Is Emergen-C Enough To Kick Your Cold?
If you read my last post (thank you), you will know where these recommendations have come from and their original sources. If you’re just reading this one, you’ve probably saved yourself a headache and have shown up just for dessert!
I’m an athlete and I want to know how much C to take? I want to limit my chance of catching a cold, but if I get one, I want to get rid of it quickly. Oh, and I don’t want to lose out on training adaptation… help me!
Start with meeting the RDA based on your age (adults could consider up to 200mg)
There are positive effects of maintaining a consistent C plasma level of ~50umol/L which can help in an immune response.
Taking a daily dose of 1g will create a transient spike in plasma C that will return to baseline over the day. It has positive effects in reducing cold duration. At this level, you seem to get a good anti-oxidant effect without significantly blunting positive adaptations from training.
Taking a daily dose of 2g will create a higher transient spike in plasma C that returns slower to baseline over the day. It is the tolerable upper limit due to the potential of diarrhea after this point. It has the best observed effects over the largest sample size in reducing cold duration. However, you may be blunting positive training adaptations.
Taking a daily dose of 3g orally has not been extensively looked and due to the GI distress but this will create the highest peak plasma concentration possible through oral administration.
If you’re taking C prophylactically and do get a cold, increasing the dose therapeutically for the duration of the cold is suggested to increase the benefit.
Think: 1g/day prophylactically and 2g/day therapeutically, as an example.
If you are increasing your training load, training intensely for long stretches of time, in a flu season, live in the cold, are prone to getting colds, or have an important competition coming up then increasing your daily C intake will have some effect on decreasing the likelihood of you getting a cold as well as decrease the duration and possibly the severity of symptoms, if you were to catch a cold.
Taking C strictly as a therapeutic (once you’ve caught a cold) is probably useful although the research looks like the wild west.
What can be said is, you need to get it in your system fast, at the latest 1 day after the onset of symptoms, and you need to take it for a minimum of 5 days, with higher doses having a greater effect. Think of that plasma level bell curve. What doses are going to create the highest levels?
Quite vague, but based on the numbers above you know where to start.
The blunting of certain training adaptations when taking high doses of C is also likely less important because… well you’re sick and probably not training hard or at all.
IV-C opens up some wild possibilities around plasma concentrations of C but hasn’t been studied significantly in the reduction of colds and is likely not overly accessible. Would be interesting to see what happens if given within 24hr of a cold starting.
Is Emergen-C (1g, recommended 1x/day on the box) enough to kick your cold faster?
As a therapeutic…simply put… No. 1g therapeutically is unlikely to make a significant change over the duration of a cold.
Is it is better than nothing…? Probably, but a long shot for you to truly notice a difference.
Taking 1 sachet (1g/day) prophylactically will shorten the duration if you do happen to get a cold and may reduce the incidence. The effectiveness of this varies with age.
Taking more than one sachet a day, therapeutically, is probably necessary to create a meaningful change in cold duration and severity. The Emergen-C box says take 1 a day. So take that as you will. The marketing is hot but the data is not.
FYI
30 [1g] sachets of Emergen-C costs $18 CAD @ Shoppers Drug Mart.
330 [500mg] chewable C gummies costs $26 CAD @ Shoppers Drug Mart. Recommended doses are based on age on the bottle. But at a comparable 1g [2 gummies/day] that will last you 115 days, taking it prophylactically.
Where you go with this is information is up to you! Thanks for taking the time to read!
Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor and this is not medical advice. You are responsible for your health. Always consult with the appropriate health authority to make sure it’s safe for you to add or change any supplements in your diet.
