Linus Pauling's Vitamin C Cold Prevention Claims Debunked by Decades of Scientific Data
Decades of scientific research have largely debunked the widespread belief that high-dose vitamin C can prevent the common cold, a notion popularized by Nobel laureate Linus Pauling in his 1970 book 'Vitamin C and the Common Cold.' Pauling, a renowned American chemist who won Nobel Prizes in Chemistry (1954) and Peace (1962), advocated for daily intake of 1,000 to 2,000 milligrams of vitamin C for health and significantly more to prevent colds. His claims, however, were based on a single small clinical trial involving children at Swiss Alps ski camps and a limited number of studies with low sample counts and questionable quality. Academia immediately questioned his analysis, which also contained mathematical data errors. Subsequent large-scale clinical studies have consistently shown no evidence that megadoses of vitamin C prevent the general public from developing a cold. While some research indicates a slight reduction in the duration of severe cold symptoms (around 15%), this effect is only observed wit... 
