Experts at Nantou Hospital have dispelled rumors that vitamin C supplements cure colds and warned that their excessive intake could instead lead to stones.
While vitamin C does speed up the healing of wounds and burns, as well as boost immunity, its protective properties are only apparent when a person’s immune system is in a normal state, Nantou Hospital nutritionist Tsai Hsiu-wen (蔡秀雯) said.
It does not, as is rumored online, alleviate cold symptoms or prevent colds, she said.
Moreover, vitamin C can be absorbed naturally through fruits and vegetables, Tsai said, adding that guavas, lemons and tangerines are all rich sources of the vitamin.
The common cold is an upper respiratory infection caused by a virus that results in symptoms such as a runny nose, nasal congestion, a sore throat and fatigue, Nantou Hospital family doctor Hsu Sheng-jung (許盛榮) said.
Symptoms can differ according to the type of virus that caused the infection, as well as a person’s physical condition, he said.
Unless what they have contracted is the flu, people with a common cold do not require immediate medical attention, Hsu said.
Most people with a common cold can recover without medication in about a week by simply drinking warm water and getting more rest, he said.
Regardless of the quantity of vitamin C a person consumes, the human body can only absorb about 200mg per day, with the excess expelled through urine, the Health Promotion Administration has said.
However, as vitamin C is metabolized into oxalic acid, which bonds with calcium to create stones, excessive intake could be detrimental to a person’s health, the agency said.
The best way to prevent colds is to maintain a healthy lifestyle and diet, routinely exercise and wash your hands frequently, the hospital said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching