Tonight on Sunday ` a medical miracle? Well, against all the odds, he's still here. He just said, 'What have we got to lose? Let's give this a go.' When did you start to see a difference? When did you start to see a difference? Immediately. Using high-dose vitamin C... His blood tests are normal. Nothing's wrong with him. ...to treat cancer. It's unbelievable that occurred. The Kiwi scientist reveals her groundbreaking research. He's not alone in seeing a dramatic effect. And ` So it's quite exciting for us. We get to see a Grahame Sydney right from the outset. The man behind some of our most famous landscapes. I go zooming past here, and people are stopping, having their photographs taken in front of this. Kia ora. I'm Miriama Kamo. Vitamin C for a cold? Sure. But for cancer? Well, to doctors, Anton Kuraia is something of a miracle. Riddled with cancer, he was expected to lived only a few more weeks, and yet a year on, this father-of-three is literally running and jumping. Anton largely credits a highly controversial treatment ` vitamin C ` and surprisingly, groundbreaking research here in NZ indicates that science may actually back his beliefs. This from Ian Sinclair. I got the shock of my life when they looked at me and said, 'Anton, 'there's nothing more that we can do for you.' Constable Anton Kuraia lays out the uniform he loves. The one he expected to be buried in. Acute myeloid leukaemia. Cancer of the blood, and without treatment, they say, um, you would die within eight weeks. Every year, cancer kills more than 8000 Kiwis. Now, that works out to be around 20 people a day who die from this disease. One of them was meant to be Anton Kuraia. But Anton had a surprise in store. One that astonished friends, his family, his doctors, most of all himself. Look at Anton today, and it's hard to believe he was supposed to be dead more than a year ago, and yet it was while trying to outrun a suspect in his hometown of Kamo, near Whangarei, that he got the first warnings. And I think I only managed about maybe 10m, 15m, 20m, and I was out of energy, absolutely out of energy, and the guy disappeared, and that was the end of the chase. When he was finally diagnosed and... uh, and then, you know, they said leukaemia, and immediately thought back, 'Well, these are the symptoms.' They tried chemo to no avail. < How did they put it to you? < How did they put it to you? 'Uh, you know, sorry, Anton. Uh, the initial, uh, chemotherapy 'that we used for you just hasn't really done much for you. 'Um, the cancer is kind of behaving, like, um...' What was it? An aggressive teenager. Yeah, it wasn't doing what it was told, and so when he did arrive home, um, and, uh, he told me, I was just... literally, uh, everything went black. Everything collapsed. It would be devastating news for their three young sons. We didn't tell them that day that he came home, um, because it's just too hard to do. But they would have to be told they would lose their dad in four to eight weeks. It was... I mean, I've heard people cry before. But this was absolute howling. Yeah. Heartbreaking. Yeah. Heartbreaking. And for anyone who has kids and you're in that sort of situation, I mean, it's just howling. Just howling, and just continuous... Then there was his second family ` the force. The only thing that I was really concerned about, because I was thinking about my funeral, was, uh, whether or not I could, um, be buried in my uniform. I didn't have to say too much at all. You know, all I got was a hug and, uh, a pat on the back and just, 'You know, everything's gonna be fine, Anton. Don't you worry about it. 'Even after yo-you leave, you know, we'll look after your family.' And that's all I really wanted to hear. True to their word, fellow officers at his station in Kamo rallied around him. They did, uh, fund runs. They... what? Made over $10,000, $12,000 for me. When he got sent home from Auckland Hospital, they said he was palliative. He had two or three weeks to live. Dr Andrew Miller, not just Anton's GP but a mate who took it hard. His bone marrow, when they took it out, it was just jelly, and 60% of the jelly was cancer cells, and they'd given all the treatments they could and just said, 'This is it. 'We've done all we can do. Go home, and get your affairs in order.' But everyone reckoned without a treatment often dismissed as quackery. Well, it was my big boy that came back from school one day, and he'd had a bit of a chat with a mate of his. The news that infusions of high levels of vitamin C just might help him. He just said, 'What have we got to lose? Let's give this a go.' I was nervous. I don't like needles anyway. My veins have pretty much shrunk up because of the chemo. So that was gonna be a struggle ` just finding the vein. Uh, but we did. It was a long shot. Remission was known to occur in only a small percentage of vitamin-C patients. We didn't really care about n-no cure or anything like that or complete recovery or whatever. It was just... just trying to get some extra time. When did you see a difference, Louise? Immediately. Honestly, it was immediately. Once he started the vitamin C, at the same time, of course, we were also` we overhauled the diet. A diet also heavy on vitamin C. This is already common sense, isn't it? This is already common sense, isn't it? Oh, I think it is. Tons more people have probably got a better idea of how to juice. Tons more people have probably got a better idea of how to juice. BLENDER WHIRS Think it could have saved your life? Think it could have saved your life? Part of the plan. The question ` was that plan of diet and vitamin-C infusion working? Just 10 weeks after being sent home to die, doctors took another bone marrow biopsy. To their astonishment, pale cancerous cells were replaced by regenerated bone marrow. His tests are completely normal. There's nothing wrong with him. I mean, it's, you know, unbelievable that that occurred. Anton's pretty convinced that it was all down to the vitamin C. What's your take on that? I couldn't be sure. He'd done it the same time... the end of his chemotherapy. He had introduced vitamin C. He had radically changed his diet in terms of juicing up everything, and he'd come home to be with his friends and family, so there's a whole lot of stuff that actually happened. If there was a, um, clear-cut correlation between the vitamin C improving, you know, his survival and that was part of the equation, then yeah, I'd love to know. Cheers, mate. All the best. It's a recovery that's left Anton himself relieved but still puzzled. Are you seriously advising, you know, cancer patients to give up their regular treatment for food? No way. No way. It's an option that they could consider to add to what they're doing. Next up ` so could vitamin C be a weapon in the fight against cancer? He's not alone in seeing a dramatic effect. A Kiwi scientist reveals her groundbreaking research. So, what's stopping you? So, what's stopping you? We need... $1 million. Don't need it. Don't need it. Pardon? An adaptor. Chinese power points are the same as here. How did you`? How did you`? You looked at it, then you looked out there where they sell adaptors, and the phrasebook told me the rest. When you're travelling, so many things are different. It's comforting to see something familiar and you just know it's gonna work. ANZ customers can now access overseas ANZ ATMs without overseas ATM fees. Now I have to make my connection. Mother Nature loves food that's free from artificial colours, flavours and preservatives, and so do I. That's why my Uncle Ben's Express Rice is made with delicious rice, vegetables and herbs and spices. Ready in just two minutes. Begin with Ben and get to wholesome meals fast. INTRIGUING MUSIC In a Christchurch lab, Professor Margreet Vissers is trying to solve a mystery. Could vitamin C be an effective weapon against cancer? We think that vitamin C is potentially another tool in the toolbox. She suspects these tissue samples may hold the answer. You'll remember Constable Anton Kuraia's remarkable comeback from terminal leukaemia after starting vitamin C treatment. I think his story's a really interesting and compelling story. He's not alone in the world in having... seeing a dramatic effect. Take the case of Graham Gaiger. I have prostate cancer. Uh, have it for about eight years now. How you doing? Good day? When Sunday caught up with Graham and his daughter Kelsey four years ago, he'd just begun vitamin C treatment. You're dirty, Tess. You've got to stop rolling. Today he believes helped him control the disease. And, uh, it made me feel a lot better. Graham had high levels of PSA. That's a marker in the blood linked to prostate cancer. After the use of vitamin C a few times, my PSA, which is my blood levels, uh, had dropped down. Uh, that's a good sign. We don't want high PSA. And it stayed down for quite a while. Thinking he was OK, he stopped taking the vitamin C. And, of course, it started coming back, you know? As the PSA levels came back up, he decided to go back to the treatment. It's really helped me get on with life and move around, and I do feel great. I really do when I've been on it, and my condition is pretty good, I guess. All right? Let's go. So, does vitamin C take the credit for Graham and Anton Kuraia's good health? Or is it something else? We don't know what to make of it. We'd like to know what to make of it. But, already, the research appears groundbreaking. In initial trials on mice, Professor Vissers discovered animals with more vitamin C had a better chance of surviving cancer. The higher the spike, the more vitamin C there is in that tumour sample, and those tumours that have the most vitamin C are the slowest to grow. And testing human tissue, they got the same results. The theory is vitamin C restricts the growth of the blood supply to the tumour as it enlarges. What does that mean, then, for cancer research? For fixing cancer? That's what we want to find out. We want to know if we increase the amount of vitamin C in the tumour, is that going to slow down the tumour growth as well? We suspect it will. In other words, can it proved that vitamin C is an effective medication for cancer? The next step ` monitor cancer patients like Graham as they receive high-dose vitamin C. To test that, Professor Vissers' Otago University lab is ideally placed in Christchurch. It's the perfect partnership. Behind me, Christchurch Hospital, with all its cancer doctors and cancer patients, right next door to a cancer laboratory. The result? One of the world's best tissue banks for cancer research. Professor Vissers wants to use that partnership with a hospital specialist and the data from the tissue bank in a clinical trial of high-dose vitamin C. We need to know whether an intervention like giving somebody additional vitamin C, does, uh, vitamin C actually reach the tumour? How are you? How are you? I'm good. Yeah, yeah. Currently, patients like Graham are having their treatment done privately, but in a clinical trial, Professor Vissers' team would monitor his vitamin dosage and the effect on his cancer. We need to do good clinical studies that allow us to give people vitamin C and to look at whether or not that vitamin C has an effect. So what's stopping you? So what's stopping you? Funding. So what's stopping you? Funding. Money? How much? We need... $1 million. $1 million is the size of a normal health-research council grant that would fund a project like we are planning. Um, it's a lot of money. Professor Vissers has won funding for more experiments on mice but no approval yet for the million-dollar human trial. We're ready to go. We have all of the expertise in place. We have all of the samples in place. We have all of the collaborations in place. The results Constable Anton Kuraia would love to see. A year after he was meant to have died, life is almost normal. He's back at work. I'm not on the street. Not in uniform just yet. But, um... it's` it's building towards that. It's a step in the right direction. But he'd still like to know if his remission is down to vitamin C. Is vitamin C going to be a miracle cure? I think that's highly unlikely that it would be the miracle cure. I think it's more likely that it's going to be a useful tool, and if... if it is going to have an effect, it's definitely not going to be the same effect for everybody. You can do the wheels. Yeah, that's your job. You're the master of the wheels. But to the Kuraia family, there's a dad and a husband who may have well have been saved by this treatment. Cool. Good stuff. Well done. And you can't put a price on that. This is why I say the research is really important, because then that starts to change the decision-makers and the decisions they make because then they do have the evidence, um, that there is something here in this. There's about 8500 that die every year. If you were able to save, what, 1% of that? 85 people? $1 million for 85 people? And Anton's goal is to get back in uniform and back on the front line by the end of the year. And you can find out more on Professor Visser's research on our Facebook page. Well, next ` revelations from one of our greatest artists. What drives Grahame Sydney? Yeah, I go zooming past here, and people are stopping, having their photographs taken in front of this. It's all because of your painting? It's all because of your painting? Well, I don't know if it is. It` It's` Some people say it is. Hello again. How is it that an artist renowned for his landscapes could hate the colour green? It's one of many revelations tonight from Grahame Sydney. He's one of our greatest artists, but his confidence was hard-won. Tonight he reveals the extraordinary and poignant drive behind his work and the need to document himself and his beloved Central Otago landscapes. Publicly, everything seemed to be going very well, but privately, I was miserable. I`I hated being me, and, um, I hated what I saw in the mirror. I wished I was other people. It's a startling admission from one of our most successful artists, recalling his teenage angst. < What did you see? < What did you see? Nerdiness. Mm. Um... Nothing like th-the superhero th-that you want to be, naturally, and... the modest superhero. (CHUCKLES) Oh God. Grahame Sydney is a superhero in the art world now, thanks largely to that angst. It's so difficult to tell the difference between his works and nature's; that the arid, bleak and beautiful expanses of Central Otago have come to be known as 'Sydney country'. So it's quite exciting for us. I mean, we get to see a Grahame Sydney from` right from the outset. Well, you might. This will become a painting? This will become a painting? Yeah, I think it will. This will become a painting? Yeah, I think it will. Don't let us down. (CHUCKLES) Grahame Sydney's works are collector's dreams. Yeah, I go zooming past here, and people are stopping, having their photographs taken in front of it. This work, July on the Maniototo, captured national imagination, memorialising a once-bustling railway, now a quiet cycleway. It's left Grahame Sydney a curious sort of conservationist. It's been recently repainted. Horrible green. Horrible yellow. It's been recently repainted. Horrible green. Horrible yellow. (CHUCKLES) What is it`? What is it about green with you? Oh, it's just the wrong colour for Central. English greenery really nauseates me. I've never liked it. It's a horrible colour, and it's a horrible in paintings, and it's a horrible colour in` in nature. For most of us, nature is green, but as introduced trees like the wilding pine take off, Grahame Sydney sees his beloved Central Otago landscapes ` the golden tussock, the bare, almost purple haze of hills ` disappearing under a blanket of evergreens. Central Otago is no longer the golden... image that people, um, fantasise about when they think of coming to Central. If they come to Central now, they come to the same bloody dairying and greenery and centre-pivot watering as anywhere else in the country. You might as well be in Southland or Waikato. Are you concerned? Has it crossed your mind that your paintings may stand as a memory of what once was? I am concerned. It means that they'll have a sort of documentary role which I wish they didn't have to have. It's not what they're about. But it may be what they are, ultimately, seen to be. A sort of lost paradise. It's a bleak thought, but then his talent springs from a bleak outlook. Despite a loving upbringing, Grahame Sydney was a tortured teen. I mean, I had glasses and... and spots and things, you know? I had marks on my front teeth, which stopped me smiling, because I was super-conscious of it. That torment showed up in his early paintings. He crucified himself on canvas, relentlessly pursuing the artistic skill he thought would win him approval and love. I had a strong desire to be as good at it as I could be. I thought it would win me some affection and admiration that I wasn't otherwise... persuaded I would get. A lot of the paintings were done in order to remind people that I had lived. I love the fact that... that, as a painter, you can defy mortality. These things are permanent. I'm` I'm leaving permanent signs. That's always mattered to me. No more so than after a poignant conversation with his father. He'd been an accountant, but on his deathbed, he told me once that he really regretted, deeply regretted, that for all of his... contributions and his integrity and his honesty and his work, there was nothing to show for it, and that really upset me. and that really upset me. Are you driven by it? and that really upset me. Are you driven by it? Yeah, in part, I think. Mm. Yeah, it's powerful. None of it is that sort of, um, fabulous romance with being an artist. This is` This is the labour. This is` This is the labour. < What's the fabulous romance of being an artist? Well, that other people think that, you know, that it's always exciting. That you're doing something magical. < Yes, you're possibly not flinging your arms about quite enough. < Yes, you're possibly not flinging your arms about quite enough. (CHUCKLES) Ah, I've never been a flinger. Ah, I've never been a flinger. < (CHUCKLES) Ah, I've never been a flinger. < (CHUCKLES) I wish I could have been, really. Your work sells for tens of thousands of dollars. Are you wealthy? No. No, I've still got debts. < How is it that you're in debt? < How is it that you're in debt? Indulgent spending. Collecting things I couldn't afford. The big sums, incidentally... I have to say this. The big sums th-that get reported about my paintings are not me selling them, That's the secondary market. That's not me. I've never had that sort of money. I've never had those sales, and I like that. My father's belief always was, 'Take what you need, and leave some for the next man.' And I believe that instead of grasping for the maximum. Oh, here she comes. Oh, here she comes. Here she comes. Milo, come here. (CLICKS TONGUE) Are you more comfortable in yourself now? Yeah, I've become more comfortable, especially in recent times. Well, life now is very fortunate. Yeah, I mean, I've got a fantastic partner in Fi. So much of your... your torture as a teenager was about the need for love, and you've found it. What would you say to that teenager now? Don't worry about it. Everything's going to be fine. Things will happen. If you could cast into the future and seen... the happiness that I've had, not just with Fi, but with my children and so on ` the wonderful periods that I could never have anticipated ` and, um, if you'd known that... I mean anyone with half a brain would've known it was likely, but I apparently didn't have half a brain. It was missing. Come on. It sounds sort of pathetic in a way, but I-I literally feel lucky every day. And Grahame Sydney has a new book out ` a retrospective of his 40-year career. So that's our show for tonight. Do join us on Facebook and Twitter ` Sunday TVNZ. And thanks for joining us. We'll see you next week. Nga mihi nui, hei kona.