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Vitamin C and Infectious Diseases

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Vitamin C

Abstract

Early in this century several authors suggested that vitamin C intake may have beneficial effects on the incidence and severity of various infections. Two exhaustive bibliographical searches of the old literature on vitamin C and infections have been published. One of them was overenthusiastic [1] in its interpretation of the findings, whereas the other was overly pessimistic [2]; neither offered any statistical analysis of the available data. However, a quantitative analysis of controlled studies has been published recently [3]. The mechanisms whereby vitamin C affects the immune system are poorly understood, although there are reports indicating that it affects the functions of phagocytes, the proliferation of T lymphocytes, the production of interferon, and the replication of viruses [3–5].

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Hemilä, H. (1998). Vitamin C and Infectious Diseases. In: Paoletti, R., Sies, H., Bug, J., Grossi, E., Poli, A. (eds) Vitamin C. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2244-7_8

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