Vitamin C as a Supplementary Therapy in Relieving Symptoms of the Common Cold: A Meta-Analysis of 10 Randomized Controlled Trials

AIM: To investigate whether vitamin C performs well as a supplemental treatment for common cold. METHOD: After systematically searching through the National Library of Medicine (PubMed), Cochrane Library, Elsevier, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), VIP databases, and Wanfang databases, 10 randomized controlled trials were selected for our meta-analysis with RevMan 5.3 software. Published in China, all 10 studies evaluated the effect of combined vitamin C and antiviral therapy for the treatment of common cold. RESULTS: The total efficacy (RR = 1.27, 95% CI (1.08, 1.48), P = 0.003), the time for symptom amelioration (MD = −15.84, 95% CI (-17.02, -14.66), P < 0.00001), and the time for healing (I, 95% CI (-14.98, -4.22), P = 0.0005) were better with vitamin C supplementation than with antiviral therapy alone. CONCLUSIONS: Vitamin C could be used as a supplementary therapy along with antiviral regimens to relieve patients from the symptoms of common cold.