Other researchers considered. When the subject of vitamins comes up, there are many voices competing for your ears, mind - and wallet. New discoveries signal departures from age-old treatments, while new inquiries into "traditional" medicine often reveals previously unknown substances with curative, preventive and healing properties. Lyman Pauling, a two-time Nobel Prize winner (chemistry and, later, peace) was a lifelong advocate for the substance and recommended megadoses of it for most everyone. Some work, most are harmless at best but some can be damaging to your body.

Always take care to use the recommended amounts of vitamins and minerals and don't "get creative" without seeking authoritative counsel with your doctor. In fact, taking megadoses of the wrong vitamins can have serious consequences. Americans spend billions of dollars a year on over-the-counter treatments, vitamins, mineral supplements and other "natural" healing products.

However, he was never able to show conclusively that Vitamin C "prevented" a cold. Medical science is a constantly changing thing. It is always important, of course, to maintain what is called an "evidence-based" view of health and nutrition, while remaining reasonably open-minded about "new things," however old they are.

Fighting and treating colds The vitamin most often mentioned as a treatment for the com cold (coryza virus) is Vitamin C.