Vitamin C May Not Be As Healthy As We Thought

New results from a multi-decade review by the US Center for the Advancement of Health suggest that those of us average people who pop vitamin C (the nutrient, not the singer, just so we’re clear) to ward off colds may just be wasting our time.

Conducted over several decades and including more than 11,000 people who took daily doses of at least 200 milligrams, the review also shows that vitamin C (ascorbic acid) does little to reduce the length or severity of a cold, according to the researchers at the Australian National University and the University of Helsinki.

However, they found that people exposed to periods of high stress — such as marathon runners, skiers and soldiers on sub-arctic exercises — were 50 percent less likely to catch a cold if they took a daily dose of vitamin C.*

Personally, I’m not aware of any major health risks of taking a daily vitamin C supplement, so I’m going to do it anyway. Who knows, I might be a marathon runner in my sleep without knowing it, and I’ll then reduce my cold risk by half.

Contents © Copyright 2007 Kristen King