Does drinking orange juice actually help if you have a cold?
- Taking vitamin C regularly can help prevent cold symptoms but does not shorten the duration
- Citric acid in juice can irritate throat, so it’s best to choose decaf tea or water with lemon
Vitamin C can keep you healthy and help prevent colds, but how useful is it when you already have one? Photo: ShutterstockThere are plenty of at-home remedies that claim to help with a cold, from eating a garlic clove to gargling salt water. One of the most popular – and tastiest – is drinking orange juice. And it makes a lot of sense; orange juice is packed with vitamin C, a proven immune booster.
But does it actually help clear a cold?
“Research shows that taking a [vitamin C] supplement regularly can help to ward off cold symptoms, but taking it after you have a cold already does not shorten the duration,” explained Amy Shapiro, MS, RD, a registered dietitian, to the website Health.
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Moreover, the citric acid in orange juice can actually make things worse.
“It contains citric acid, which irritates the lining of your already-inflamed throat,” said Taz Bhatia, MD, a professor of integrative medicine at Emory University and author of What Doctors Eat.
Instead of orange juice, consider liquids that can help sooth a sore throat, including:
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Decaf Tea
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Water with lemon
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Soup
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Ice chips or ice pops
It’s also best to avoid sports drinks, coffee, ginger ale and alcohol when you have a cold.