Doctor Claims to Cure Sepsis Using Vitamin C, Steroids

A doctor from Norfolk, Virginia claims that he had discovered a simple treatment that could cure sepsis, a deadly medical condition that can lead to shock and multiple organ failure.

Paul Marik, a critical care specialist at Eastern Virginia Medical School, published a paper detailing how he was able to cure sepsis using a mixture of vitamin C and steroids that are given intravenously.

Dr. Marik first stumbled upon the alleged cure when he was running the intensive care unit at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in January 2016. A 48-year-old woman was rushed to the hospital due to a severe case of sepsis.

"Her kidneys weren't working. Her lungs weren't working. She was going to die," said Marik, in a report from National Public Radio. "In a situation like this, you start thinking out of the box."

During that time, Marik remembered as study he read recently that treat septic patients with intravenous vitamin C. The study has some moderate success in treating sepsis so Marik decided to give it a try. However, Marik added a low dose of corticosteroids and thiamine to the intravenous vitamin C mix.

Marik was surprised when the patient was cured and fit to leave the hospital within two days after the injection. The doctor also tried the intravenous mix to two other patients with sepsis that he encountered and achieved similar results.

Since then, Marik has been treating septic patients with his intravenous mix. After he treated 50 patients, Marik decided to write a paper detailing his success. Published in the journal Chest, Marik's paper claimed that only four of the 50 patients he treated died in the hospital and all those deaths were caused by the underlying disease and not from the sepsis.

So far, Marik allegedly treated about 150 patients and only one of those died from sepsis. This is considered as a huge claim, considering the fact that about 300,000 of the million cases of sepsis in America die annually.

Despite the positive result of the new treatment, Marik, and some experts on sepsis, warn that other physicians should not try and imitate the treatment. They noted that the treatment is still in its preliminary stage and more research in controlled environment and higher population is necessary to prove the efficacy of the new treatment.