Winter break may be over, but cold season isn’t. This is the time of year when we break out the vitamin C supplements to avoid becoming just another statistic. But here’s a newsflash – our parents were wrong. Vitamin C isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when it comes to curing the common cold.
I’m writing this because I got a cold over the holidays.
I know it’s hardly unique – everyone got a cold over winter break.
I was different though. I was going to stop it dead in its tracks the way my mom always taught me: a large dose of my magical micro-nutrient and personal savior vitamin C.
I started strong the first day, chugging two glasses of Emergen-C and drinking orange juice like a camel.
The next morning my sore throat was gone – and even though I couldn’t breathe through my nose, victory smelled sweet. I forced myself to stomach just one more packet of Emergen-C, confident I was cured.
I was shocked to find myself bed-ridden with fever by day three of my vitamin C experiment. I’m not sure how I made it to the Student Health Center for antibiotics and prescription cough syrup, but I was too defeated and sick to really care about anything other than getting better.
But now that I’m better, I can’t stop thinking about what made Mom so completely wrong about the benefits of taking my vitamins.
The answer isn’t so simple.
Vitamin C has many functions in the human body. It’s a major component of collagen, a building block of connective tissue. It plays an important role in our bodies’ production of energy, and can sometimes act as an antioxidant. Vitamin C is also used for the synthesis of an important neurotransmitter, improving brain function.
Scientific consensus tells us exactly how cool vitamin C is. But the more I’ve read, the more I’ve realized scientists find it difficult to determine what role – if any – vitamin C plays in “curing” the common cold.
It’s not like Mom’s mistake is something all that new – taking vitamin C for preventing and treating a cold became common practice after the publication of “Vitamin C and the Common Cold” by chemist Linus Pauling in 1970. Subsequent studies of the supplement have yielded very inconsistent support for Pauling’s research, however.
A July 2007 research review of 30 studies involving over 11,000 people taking 200 mg or more of vitamin C daily conducted by the Australian National University and the University of Helsinki suggests vitamin C does little to prevent a cold or reduce its duration.
Statistically speaking, scientific evidence just doesn’t support the popular belief that vitamin C fights off colds unless your chances of catching one are already significantly high.
I know, it’s like finding out that Santa Claus doesn’t really exist. But the results of this study didn’t convince me that taking vitamin C for my cold was totally useless.
Because vitamin C is crucial for the repair and generation of epithelial cells – which include the lining of the throat – there is no reason to believe it didn’t help my throat feel better in some way.
Studies have also found that taking a daily vitamin C supplement can boost immune response.
The National Academy of Sciences recommends a daily minimum of 90 mg of vitamin C, but some doctors say to take as much as 2,000 mg. While the “right” dosage is heavily debated among scientists and doctors, vitamin C is a relatively safe substance to take in excess – especially if your immune system is compromised.
But an amped-up immune system should have been enough fix my cold, so what’s the deal?
It’s complicated. Many other factors affect the immune system’s functions. Vitamin C strengthens only a certain part of immune function. Although it increases overall immune response, the immune system can still be vulnerable to the 200 different viruses that cause colds.
And just taking the vitamin doesn’t mean you will get the full effect. The absorption of vitamin C is decreased by caffeine, smoking, alcohol, aspirin and eating carbohydrates – just about anything college kids put in their bodies on a daily basis. All of the above apply for me, and that’s probably why my vitamin C experiment failed so miserably.
So I’m not exactly the epitome of health, even when I do take my vitamins. Catching a cold was my own fault, and it was a mistake to put so much faith in a single vitamin while I ignored the other important aspects of staying healthy.
Even though science hasn’t proven that vitamin C helps colds, there’s no denying that a daily supplement-along with good personal hygiene and a healthy lifestyle- can’t hurt.
Mom was right about that much.
—-Contact Amber Scroggs at ascroggs@lsureveille.com