Trendy vitamin drinks boast of preventive powers

Many Americans are throwing back the trendy drink of the moment -- a so-called vitamin cocktail mixed with effervescent tablets and powders packed with vitamin C, zinc and herbs, and sold as a remedy to boost your immune system.

While stores across the country are stocking natural cold remedies, two California-based products, Emer’gen-C and Airborne, are breaking out of the pack by combining the promise of good health with high-profile promotion.

Airborne and Emer’gen-C are getting a boost from Hollywood types, who have been embracing the supplements with the same gusto as they do a trendy yoga class. Celebrities such as Britney Spears and Kevin Costner have credited the products with keeping them healthy on music tours and movie sets. The products have also gained mentions on the Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey talk shows.

Which brings up the obvious questions: Is it all hype or do they really work? In the medical community there’s some disagreement on that issue.

Not surprisingly, the companies themselves point to in-house studies and personal anecdotes to back their claims.

Victoria Knight-McDowell, a former second-grade teacher who developed Airborne, says she hasn’t been sick in years, adding: “I take it at the first sign of a cold and ... every few hours until there are no symptoms.”

Knight-McDowell was tired of catching the various bugs her students would bring to class. At home, she began experimenting with vitamin and herbal concoctions, finally finding one that she says kept her healthy during the winter months. That experience grew into the product Airborne, a tablet about the diameter of a quarter that dissolves in water. Its ingredients include ginger, echinacea, zinc, isatis root and 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C.

“My plan was to come up with something like this for my family, and I never expected what’s happened,” says Knight-McDowell, who runs Airborne Inc. with her husband, Rider.

What’s happening is that Knight-McDowell’s 8-year-old business is soaring; she projects that the privately held company’s sales will reach $100 million for the fiscal, or financial, year that ends in April. With a picture of an airplane featured on the container, consumers are advised to take the tablet before entering crowded areas -- or if they feel a virus coming on.

These natural remedies, which cost less than $1 a dose, are sometimes taken five or six times a day.

Alacer Corp., based in Foothill Ranch, created Emer’gen-C more than 20 years ago. But it took more than a decade for the product to really catch on. Emer’gen-C is sold in powder form and each packet contains 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C, B vitamins and various minerals.

While Emer’gen-C is sold as an “energy booster,” the company also pushes it as a cold and flu preventive. In fact, Alacer officials say they are benefiting from the recent flu vaccine shortage. Although the shortage has eased in the last few weeks, many Americans are expected to go through the flu season without the vaccine.

But can the supplements really deliver on their lofty promises? Some doctors say they simply don’t work, pointing out that studies on vitamin C and other antioxidants have been inconclusive.

“When you look at well-controlled studies, they probably have no benefit and, if they do, it’s marginal,” says Dr. Greg Moran, an infectious disease specialist at UCLA Medical Center. Moran believes that whatever benefit the vitamins have is likely a placebo -- that is, the patient’s expectation of some benefit from the treatment -- rather than an actual benefit from the therapy itself. However, Moran notes that the placebo effect itself can be “very strong medicine.”

But Dr. Michael Sukoff, a Santa Ana neurosurgeon, believes that such products really do work; he not only takes Emer’gen-C twice a day himself, but also recommends it to some of his patients. Sukoff says some earlier studies have shown the immune-enhancing benefits of vitamin C and antioxidants.