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Back to Study: Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common c...
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Analysis v1
Strong Support

Taking vitamin C after you already have a cold doesn't really help you get better faster or feel less sick, according to several big studies.

33
Pro
0
Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

33

Community contributions welcome

33

Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common cold.

Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis
2004 Oct 18

The study looked at taking vitamin C after you already have a cold and found it doesn't make the cold shorter or less severe, just like the claim says.

Contradicting (0)

0

Community contributions welcome

No contradicting evidence found

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common cold.

Score: 33
DOI: 10.1002/14651858.cd000980.pub2

Similar Assertions

Taking vitamin C after you already have cold symptoms doesn't make your cold shorter or less severe compared to taking a fake pill.

33
0
90%

Taking vitamin C pills might make your cold symptoms less severe if you're a healthy person.

39
0
87%

Vitamin C helps reduce bad cold symptoms a lot (by about a quarter), but doesn't really help with mild cold symptoms. This is based on studies of over 2700 colds.

39
0
86%

Taking vitamin C pills every day might make your colds less severe, according to some studies that looked at healthy people.

39
0
85%

Taking vitamin C might help people who are stressed and in cold weather get over bad colds faster, cutting the time sick by about half, but we're not totally sure because only a few studies have looked at this.

39
0
82%