I feel like shit today. My head is blocked, my nose is blocked and my chest feels tighter than a Sumo’s jock strap. I’ve conscientiously upped my Vitamin C intake this year, it’s not saved me from getting a cold but I was hoping it would help me get over it quicker. I’ve been online and checked the NHS website and one or two other reputable health websites and it seems most of the evidence points to the fact Vitamin C doesn’t really help with colds at all. It certainly doesn’t help once you’ve got the cold. If you have the RDA of Vitamin C everyday over a long period and then catch a cold it might help you get better a little bit quicker but only fractionally.
So where does this widely held belief that Vitamin C helps prevent colds come from? The American Chemist Linus Pauling was one of the first to argue that Vitamin C can help reduce the risk of catching a cold and reduce its severity but it looks like he was wrong.
In defence of Vitamin C it is a great anti-oxidant and it also prevents Scurvy but as a cold cure it isn’t very good. I’ll have to rely on the age old remedies like a hot toddy, sticking my head over a bowl of steaming hot water or having a soak in a piping hot bath.
No jokes about man-flu please!! lol
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