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Vinegar Miracle Cure!

Ziggy66

Thinker
Ziggy66
Joined
Jan 24, 2008
Messages
241
Well, on the phone earlier today my mother informed me that she got a new book touting vinegar as the latest miracle cure and that it will help her lower her blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels (she's a diabetic). A sister of a friend of hers started drinking 2 tablespoons of vinegar a day and she's lost 15 pounds and lowered her cholesterol!!!

I know this is old news and I'm guessing the book is all anecdotal (as well as her friend's gullible sister).

Does anyone know of a good debunking resource for this BS?
 
I've heard similar from my parents doctor. The difference being, he was recommending cider vinegar to lower cholesterol. They have been choking down a half once every day for the last 3 months. They are still waiting for the results from their latest blood work.

MrQhuest
 
Vinegar was also the latest miracle cure in 1962 when my father started taking it and reading a ridiculous book that claimed if you mixed honey and vinegar you had the super duper ultimate cure. He died a few months later.

Seems like vinegar as the latest miracle cure 46 years ago too.
 
My Doctor has not been able to lower my blood pressure with medication.

It was dangerously high and had been for awhile.

A couple of weeks ago I heard about AVC (apple cider vinegar).

I started taking two teaspoons a day of Braggs organic AVC.

In two to three days my blood pressure went down significantly.
 
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It's not the latest "miracle cure," it's one of the oldest. The Wikipedia page on vinegar lists one study showing cholesterol lowering in rats that were given acetic acid, and several studies that may show that vinegar can reduce the glycemic index of foods. Not much to go on there, but I don't see how it can hurt either, as long as it isn't replacing known effective treatments and no miracles are expected.

Your parents will be glad to hear about this amazing new product.
 
Back when I was gullible, I tried drinking a 'vinegar tea' with apple cider vinegar every day for a while, supposedly to help with digestion and whatnot. It gave me the worst heartburn I've ever had and started giving me some wicked mouth ulcers. I also suffered damage to my gums and it made my teeth start to feel weird.
I got this idea from a list of "Amazing Uses for Vinegar" which actually had quite a few helpful hints (like catching flies - no really! fruit flies love the stuff), even if many of the health claims all seem awfully dubious now.
 
Sunni Man said:
My Doctor has not been able to lower my blood pressure with medication.

It was dangerously high and had been for awhile.

A couple of weeks ago I heard about AVC (apple cider vinegar).

I started taking two teaspoons a day of Braggs organic AVC.

In two to three days my blood pressure went down significantly.
Click to expand...

Careful. When I did a search on Google I got "Web Results 1 - 50 of about 3,550 for "apple cider vinegar" homosexuallity. (0.36 seconds) " :jaw-dropp
 
Whatever the supposed benefits of vinegar, it is a saturated fatty acid with a chain length of ONE. The shorter the chain length, the easier to absorb. So maybe it does do something for fat transport systems. Cholesterol is a fat transporter...

And maybe some folks have high blood pressure because they have a deficiency in short chain oils? If only you had a way to know if these were your problems...
 
Hm, could vinegar make you nauseaus and motivated to not eat as much? Then exercising and eating blander non-greasy foods could lead to the rest of the "side effects"...
 
casebro said:
vinegar...is a saturated fatty acid with a chain length of ONE.
Click to expand...



Um, what?

From what I remember of my high school chemistry class, vinegar is just acetic acid, not a fatty acid, which is a different thing. Nothing in the Wiki article on vinegar says it's a fatty acid. Nothing in the Wiki article on fatty acids mentions vinegar being a fatty acid. And nothing turns up on Google for "vinegar fatty acid".

So, hanh?
 
Goshawk said:
Um, what?

From what I remember of my high school chemistry class, vinegar is just acetic acid, not a fatty acid, which is a different thing. Nothing in the Wiki article on vinegar says it's a fatty acid. Nothing in the Wiki article on fatty acids mentions vinegar being a fatty acid. And nothing turns up on Google for "vinegar fatty acid".

So, hanh?
Click to expand...

Both acetic acid and fatty acids are carboxylic acids, which I supposed could be what casebro's thinking of. But fatty acids are insoluble in water, acetic acid isn't.

Wikipedia's definition of fatty acids: "– medium to long-chain saturated and unsaturated monocarboxylic acids, with even number of carbons" Very specific, very not acetic.
 
Tell anyone who tells you some nonsense like that to repeat "Correlation does not equal causation" to themselves 100 times. Then stand there while they do that.

"I started working out 45 minutes a day, cut all the sugars and a lot of the bad carbohydrates from my diet, cut down on the fatty meats, and took two tablespoons of vinegar a day! Guess which one made me lose weight?"
 
There is some evidence for vinegar reducing the glycemic index of meals eaten at about the same time, and thus making you less hungry. Sure, that's not a big magic cure-all, but it's a small positive. Dr Jennie Brand-Miller's group at Sydney University is big on this GI stuff; it seems legit.
 
MetalSeagull said:
This reminds me of "Jogging in a Jug." It was some mixture of juice and vinegar that my parents were taking for a while. It promised all kinds of unlikely health benefits.

You can read about the fine levied on the company here:
http://www.casewatch.org/ftc/news/1995/thirdoption.shtml
Click to expand...
In addition to problems with false claims, sometimes manufacturers back up claims with active drugs: http://www.fda.gov/hearthealth/news/news.html This is a common problem with supplements and must always be considered when faced with "amazing" results.
 
Ziggy66 said:
Well, on the phone earlier today my mother informed me that she got a new book touting vinegar as the latest miracle cure and that it will help her lower her blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels (she's a diabetic). A sister of a friend of hers started drinking 2 tablespoons of vinegar a day and she's lost 15 pounds and lowered her cholesterol!!!

I know this is old news and I'm guessing the book is all anecdotal (as well as her friend's gullible sister).

Does anyone know of a good debunking resource for this BS?
Click to expand...
Is this the book from Windsor Health? I complained about theirs some while ago, and they agreed to withdraw the ad. In fact Windsor has been hauled up 5 times for false advertising. In terms of evidence, I can't find any clinical trials of vinegar/acetic acid on cholesterol using a PubMed search.
 
casebro said:
Whatever the supposed benefits of vinegar, it is a saturated fatty acid with a chain length of ONE. The shorter the chain length, the easier to absorb. So maybe it does do something for fat transport systems. Cholesterol is a fat transporter...

And maybe some folks have high blood pressure because they have a deficiency in short chain oils? If only you had a way to know if these were your problems...
Click to expand...

Well, I wouldn't get TOO complex with an attempted explanation... just yet. You choke down the vinegar, and you're so disgusted by it that you don't want to eat anything else for a while. I imagine that if you take it right before a meal (is that how it's "prescribed"?) that you won't eat as much during that meal. And, it is clearly established that losing weight has an effect on both blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and overall cardiovascular health.

-Dr. Imago
 
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