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Recent studies have found that drinking apple cider vinegar keeps blood sugar levels stable, and helps with weight loss and reducing sugar cravings, but some experts are not convinced. Photo: Alamy

Apple cider vinegar: Katy Perry and Victoria Beckham swear by it, but health experts are not convinced

  • Drinking apple cider vinegar regularly keeps blood sugar levels stable, and helps with weight loss and reducing sugar cravings, recent studies have found
  • Despite these results, doctors still can’t come to a definitive conclusion about how effective it really is
Wellness

The drink that celebrities such as Beyoncé, Jennifer Aniston and Gwyneth Paltrow start the day with isn’t coffee; it’s lemon water, a simple concoction of warm water and fresh lemon juice.

Besides flooding the body with immunity-boosting vitamin C, drinking warm lemon water on an empty stomach is said to aid digestion, improve the skin, maintain the body’s pH level and reduce inflammation.

For singer Katy Perry and fashion designer Victoria Beckham, it’s apple cider vinegar, or ACV, that they reach for first thing in the morning. In a 2017 Instagram post, Beckham revealed that she consumes two tablespoons of undiluted ACV every morning on an empty stomach. ACV is said to be a little more beneficial than lemon water in keeping blood sugar levels stable, helping with weight loss and reducing sugar cravings.

But how valid are these claims? According to one short-term Japanese study, published in 2009 in the journal Bioscience, Biotechnology and Biochemistry, drinking ACV was shown to help with weight loss.

Celebrities like Beyoncé, Jennifer Aniston and Gwyneth Paltrow are big fans of drinking lemon water. Photo: Alamy

Overweight men and women consumed 15ml of the vinegar mixed with 250ml of water twice a day as part of their regular diet. After 12 weeks, the participants each lost about one kilogram, although once they stopped drinking the diluted ACV, their weight returned to usual levels within four weeks.

“It’s a well-cited study, but it’s hard to correlate the results with the consumption of ACV,” says Karen Chong Kam-leng, a dietitian at Hong Kong’s Matilda International Hospital. “Yet many people still drink ACV regularly in the belief that it keeps their weight and blood sugar levels under control.”

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The weight loss result may be explained by vinegar’s appetite-suppressing quality. Researchers in the UK put this notion to the test, getting volunteers to consume a pleasant-tasting vinegar drink, a less palatable vinegar drink or a non-vinegar drink with their breakfast. The volunteers who drank the vinegar drinks reported feeling nauseated and lost their appetite. Of the two vinegar drinks, the less palatable one had the greatest effect. The results of this study were published in 2014 in the International Journal of Obesity.

A 2005 study by Swedish researchers published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that adding vinegar to a carbohydrate-rich meal reduced blood sugar and insulin levels – but only for 45 minutes. The participants, who were all healthy, also reported increased satiety for up to two hours after their meal.

Despite these studies’ results, it is difficult to come to a definitive conclusion about the effect of vinegar on weight and blood sugar levels. And there is no evidence to support the other health claims of drinking ACV or lemon juice – that it can melt fat and keep the arteries clear, shrink tumours, “detoxify” the blood, and heal arthritis.

Karen Chong, a dietitian at Hong Kong’s Matilda International Hospital.

Still, if you are considering getting in on the trend, but the thought of drinking tart lemon water or funky ACV every morning makes your insides churn, you may want to try the drinking vinegars that are now available commercially. In addition to ACV or lemon, these chilled drinks, sometimes called vinegar tonics, may also contain other health-giving ingredients such as ginger, spices such as turmeric and cardamom, maple syrup, honey, beet, and even horseradish and habanero pepper.

Malaysian Peter Tan regularly drinks vinegar himself and was so convinced of its health benefits that he opened a fruit vinegar bar called VinegPlus in 2011, which now has locations across Malaysia.

“Vinegar has been around for more than 3,000 years and people have long used it as a digestive aid,” he says. “I wanted to share the health-giving properties of vinegar with others, but in a more palatable form.”

ACV is made by fermenting apple juice with bacteria and yeast to produce alcohol, which is then converted into vinegar. The fruit vinegar in the drinks sold at VinegPlus is a little different in that they all start with a base of glutinous rice wine, made by fermenting glutinous rice.

If your diet is unhealthy and you don’t exercise, then no amount of these beverages is going to help you burn fat and shift those excess kilos
Karen Chong, a dietitian at Hong Kong’s Matilda International Hospital

The glutinous rice wine is then converted to vinegar, and the vinegar combined with apples, pineapple, lemon and other fruits to create fruit vinegar. To make the fruit vinegar more palatable, honey and a probiotic are added.

VinegPlus customers can also choose how they want to enjoy their fruit vinegar – blended with ice and fresh fruit such as mango, orange or jackfruit; combined with cucumber or celery juice; or mixed with fruit, cereal and low-fat milk. The fruit vinegar can also be drunk as is, served warm or chilled.

If you want to make drinking ACV or other vinegars a part of your morning ritual, Chong warns against drinking the vinegar undiluted – because of its acidic nature, the vinegar may not only damage tooth enamel but also burn the oesophagus. She recommends diluting it with water before consuming it.

The damage can be severe. In one case report, published in 2002 in the Hong Kong Medical Journal, a woman who had consumed a tablespoon of household rice vinegar was found to have suffered inflammation in the throat and second-degree caustic burns in the oesophagus.

Peter Tan, founder of fruit vinegar bar VinegPlus in Malaysia.

She had taken the vinegar to “soften” a piece of crab shell that had lodged in her throat – a common home remedy in China for dissolving or dislodging fish bones and other foreign bodies in the throat.

Chong also says that drinking vinegar is not a quick way to slim down.

“Losing weight boils down to eating the right foods in the right amounts and exercising, it’s as simple as that,” she says. “Drinking lemon water, ACV and other vinegars might make you feel like you’re doing something good for your body, but if your diet is unhealthy and you don’t exercise, then no amount of these beverages is going to help you burn fat and shift those excess kilos.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Doctors divided on the benefits of drinking apple cider vinegar
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