Vitamin Information Center

Although vitamin C has long been touted as a preventive measure against the common cold, the available evidence from several large-scale randomized controlled trials does not support this claim. Continue Reading…

Phytonutrients are thought to have a variety of beneficial and significant benefits to our health and exist in a kind of limbo between being vitamin and being mineral.They are found in supplements that are the extract of pigments where nutrients are concentrated, meaning that they draw the best from antioxidant foods, leaving the calories and sugar behind.
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Q: I’ve been taking vitamin C for years to keep from getting a winter cold, and I think that it does help. A friend of mine thinks that it doesn’t really work and it’s “all in my head”. What do you think?

A: The “common cold” is not a single viral respiratory infection, but a group of several viruses that are especially prevalent this time of the year. Antibiotics are useless against colds, and the fact that they mutate has thus far made it impossible to develop a multi-virus vaccine to prevent infection. That’s why we put so much effort into preventing colds and flu.

Vitamin C has been controversial in cold-prevention for the last 70 years. In 1970, Nobel Prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling stated in his controversial book “Vitamin C and the Common Cold” that taking 1,000 mg of vitamin C daily will prevent colds by 45 percent for most people. Continue Reading…