Vitamin C Myth or Real?

Advertisements back in the day advertised vitamin C as an important way to combat the common cold. Many people reach straight for orange juice when they get a cold or mix up vitamin c supplements with immune-boosting supplements packed full of vitamin C. It has supposed to help cure a common cold. They Are a growing two-hundred million dollar industry, and surprisingly, their sales peak when the cold and flu season does. With boxes that claim vitamin c helps support your immune system, why wouldn't you pop a fizzy tablet when you start to feel a bit stuffy? However, if you follow the label on the bottom of the supplements. You would find that the FDA does not support the claim. That is because Vitamin C does not cure your common cold. You can trace the vitamin C craze back to Linus Pauling. He was a pretty big deal. He won a Nobel prize for his work with quantum chemistry and a Nobel Peace Prize for his anti-nuclear weapon advocacy when he came out with a book in the 1970s claiming that Vitamin C could help you avoid colds and improve your health it took off. Americans clear drug store shelves. Newspapers wrote that the sales were not to be sneezed at and called it the "The great cold rush" However the medical community was cold to Pauling's Cold claims. For one, they were not based on any actual science- Pauling had personally started taking vitamin C at the suggestion of a friend, and he got fewer colds.

The criticism, of course, was just because it happened to hi,. It did not make it an actual study which Pauling admitted to, and asked that "someone" actually do one. However, Doctors already knew that taking large amounts of vitamin C was not the best Idea. Adults only need about 75-90mg of Vitamin C a day. It has found in a ton of different foods. Most people eat enough Vitamin C in their regular diet for a healthy immune system. However, Pauling's Book suggested taking 2,000 Mg or more a day. That is 22 times the amount you need. Just because Vitamin C is good for you doesn't mean that taking more is better for you. A review of 46 different scientific trials with more than 11,000 participants found that taking Vitamin C supplements regularly does not prevent you from getting the common colds.

It can reduce your cold length by a meager 8% less than half a day. However, taking a supplement at the beginning of the cold does not help make it go away faster. Vitamin C was found to be Mostly useful for people engaged in "intense physical exercise" like marathon runners. However, for most people, "routine supplementation is not justified." and taking extra vitamin C can result in a classic "too much of a good thing. That 2,000mg Pauling recommended is the amount in two emergen-Cs. It's also the threshold of how much you can take before you start to feel cramping or have diarrhea or Nausea. It could get worse, A Swedish study found that men who took just 1,000mg of Vitamin C a day were twice as likely to develop kidney stones, but that's about as bad as it gets. This has not been more regulated because you cannot seriously hurt yourself. No one has died from an overdose. Pauling himself said he used to take up to 30,000mg. It probably gave him tummy troubles, but he was otherwise fine. So what will help combat the cold? For one, hydration. Sure, you can still have orange juice, but plain water or clear broth would do the trick. Things like decongestants, ibuprofen, vapor rubs. They help ease the symptoms of a cold, but they do not necessarily shorten it. The best way to end the cold is to rest, let your immune system do its thing, and not worry too much about vitamin C.