Does taking that extra vitamin C actually give your immune system a boost when you’re feeling crummy? Or is it a clever marketing scheme?
If the latter, where did this hype come from?!
Find out the answer to this question, what vitamin C does in our bodies, and whether or not I supplement with vitamin C.
Disclaimer! The information in this video is for information purposes only and not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
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#immunebooster #vitaminc #fluprevention #covidprevention #covid
Ref:
Hemilä H, Chalker E. Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common cold. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2013, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD000980. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD000980.pub4. Accessed 20 August 2021.
Rachul, Christen et al. “COVID-19 and ‘immune boosting’ on the internet: a content analysis of Google search results.” BMJ open vol. 10,10 e040989. 26 Oct. 2020, doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2020-040989
Cerullo, Giuseppe et al. “The Long History of Vitamin C: From Prevention of the Common Cold to Potential Aid in the Treatment of COVID-19.” Frontiers in immunology vol. 11 574029. 28 Oct. 2020, doi:10.3389/fimmu.2020.574029
hi everyone dr laharin here and today we’re going to talk about vitamin c and whether or not it is a immune booster according to this study that was done on google searches in the past year when people searched immune booster vitamin c is the number one hit just check it out on this graph here but is that really true i’m going to look at some research articles that can help us answer these questions we’re also going to learn about what vitamin c actually does in our body and then we can decide whether or not vitamin c is a supplement that we should be adding into our daily regimen but first a little history lesson i spun around because we went back in time to the 70s where this guy linus pauling published a study saying a daily dose of 100 milligrams of vitamin c can decrease the likelihood of getting any sort of upper respiratory tract infection by a 45 after the study was published the us markets went crazy started selling a ton of vitamin c um to people in hopes that that would prevent the common cold from spreading however this study done by pauling has never been reproduced so when a study isn’t able to be reproduced it is not considered as valid so nowadays there’s been a lot of studies trying to see whether or not vitamin c actually does boost the immune system in fact a meta-analysis which is pretty much a research paper that analyzes a bunch of other research papers that have done research on a very similar topic a meta analysis that was done on vitamin c and its effect of preventing as well as making the common cold shorter was done in 2013 and it found that in a pool of about over 11 000 participants vitamin c having regular supplementation of it does not actually prevent the common cold and when it compared the duration of the cold so these people actually got sick they found that in adults the duration of colds were reduced by eight percent and in children by 14 percent and if in if children consumed one to two grams per day it shortened colds by 18 percent this study did find however that if you are under short periods of extreme physical stress so if you’re a marathon runner if you’re in the military things like that if you take vitamin c that can actually reduce your chance of getting colds by 50 so are you surprised that vitamin c doesn’t actually boost your immune system and yet every year during cold and flu season we are marketed to buy vitamin c so that we can prevent colds well i’m not really surprised because business is business right so what does vitamin c actually do to our bodies well it is a powerful antioxidant which means it can stop free radicals from wreaking havoc on our bodies it also has shown that it can reduce our inflammatory response vitamin c can also protect our fatty membranes that are around our organs such as our lungs and that can help prevent pathogens from getting into those organs vitamin c also plays a role in activating an enzyme that helps build collagen in our bodies in terms of our immune response vitamin c also plays a role in bringing our immune cells to the sites of infection which is pretty cool so it’s time to decide after looking at research saying that vitamin c doesn’t actually boost your immune system and learning about the functions of vitamin c in our bodies do we take it my answer is yes vitamin c is part of my daily supplementation and it is because as we learned earlier if you do take vitamin c regularly if you do come down with a cold you are more likely to have a shorter cold i’m also pretty optimistic even though vitamin c doesn’t boost my immune system it does have some effect on the immune cells so if my cells that are going to go eat all bad cells are going to be affected by vitamin c why not supplement with it there’s also a very low risk in supplementing with vitamin c the recommended daily intake is anywhere between 70 to 105 however 105 milligrams per day however research has shown that you can take up to 2 000 milligrams a day and still be okay and that’s because vitamin c is water soluble which means it will get excreted out in our urine if we take too much of it however i should mention that if you’re susceptible to kidney stones you should talk to your medical provider before taking an increased amount of vitamin c because that can actually cause more kidney stones it’s also relatively inexpensive to take vitamin c so i know that when i am feeling a little stressed or if i know that i’m going to be around a lot of people then i do take an additional emergency on top of my normal supplementation and there’s something to be said about the placebo effect even though i know the research i do feel i do believe that i am not going to get sick and that it helps me from getting sick and i think that there is a strong mental role in that as well that’s all i’ve got for you today on vitamin c and whether or not it actually boosts your immune system we went through a lot of research today that has shown that vitamin c in fact doesn’t boost your immune system and we talked about the roles vitamin c has in your body and with all these facts i hope that you can make a educated decision on whether or not you should start supplementing with vitamin c yourself if you found this video helpful please like it and subscribe to my page also share it with people if you feel that they need to learn about vitamin c or ways to help stimulate their immune system all right i will catch you guys next time on wake up with dr lauren
