Vitamin C has always been considered as the essential element when it comes to preventing and curing colds.
We have all heard the advice of taking orange juice when we have colds to cure ourselves, or of taking it before winter to prevent. Even flu and cold medication sachets carry vitamin C and taste orange.
However, for a while, a "joke" runs from mouth to mouth that says that taking the juice of 1 kg of oranges every day the colds heal in a week.
A review of 24 studies on this subject proves the joke, concluding that Vitamin C, really, does not prevent or cure colds or flu. The objective of this review was to determine whether vitamin C administered orally, in doses of 200 mg or more per day, reduced the incidence, duration or severity of the common cold.
For this, 24 studies were analyzed whose conclusions were similar: little or no benefit from taking vitamin C compared to taking a placebo.
Yes, good results were documented in a study with 642 marathon runners, skiers and soldiers, however it is thought that the benefit would be produced by the physical exercise they perform and not by vitamin C.
The conclusion reached therefore is that neither orange juice, nor kiwis, nor pills with vitamin C. The cold is a disease that as it arrives leaves and Vitamin C does not help prevent or cure it.
Once the only thing that can be done is to treat the symptoms. For mucus, it is best to drink a lot of water, and for cough, we can give them honey, which in fact works better than any other drug.
