It’s a phrase you’ll hear not long after your first sneeze or sniff: “Go and take some Vitamin C,” will come the cry. It’s certainly advice that has achieved the status of common and accepted sense, the one universal cure for the cold. Every family has their own remedies, as do different cultures, and we all have our own personal favorites too: whether it’s lemon and honey tea, the classic of Jewish culture, chicken soup, or the latest herb on offer all over the internet. Nothing though can drown out the constant advice to the cold-afflicted to get some Vitamin C.
But is this common sense advice really good sense? What scientific evidence backs up the advice we all take for granted? Because without that we could all be wasting an awful lot of money on useless medications.
Ascorbic acid is the full scientific name for what most of us call Vitamin C, and it is not naturally produced by humans. So, we must consume it from our food, or more and more these days, through pills and supplements. Vitamin C deficiency certainly does lead to one ailment, and it’s one that has passed into the English language as a byword for an untrustworthy and down-at-heel fellow: that ailment is Scurvy and it’s an unpleasant degenerative disease of the connective tissues. It was common among sea-farers and one sign of its onset was the loss of teeth.
The reason for this unpleasant effect is Vitamin C’s role in synthesizing bodily collagen. Collagen makes up much of the structure of our tendons, blood vessels, ligaments and bones.
That’s not all Vitamin C does for us either: it also acts as an anti-oxidant, protecting such vital bodily components as lipids, proteins, carbs and RNA and DNA from attack from free radicals.
Furthermore, Vitamin C does help boost our immune system by stimulating the production of white cells in the blood (leukocytes).
So, Vitamin C is good and powerful stuff which we certainly need to make sure we have in our diet. But, these many benefits aside will it help you when you are suffering from the common cold?
There have been a number of placebo-controlled scientific research programs on Vitamin C’s effect on the common cold and the results are not clear in either direction. When 30 such trials were subjected to a meta-analysis, there was no evidence found that taking up to two grams-a-day of Vitamin C would reduce chances of contacting the common cold.
But this isn’t the whole picture. And, one study conducted in the Arctic on marathon runners, soldiers and skiers found that Vitamin C dosing was effective and, in fact, reduced the number of common cold cases by half.
This evidence would appear to suggest that if you’re in conditions likely to give rise to common colds then there may be some preventative benefits to taking Vitamin C, but once you’re sneezing, it’s too late and you’re probably better off with a bowl of chicken soup.
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