The Vitamin-C Myth

This lie has been told too many times…

It’s the first thing you hear when the topic of Colds is mentioned- ‘Oh a bit of Vitamin-C and you’ll never be sick!’ Ladies and gentlemen, anyone who has ever said anything like this is either lying or gullible, or both.

First let me explain about Linus Pauling, the Nobel Prize winner for chemistry, who, after winning the award, suggested that Vitamin-C in mega doses is beneficial to health. This derives from the false notion that if something is good, more is better. Biochemistry dosn’t work that way my friends. Human nutrition is a fined tuned system.

In 1970, Pauling announced in Vitamin C and the Common Cold that taking 1,000 mg of vitamin C daily will reduce the incidence of colds by 45% for most people but that some people need much larger amounts (The RDA for vitamin C is 60 mg.) May I add that Pauling’s ‘tests’ were not fair.

However, fair tests were carried out to disprove the Vitamin-C myth.

At least 16 well-designed, double-blind studies have shown that supplementation with vitamin C does not prevent colds and at best may slightly reduce the symptoms of a cold

So there you go. Take Vitamin-C for what it’s actually good for (your gums, for example) because it is still good for you. However, next time someone is preaching this magical supplement which prevents and cures colds, you can now tell them they have been fooled by a Pharmacy worker.

Anyone who has an interest in science or even the slightest knowledge of how fair testing works, would probably know this already. My question is: How do these lies survive for how long?

New fad diets and alternative medicines are all the rage these days. Why are people so obsessed with lies? Could it be because they’re easy to believe and exciting and appeal to the gullable public?

Dr. Ben Goldacre’s award-winning book Bad Science explains the liars, the unfair tests and all the alternative medicines that actually do nothing. I beg you to read this eye-opening book — you’ll become a more aware shopper, able see through the false claims in the media.

Also, please feel free to continue this debate on false advertising and untested health claims in my new collection: Destroying Health Myths.