Antihistaminic Agents and Ascorbic Acid in the Early Treatment of the Common Cold

Cowan, Donald W.; Diehl, Harold S.

doi:10.1001/jama.1950.02910400013004

Cited by 36 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…We excluded 351 unqualified trials on the basis of titles and abstracts, and then 31 trials were excluded because of inappropriate contrast, while 32 were excluded for the assessment of prophylactic effect or other reasons. Finally, 9 articles [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] fulfilled our eligibility criteria after manual search and a review of full manuscripts. The study selection procedure is outlined in Figure 1.…”

Section: Study Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extra Dose of Vitamin C Based on a Daily Supplementation Shortens the Common Cold: A Meta-Analysis of 9 Randomized Controlled Trials

Zhao

Wang³

et al. 2018

BioMed Research International

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Aim To investigate whether vitamin C is effective in the treatment of the common cold. Method After systematically searching the National Library of Medicine (PubMed), Cochrane Library, Elsevier, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), VIP databases, and WANFANG databases, 9 randomized placebo-controlled trials were included in our meta-analysis in RevMan 5.3 software, all of which were in English. Results In the evaluation of vitamin C, administration of extra therapeutic doses at the onset of cold despite routine supplementation was found to help reduce its duration (mean difference (MD) = -0.56, 95% confidence interval (CI) [-1.03, -0.10], and P = 0.02), shorten the time of confinement indoors (MD = -0.41, 95% CI [-0.62, -0.19], and P = 0.0002), and relieve the symptoms associated with it, including chest pain (MD = -0.40, 95% CI [-0.77, -0.03], and P = 0.03), fever (MD = -0.45, 95% CI [-0.78, -0.11], and P = 0.009), and chills (MD = -0.36, 95% CI [-0.65, -0.07], and P = 0.01). Conclusions Extra doses of vitamin C could benefit some patients who contract the common cold despite taking daily vitamin C supplements.

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Section: Study Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extra Dose of Vitamin C Based on a Daily Supplementation Shortens the Common Cold: A Meta-Analysis of 9 Randomized Controlled Trials

Zhao

Wang³

et al. 2018

BioMed Research International

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“…Karlowski et al (22) and Anderson et al (13,35) found that the estimates derived from regular supplementation do not overestimate the benefit of a 5-day therapeutic regime (7), suggesting that the estimates in Figure 1 may crudely apply to appropriate therapeutic supplementation. A few other trials have examined the role of therapeutic regimes, some reporting benefit from vitamin C (36-38), while some others found no effect (37)(38)(39)(40).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the therapeutic trials, however, both a delay in the initiation of the treatment, and an inappropriately short treatment period might decrease the benefit. The former effect was observed in one of the therapeutic trials (36), and the latter effect may explain the inefficacy of vitamin C in three therapeutic trials in which supplementation lasted for only 2-3 days while the mean duration of cold episodes was 5-8 days (37)(38)(39). Finally, it is noteworthy that none of the published therapeutic trials used children as subjects, whereas the regular supplementation studies have on average found a considerably greater benefit for children ( Table 1, Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Vitamin C supplementation and common cold symptoms: factors affecting the magnitude of the benefit

Hemilä

1999

Medical Hypotheses

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SUMMARYPlacebo-controlled trials have shown that vitamin C supplementation decreases the duration and severity of common cold infections. However, the magnitude of the benefit has substantially varied, hampering conclusions about the clinical significance of the vitamin. In this paper, 23 studies with regular vitamin C supplementation ( 1 g/day) were analyzed to find out factors that may explain some part of the variation in the results. It was found that on average, vitamin C produces greater benefit for children than for adults. The dose may also affect the magnitude of the benefit, there being on average greater benefit from 2 g/day compared to 1 g/day of the vitamin. In five studies with adults administered 1 g/day of vitamin C, the median decrease in cold duration was only 6%, whereas in two studies with children administered 2 g/day the median decrease was four times higher, 26%. The trials analyzed in this work used regular vitamin C supplementation, but it is conceivable that therapeutic supplementation starting early at the onset of the cold episode could produce comparable benefits. Since few trials have examined the effects of therapeutic supplementation and their results have been variable, further therapeutic trials are required to examine the role of vitamin C in the treatment of colds.

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“…Megadoses of vitamin C (3 g/d) have been shown to prevent cold and flu symptoms in students 18-30 y of age [11]. Lower doses of vitamin C have not been shown to prevent cold symptoms in a number of trials [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. Doses of vitamin C in excess of 1 g/d taken shortly after onset of a cold symptom did not decrease the duration or severity of cold symptoms in healthy adult volunteers when compared with a vitamin C dose lower than the minimum recommended daily intake [29].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combined inhalational and oral supplementation of ascorbic acid may prevent influenza pandemic emergency: A hypothesis

Banerjee

Kaul

2010

Nutrition

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Occurrence of influenza pandemics is a worldwide phenomenon and a significant cause of mortality and morbidity throughout the globe. It is due to mutations in the influenza virus genetic material creating antigenic drift of pathogenic viral proteins resulting in emergence of new influenza virus strains. Therefore, the vaccines available for prevention of influenza offer no protection against influenza pandemics caused by new virus strains. Moreover, the existing drugs used to combat influenza may be ineffective to treat influenza pandemics due to the emergence of drug resistance in the pandemic virus strain. Therefore, a working strategy must be developed to combat influenza pandemics. In this review we have addressed this problem and reviewed the published studies on ascorbic acid in the common cold and influenza and laboratory studies on the effect of ascorbic acid on influenza virus. We have also correlated the clinical and laboratory studies and developed a hypothesis to prevent influenza pandemics.

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Antihistaminic Agents and Ascorbic Acid in the Early Treatment of the Common Cold

Cited by 36 publications

References 2 publications

Extra Dose of Vitamin C Based on a Daily Supplementation Shortens the Common Cold: A Meta-Analysis of 9 Randomized Controlled Trials

Extra Dose of Vitamin C Based on a Daily Supplementation Shortens the Common Cold: A Meta-Analysis of 9 Randomized Controlled Trials

Vitamin C supplementation and common cold symptoms: factors affecting the magnitude of the benefit

Combined inhalational and oral supplementation of ascorbic acid may prevent influenza pandemic emergency: A hypothesis

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