It\u2019s such an oft-repeated thing it has\u00a0become common knowledge: Vitamin C is what we need when we are coming down with a cold or flu. Many swear it helps them prevent winter ills; others say it eases and erases symptoms and helps them bounce back if they do get struck down. But what is the truth here? Is vitamin C the cold cure and immunity boost we may believe it to be?<\/p>\n
Where did this idea come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n The link between vitamin C and immunity is well established, in the sense that this is an essential vitamin that we need for the proper functioning of our immune system. Vitamin C\u00a0plays a role in various processes in the body, including the production of white blood cells and antibodies. Having enough vitamin C in our bodies is important for our overall immune function, and our overall health.<\/p>\n This link was discovered way back before anyone had identified or named vitamins as vitamins, when it was found that sailors in the 18th<\/sup>\u00a0century could recover quickly from scurvy when they ate citrus fruits, which we now know are high in vitamin C\u00a0(it took until 1933 for the link to be fully understood).<\/p>\n We now know that this vitamin is crucial for collagen synthesis – it helps our skin heal and helps maintain bone, tendons and blood vessels – and it helps us absorb iron from the foods we eat. It is\u00a0also an antioxidant, protecting cells from damage caused by harmful free radicals, reducing oxidative stress and promoting overall cellular health.<\/p>\n The idea of supplementing with vitamin C probably came from the fact that it is\u00a0not stored in the body; we need to get it regularly from what we eat and drink in order to keep our levels up. The \u2018insurance policy\u2019 thinking that applies to most vitamins comes into play here: if we\u2019re not getting enough from our food, we reason, why not top up with a supplement?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s such an oft-repeated thing it has\u00a0become common knowledge: Vitamin C is what we need when we are coming down with a cold or flu. Many swear it helps them prevent winter ills; others say it eases and erases symptoms and helps them bounce back if they do get struck down. But what is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5713,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5711\/revisions\/5713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}