Pre-Emptive Action Vitamin

A household method for treating the common cold is to take tablets of vitamin C or food that is rich in this vitamin (rosehip tea, lemon). Does this practice withstand scientific scratiny  

Lind had discovered that scurvy can be treated with lemons, but he did not recognize that the illness was actually caused by an insufficient intake of vitamin C. This discovery is credited to Norwegian researchers Axel Holst (1860-1931) and Theodor Frohch (1870-1947). They experimented with guinea pigs and got lucky. Scurvy occurred in animals when their feed consisted solely of various types of grain, but the symptoms were prevented when the diet was supplemented with 

The potential of vitamin C to prevent the common cold was illustrated by another Nobel Laureate, American chemist Linus Paitling (1901-1994). For his scientific work focused on chemical bonding, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. His peace activism and opposition to nuclear weapons won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. He is the only person to be awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes. Only three other individuals have won more than one Nobel Prize (Marie Curie, John Bardeen, and Frederick Sanger) with Pauling and Mme Curie being the only two who were awarded Nobel Prizes in different fields. 

Linus Pauling often suffered from bad colds, so he was quite receptive to the advice of one of his biochemist friends, who proposed consuming several grams of ascorbic acid to prevent the common cold. Pauling found the method effective and 

The tablets sold in pharmacies, which are used to prevent or treat colds, usually contain much larger amounts (200-1000 mg) of ascorbic acid. Could this high dose be harmful Does it make sense to exceed the physiologically necessary dosage or to take megadoses of vitamin C A general answer to the first question is given in a separate stoiy 3.14). For present purposes, it suffices to state that the approved ascorbic acid products are safe even if they contain several times of the recommended daily intake of vitamin C. 

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