Vitamin C Doesn't Protect Us From Colds?

Filed in archive Investigational , Studies on July 18, 2007

A daily supplemental dose of Vitamin C does very little protection from colds, according to an updated review of studies conducted by researchers at the Australian National University and the University of Helsinki, appearing in the latest issue of The Cochrane Library.

[In the 1970s, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling popularized its regular use. His book, "Vitamin C and the Common Cold," encouraged people to take 1,000 milligrams of the vitamin daily.

The current recommended daily allowance of vitamin C is 60 milligrams. An eight-ounce glass of orange juice has about 97 milligrams of vitamin C.]

According to the authors of the above studies/review, it doesn't make sense to take vitamin C 365 days a year to lessen the chance of catching a cold. But they found that people exposed to periods of high stress (i.e. marathon runners, skiers and soldiers on sub-arctic exercises) were 50 percent less likely to catch a cold if they took a daily dose of vitamin C.

Do you take Vitamin C daily? But it wouldn't just be colds right? Vitamin C has been known to increase the power of the immune system - making vitamin C not entirely useless.

Find more details from the full report.