Researchers set up a study to determine whether large doses of a nutritional supplement would shorten the length of time it takes to recover from a cold. three thousand volunteers were split into two groups. for two weeks, members of group a took 3,000 mg of the supplement daily. group b received 3,000 mg of a placebo. at the end of the two-week period, the researchers inserted live cold viruses directly into the noses of all the volunteers. the volunteers in both group a and group b continued to take their daily pills. all the volunteers got colds, and there was no significant difference in the length of time the colds lasted.