does not help cold prevention and treatment

Vitamin C is not as good as many people thought when it comes to cold prevention and treatment among the general population, according to a study appearing in this month’s Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine Journal.

The authors, Robert M. Douglas of the Australian National University, Canberra, and Harri Hemilä of the University of Helsinki, Finland, reviewed 23 quality studies on vitamin C and the common cold performed in the last 65 years. The doses of vitamin C used ranged from 200mg to 2g daily.

The authors found that vitamin C does not reduce the risk of the common cold.

For those vitamin C users who got a cold, vitamin C seemed to reduce the duration of the cold a bit compared with those taking a placebo. However, the authors cautioned that the clinical significance of this reduction may still be questionable.

Nonetheless, the authors did find that vitamin C helped prevent colds in people subjected to extreme physical stress or cold weather. Six studies found that marathon runners, when given vitamin C, experienced a 50 percent reduction in common cold incidence.

Seven studies found that use of vitamin C after the onset of a cold did not shorten the cold duration. Only one study found that subjects who used a high dose, 8 grams, of vitamin C on the day the cold symptoms started to show up experienced a shorter illness compared with those who took a placebo. Still, the results were “tantalizing and deserve further assessment,” according to the study.

Taken From : http://foodconsumer.org