Dr. Harri Hemilä, MD, PhD: Vitamin C for Infections and the Common Cold

Dr. Hemilä became interested in the possible benefit of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) when exposed to conflicting opinions on its clinical efficacy. He has spent decades specialising in vitamin C research and, as a result, has addresses important issues such as the efficacy of vitamin C, sub-groups most likely to benefit, and dose-response relationship. Dr. Hemilä has also published several important papers that reveal methodological and analytical problems as well as bias in vitamin C research that, at least in part, explain why vitamin C has been sidelined in medicine and erroneously dismissed. In this informative interview he speaks to the history of vitamin C research for infection and its clinical implications.

 

Guest: 

Dr. Harri Hemilä, MD, PhD

 

About our guest: 

Dr. Harri Hemilä first studied biochemistry and received his PhD (biochemistry) in 1993. Thereafter he studied medicine and receive MD degree, and thereafter PhD (epidemiology) in 2006. His major scientific interest has been the effects of vitamin C on the common cold, and on infections in general. He has not done experimental work of his own in this field, but he has carried out several meta-analyses that have estimated the effects of vitamin C from studies published over half a century. He has also analyzed the effects of vitamin E on infections and on total mortality in the ATBC Study data set of 29,133 Finnish male smokers. Most recently he has carried out meta-analyses on the treatment effects of zinc lozenges on the duration of the common cold. Along with research, he is doing clinical work in the GP context. By the year 2021, he has 155 PubMed publications, 76 of which are focused on vitamin C, 28 on vitamin E, and 12 on zinc lozenges. Dr. Hemilä is Adjunct P