Here are the five top tips to help you fight the cold this season
Vitamin C
This most famous cold fighter both prevents and treats colds. When you take 500mg a day of vitamin C, you are 66% less likely to catch a cold than when you take a placebo dose of 50mg. A review of 21 studies that used 1-8g of vitamin C found that, in each of them, vitamin C reduced the length and severity of colds by 23%. A recent double-blind study gave 1g of vitamin C or placebo to 28 people for eight weeks. In the vitamin C group, seven people got colds; in the placebo group eleven people did: that’s a 45% reduction in risk. Compared to placebo, vitamin C shortened the length of the cold by 59%. But, it’s best to take at least 2g a day. The most current word on vitamin C comes from a meta-analysis of nine controlled studies that found that taking extra vitamin C on top of regular supplementation at the onset of a cold shortens the cold by a significant 56% and significantly relieves symptoms, including chest pain, fever and chills.Zinc
The media says that zinc lozenges don’t work. And they’re right: when a study deliberately gives the wrong form or a placebo dose, they don’t. But when you take the right dose of the right form, zinc lozenges kill the common cold every time.Research convincingly shows that, when you use an effective form of zinc, zinc lozenges have a remarkable ability to kill colds. Several studies show (here, here, here and here) that taking 13-23mg of zinc lozenges every 2 waking hours fights off a cold in about four days compared to 7-11 days with a placebo.
