and vitamin C’s action in the treatment context of cancer but this still, there has been a lack
of clarity pertaining to the same in the clinical outcome scenario. This study aims to
understand Vitamin C’s effect in the treatment of cancer.
4 Background:
Cancer has been a great issue, as it has posed many complex physical, mental as well
as social and sociocultural plus psychosocial problems in the context of public and individual
health as well as to that of health care delivery system, thus causing a lot of problems with
the health care service delivery process. Cancer has been considered as one of major complex
issues in terms of the vague and often very limited sources, resources and range of
management that are used clinically to treat individuals suffering from the same as well. It is
to be critically understood, that in a global context, the rates of cancer causation has remained
moderately same as the triggering factors are mostly inherent to the body’s system (Bagheri
et al., 2018) and the genetic changes that are reported to occur at a cellular level, which is too
driven by the mutation and change of the genetics (Bikle et al., 2016). In the global context,
the clinical facilities has become advanced with the advent of biomedical technology and
science – it is critical to understand that despite the clinical practices becoming more
stabilized in terms of health care context and in terms of the cancer treatment aspect, till there
are certain level of barriers that are faced by the clinicians with the actual implementation of
planned processes in the community care settings (Silva & Bracarense, 2016). Cancer
patients are often institutionalized but in the community care practice, where the indigenous
people are suffering from the disease of cancer – it is more difficult to tackle to cancer related
problems in the indegenous community perspective but again, there are certain predisposing

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
factors, certain precipitating factors and a range of triggers as well as a spectrum of protective
factors that facilitate or prevent the presentation, causation or the prevention of the cancer
process (Sarkany, 2017). Thus it is to be critically understood that many researchers has
pointed to the Vitamin C’s effect which is otherwise known as ascorbic acid scientifically, as
being preventive. Protective factors are the factors, the most vital of all, that provides
protection then the development of cancer or rather against the initiation of the cancer
process, that is against the conversion of protoncogenes to oncogenes, in the body and that is
the Vitamin C’s effect on the prevention of cancer and the application of nutritional changes
in the context of community diet of Maori people will be analyzed in this research as well
(Mostafavi-Pour et al., 2017).
Nutritional and dietary changes are both very critical for the incorporation of vitamin
C foods in the normal amount, on a regular day to day diet intake scenario and not only in
Maori population but also in the urban population of the country – the same intervention can
be used in order to prevent then causation and initiation of cancer in the population. More
nutritionists and dieticians are to be recruited in the health care framework of country in order
to create and develop the planned changes and side by side, more researches should be
carried out in order to understand the application and use of Vitamin C on the protection
against cancer. This study focuses to understand the same.

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
5 Research Design, Methodology & Method:
A secondary data methodology will be used in order to analyze the effect of vitamin C in the
treatment of cancer.
Data collection
A literature search will be undertaken across electronic databases such as Embase, Cinahal,
PubMed and the articles will be selected. The literature review will be analyzing the various
scholarly researches that have already studied the therapeutic use and application of vitamin
C on the prevention of cancer development and the function of vitamin as being a protective
factor in prevention of cancer. The biases, if any with studied as well and more importantly,
the strength and weaknesses of the study will be elucidated.
Inclusion criteria:
1. Only the papers which have conducted a randomized controlled trial to study the
effect of Vitamin C on the prevention of cancer.
2. In peer reviewed journals, the articles are published.
3. The articles are not more than 6 years old.
4. The articles are in English language
Exclusion criteria:
1. Only the papers which have not conducted a randomized controlled trial to study
Vitamin C’s action on the prevention of cancer.
2. In peer reviewed journals, the articles are not published.
3. The articles are more than 6 years old.
4. The articles are not published in English language journals.

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Data analysis
A meta-analysis of the chosen articles in the review section, will be done and various themes
pertaining to the analysis of information with respect to Vitamin C’s action on the prevention
of cancer will be done, in a detailed manner.

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
6. Significance:
The benefits of undertaking this research is that it would not only affect how the perspectives
of health research is undertaken in terms of cancer prevention and management but it would
also provide insight and clarity into the effect and protective action of vitamin C in the
prevention of cancer. The same information about theory and practice that would be
expanded through the finding of the research – would be then used in a community care
scenario in a culturally competent way as well.
7 Ethical Considerations:
The ethical consideration will be undertaken by the researchers of this study such as it would
only analyze the articles that has no research bias or least of it, has showed beneficence, non-
maleficence and as well as autonomy and integrity of the subjects. The researches will are
analyzed in this study have taken informed consent from their subjects and has also
distributed the research resources equally amongst the patients or participants, properly as
well.
8 Timeframes:

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
0-2 3-6 7-8 9-10 14th
Research
Activities
Weeks Weeks Weeks Weeks Week
selection
of
Research
topic
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Literature
Review
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Data
collection
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Data
analysis
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Findings
and
conclusion
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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
References –
Bagheri, H., Rezapour, S., Najafi, M., Motevaseli, E., Shekarchi, B., Cheki, M., &
Mozdarani, H. (2018). Protection against radiation-induced micronuclei in rat bone
marrow erythrocytes by Curcumin and selenium L-methionine. Iranian journal of
medical sciences, 43(6), 645.
Bikle, D. D., Jiang, Y., Nguyen, T., Oda, Y., & Tu, C. L. (2016). Disruption of vitamin D and
calcium signaling in keratinocytes predisposes to skin cancer. Frontiers in
physiology, 7, 296.
Lee, S. M., Md, R. G. Y., Lee, H., Md, I. L., Soon Kim, M., & Chung, W. Y. (2017). Effect
of selenium supplementation for protection of salivary glands from iodine‐131
radiation damage in patients with differentiated thyroid cancer. Hell J Nucl Med, 20,
62-70.
Mata, A. M. O. F. D., Carvalho, R. M. D., Alencar, M. V. O. B. D., Cavalcante, A. A. D. C.
M., & Silva, B. B. D. (2016). Ascorbic acid in the prevention and treatment of
cancer. Revista da Associação Médica Brasileira, 62(7), 680-686.
Mostafavi-Pour, Z., Ramezani, F., Keshavarzi, F., & Samadi, N. (2017). The role of quercetin
and vitamin C in Nrf2-dependent oxidative stress production in breast cancer
cells. Oncology letters, 13(3), 1965-1973.
Sarkany, R. (2017). Sun protection strategies. Medicine, 45(7), 444-447.
Silva, E. O., & Bracarense, A. P. F. (2016). Phytic acid: from antinutritional to multiple
protection factor of organic systems. Journal of food science, 81(6), R1357-R1362.
Singer, S., Karrer, S., & Berneburg, M. (2019). Modern sun protection. Current opinion in
pharmacology, 46, 24-28.