Vitamin C: A Cure for Sepsis?

Guest: Paul Marik, MD, Professor of Medicine, Chief of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Eastern Virginia Medical School Sometimes in fighting an infection, the body’s immune system gets overwhelmed and goes haywire, triggering widespread inflammation that causes all kinds of urgent problems, including organ failure. It’s called sepsis and in severe cases, it kills up to half of patients, making it a leading cause of death in hospital intensive care units. It’s also notoriously difficult to treat. A sepsis diagnosis can feel like a runaway train speeding toward catastrophe as doctors scramble to keep up.  In one of those desperate moments, Dr. Paul Marik tried something unusual – an IV of Vitamin C. That’s not an accepted treatment for sepsis, but it worked so well he tried it again and again. The results he published on his experiments have stirred up quite a bit of controversy – but also hope.