Vitamin C reduces the severity of common colds: a meta-analysis

{ 'indexed': { 'date-parts': [[2023, 12, 13]], 'date-time': '2023-12-13T05:19:29Z', 'timestamp': 1702444769594}, 'reference-count': 82, 'publisher': 'Springer Science and Business Media LLC', 'issue': '1', 'license': [ { 'start': { 'date-parts': [[2023, 12, 11]], 'date-time': '2023-12-11T00:00:00Z', 'timestamp': 1702252800000}, 'content-version': 'tdm', 'delay-in-days': 0, 'URL': 'https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0'}, { 'start': { 'date-parts': [[2023, 12, 11]], 'date-time': '2023-12-11T00:00:00Z', 'timestamp': 1702252800000}, 'content-version': 'vor', 'delay-in-days': 0, 'URL': 'https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0'}], 'funder': [{'DOI': '10.13039/100007797', 'name': 'University of Helsinki', 'doi-asserted-by': 'crossref'}], 'content-domain': {'domain': ['link.springer.com'], 'crossmark-restriction': False}, 'abstract': '<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec>\n' ' <jats:title>Background</jats:title>\n' ' <jats:p>Randomized trials have shown that vitamin C shortens the duration of ' 'common colds. Some trials reported greater effects on severe cold symptoms compared with mild ' 'symptoms. This review systematically compares the effects of vitamin C on severe and mild ' 'common cold symptoms.</jats:p>\n' ' </jats:sec><jats:sec>\n' ' <jats:title>Methods</jats:title>\n' ' <jats:p>We included all placebo-controlled trials of orally administered ' 'vitamin C in doses of at least 1\xa0g/day for the common cold for people in good health at ' 'baseline. The analysis was restricted to trials which reported both the total duration of the ' 'common cold, and the severity of the common cold measured using severity scales, the duration ' 'of more severe stages of the cold, or proxies for severe colds such as days indoors. Findings ' 'were pooled using the inverse variance, fixed effect options of the metacont function of the ' 'R package meta to calculate the ratio of means estimate.</jats:p>\n' ' </jats:sec><jats:sec>\n' ' <jats:title>Results</jats:title>\n' ' <jats:p>Fifteen comparisons from 10 trials which reported both mild and ' 'severe symptoms were identified. All trials were randomized and double-blind. Compared to ' 'placebo, vitamin C significantly decreased the severity of the common cold by 15% (95% CI ' '9–21%). The direct comparison of the effect of vitamin C on mild and severe symptoms was ' 'limited to five comparisons which found that vitamin C had a significant benefit on the ' 'duration of severe symptoms. In this subset, there was a significant difference in the size ' 'of the effect of vitamin C on the overall duration of colds versus the duration of severe ' 'colds (P\u2009=\u20090.002), and vitamin C had no significant effect on the duration of mild ' 'symptoms.</jats:p>\n' ' </jats:sec><jats:sec>\n' ' <jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title>\n' ' <jats:p>The common cold is the leading cause of acute morbidity and a major ' 'cause of absenteeism from work and school. However, absenteeism is dependent on the severity ' 'of symptoms. The finding that vitamin C may have a greater effect on more severe measures of ' 'the common cold is therefore important. Further research on the therapeutic effects of ' 'vitamin C on the common cold should measure outcomes of differing levels of ' 'severity.</jats:p>\n' ' </jats:sec>', 'DOI': '10.1186/s12889-023-17229-8', 'type': 'journal-article', 'created': { 'date-parts': [[2023, 12, 11]], 'date-time': '2023-12-11T10:02:39Z', 'timestamp': 1702288959000}, 'update-policy': 'http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/springer_crossmark_policy', 'source': 'Crossref', 'is-referenced-by-count': 0, 'title': 'Vitamin C reduces the severity of common colds: a meta-analysis', 'prefix': '10.1186', 'volume': '23', 'author': [ { 'ORCID': 'http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4710-307X', 'authenticated-orcid': False, 'given': 'Harri', 'family': 'Hemilä', 'sequence': 'first', 'affiliation': []}, { 'ORCID': 'http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1593-3770', 'authenticated-orcid': False, 'given': 'Elizabeth', 'family': 'Chalker', 'sequence': 'additional', 'affiliation': []}], 'member': '297', 'published-online': {'date-parts': [[2023, 12, 11]]}, 'reference': [ { 'issue': '19', 'key': '17229_CR1', 'doi-asserted-by': 'publisher', 'first-page': '2020', 'DOI': '10.1001/jama.2013.286141', 'volume': '311', 'author': 'ML Barnett', 'year': '2014', 'unstructured': 'Barnett ML, Linder JA. 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