I'm home sick today, and people have been constantly telling me to get some vitamen C. People have all ways told me this, but I don't know why. I know that vitamen C is a water soluble vitamen, and that it is needed by the body. I just want someone to tell me how vitamen C is used with the immune system to help fight colds.
2006-12-07 23:28:22 · 6 answers · asked by kahboom 2 in Health ➔ Diseases & Conditions ➔ Other - Diseases
I meant to type, in the header, What does vitamen c have to do with colds?
2006-12-07 23:30:25 · update #1
I know vitamen C boost your immune system, i have heard that before, but I want to know why and how it does.
(think more in scientific terms)
2006-12-07 23:40:17 · update #2
Linus Pauling, winner of two unshared Nobel prizes (a record), studied Vitamin C for many years. It is found in white blood cells and the adrenal glands in high concentrations. When you get infected or sick, the levels of the vitamin drop dramatically and the efficiency of the WBC's and adrenals also decline in proportion. Ill persons can take relatively huge doses of C without any spilling out of the urine. The adrenals and lymphatic system suck it up like a sponge when you are sick so it is doing something important there. Animals, which make their own C, also greatly increase its production when sick or infected. That's evidence enuff for me to take 4-6 grams a day when I'm sick, and 1-2 grams a day when I am healthy. I feel, subjectively, much better when I do.
2006-12-08 03:10:17 · answer #1 · answered by Mad Roy 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Vitamin C has been studied extensively in randomized trials and there is absolutely no evidence that it does anything to prevent colds or reduce duration of colds. Zinc has been studied and has been shown in multiple studies to reduce duration of colds but not prevent them.
What Vitamin C DOES do is it serves as a cofactor in the body's production of collagen. Collagen is a protein that consists of three strands crosslinked in almost a braided pattern. These three chains are cross-linked to one another and Vitamin C plays a roll in this cross-linking process.
If you are deficient in vitamin C, it causes scurvy. A disease in which collagen production is deficient. It leads to unhealthy, bleeding gums and weak skin and tendons. When Vitamin C was discovered as a prevention for this by the British navy, they started giving lime or lemon (high in vitamin C) rations to their sailors earning them the nickname "Limeys".
If you take supplements with super doses of vitamin C, your kidneys will just excrete the excess, so avoid those more expensive mega-dose vitamin C supplements. You're literally pissing your money away.
2006-12-08 07:30:07 · answer #2 · answered by tiredsurgeon 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes. Vit C boost the immune system. Therefore it helps the white blood cells fight infections. Also Zinc can help cure a cold quicker.
My husband like to take Cold-Ez. They are like cough drops. But they make me nauseated. To much Zinc for me.
2006-12-07 23:36:02 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Vitamin C boosts your immune system. From what I understand it may actually make your body produce more white blood cells to fight off infection.
2006-12-07 23:33:44 · answer #4 · answered by sshazzam 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Vitamin's c is for fighting off bad colds Like flu and all colds.and the more you eat and drink the more vitamin you get. So drink lots for vitamins c if you have a bad cold. Orange Juice is the best.
2006-12-07 23:42:47 · answer #5 · answered by chain 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
IT IS DISEASE RESISTANT
2006-12-07 23:36:40 · answer #6 · answered by R Purushotham Rao 4 · 0⤊ 2⤋