From the first hint of cold winter mornings, supermarkets and pharmacies begin heavy marketing to coax us to stock up on vitamin C to get through the cold and flu season.

But where did that idea come from?

As we’ll see, it’s a story including a Nobel Prize winner, a book and some claims that don’t quite stack up.

Nobel Prize winner writes a book

Linus Pauling was a chemist from the United States who won two Nobel Prizes. One was in 1954 for chemistry, for his research into chemical bonds. The other was in 1962 for peace, for his activism against nuclear weapons testing.

He was not a dietitian or an infectious disease physician. But that didn’t stop him publishing a book on vitamin C and colds in 1970. This book is widely credited with the skyrocketing sales of vitamin C at the time, a trend that continues today.

In this book, Pauling said we should consume high doses of vitamin C, around 1,000–2,000 milligrams a day for good health, and even more to prevent a cold.

His recommendations were said to be initially from one placebo-controlled trial in children on a ski camp in the Swiss Alps. He then analysed a further four studies conducted after his claims.

But his interpretation of these studies has been widely criticised. There were incorrect mathematical analyses, reliance on four poor-quality trials and the overemphasis of the study in........

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