Can Vitamin C and Zinc Help Cure Colds?
You've probably heard that taking vitamin C or zinc will keep you from getting sick, but it turns out that those popular cure-alls don't actually work. We're conducting a survey of our...
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Nobody enjoys the aches, cough, and stuffy nose that comes with a cold, so it’s no surprise that we spend a ton of money on over-the-counter symptom relief — $3 billion a year in the US alone. And you’ve probably heard all sorts of tips and tricks to keep from getting sick: Drink some OJ for the vitamin C. Or spray some zinc into your nose. But it turns out that none of those popular cure-alls actually work. Take vitamin C, for example. It rose to fame as a cold-busting immuno-booster in 1970 when Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling published a book promoting what he called “megadoses” of vitamin C. Since he was so famous, the idea that vitamin C could cure colds spread quickly, even though it wasn’t backed by solid science or the medical commu...
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Nobody enjoys the aches, cough, and stuffy nose that comes with a cold, so it’s no surprise that we spend a ton of money on over-the-counter symptom relief — $3 billion a year in the US alone. And you’ve probably heard all sorts of tips and tricks to keep from getting sick: Drink some OJ for the vitamin C. Or spray some zinc into your nose. But it turns out that none of those popular cure-alls actually work. Take vitamin C, for example. It rose to fame as a cold-busting immuno-booster in 1970 when Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling published a book promoting what he called “megadoses” of vitamin C. Since he was so famous, the idea that vitamin C could cure colds spread quickly, even though it wasn’t backed by solid science or the medical commu...
