Vitamin C and colds
If you’re in the throes of a cold, you’ll probably grasp at anything, but are you treating the symptom or the disease?
Even though we all know there’s no cure for the common cold, almost everyone has a surefire home remedy. Mention, in a crowd, that you’re coming down with something and the medical advice will start pouring out — garlic broth, oil of oregano, echinacea, chicken soup and dozens of other cures to swear by.
There’s also no shortage of over-thecounter products that promise to ward off colds or stop them dead in their tracks. The question is, do any of these remedies have any value? Since the interweb is full of conflicting advice about this — and cold and flu season is officially underway — we went to an expert, Dr. Dawn Bowdish, Canada Research Chair in aging and immunity at McMaster University, to get some advice about what works and what doesn’t — starting with the super-popular Cold-FX.
“We had a researcher who was doing some trials with it and it looks like, if you take white blood cells out of people and put them in a test tube and then add Cold-FX and an infection, the cells seem to be a little more resistant,” explains Bowdish, describing lab-controlled cell studies. “The controversy comes when you try to apply it in real life.”
Bowdish says that clinical trials that followed people taking Cold-FX to ward off colds have been disappointing, but are far from conclusive, since many of the subjects failed to take the supplement as directed — twice a day, every day, during cold and flu season. Those who can commit to that regimen are unlikely to be swayed from taking it, since ginseng (the active ingredient) is used to treat a range of ailments in traditional Chinese medicine.
When it comes to colds and flus, people stick to their rituals. I can sympathize, since I drink buckets of hot ginger tea with lemon and mega-dose vitamin C at the first sign of a sniffle. That usually does the trick but, if it persists, I drown it in hot and sour soup. I asked Bowdish about my strategy.
“There was a clinical trial showing that you couldn’t actually prevent a cold with vitamin C, but you could shorten your symptoms by a day or a day and a half,” Bowdish explains. “So, individually, you’re unlikely to know whether or not it’s a shorter infection but, collectively, in these trials, it looks like it accelerates the process of getting better.”
If you’re mid-cold though, you’ll grasp at anything, right? So, I’ll happily continue to dose myself with eight grams of vitamin C, especially now that I’m aware of a 2017 study that found participants taking that dose shaved a significant amount of time (almost 20 per cent) off the length of a cold.
That represents a reversal of fortune for vitamin C, which has had a wild ride ever since it was touted as a cure-all by Nobel Prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling, who championed it in his 1970 book, “Vitamin C and the Common Cold.”
Pauling recommended a daily preventative mega-dose of 3,000-milligrams for optimal health and further explored the idea that the vitamin could help people suffering from atherosclerosis and terminal cancer — all of which was dismissed as junk science in later years. Most people in the medical establishment and research community started to consider big doses of C as a colossal waste of money, so this latest news represents a mild vindication for vitamin loyalists.
Several of the other home cures — rosehip tea, elderberry supplements, hot water with lemon, for example — also contain vitamin C, so, if people find they work, it might be the vitamins doing the heavy lifting. Then again, it might just be the fact that they soothe the throat and make us feel better — possibly the reason oil of oregano is so popular.
“There have been a few clinical trials with various essential oils, not just oil of oregano, and, when people take them, in that first 20 minutes, they feel better,” Bowdish says. “The throat feels better, but it doesn’t mean they’re any less sick. So, oil of oregano and a lot of home remedies just help with the symptomology and make you feel better but they aren’t preventing you from getting sick.”
To actually avoid getting sick, the single best thing you can do is get the flu shot, which also protects more vulnerable people in the community, be they elderly or immunocompromised.
We tend to think of the flu as a lessserious health problem than a lot of other afflictions, but the flu kills thousands in Canada every year and some of those deaths could be prevented by a (free) vaccine that takes seconds to get.
Sadly, when it comes to colds, there’s no shot in the arm.
“It’s not very sexy but good old-fashioned handwashing hygiene is the best thing you can do,” Bowdish advises.
“Try not to touch your face too much and if, you’re sick, try not to spread it. Cough into your sleeve and away from people and that kind of thing.”
Or just stay home and quarantine yourself. Sleep it off and take all the oil of oregano, garlic broth and vitamin C you want. None of it’s a cure for the common cold, but it might just make you feel better a little sooner.
And best of all, you won’t be paying that cold or flu forward and spreading it around.