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…
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