Apple cider vinegar has been on my radar since the 1970s when I was first asked about its purported miraculous properties on my radio show. The queries were triggered by the publication of a booklet with the enticing title 鈥淎pple Cider Vinegar, Miracle Healthy System,鈥� by Drs. Paul C. Bragg and Patricia Bragg,鈥� both with degrees from unaccredited naturopathic institutions. These food faddists promised weight loss, improved digestion, and enhanced energy levels by consuming apple cider vinegar.
This was not the first time that vinegar was cloaked in the mantle of being a health enhancing product. Hippocratic texts recommended honey and vinegar for coughs, and according to a story told in many books, during the 15th聽century when the bubonic plague descended on Europe, four thieves were able to rob the deceased by wearing masks soaked in vinegar that protected them from being infected. Undoubtedly a myth.
During the patent medicine era of the mid- 1800s, nostrums such as Dr. Walker鈥檚 Vinegar Bitters claimed to energize the body, relieve constipation and ease an upset stomach. Then in the 1960s, Dr. DeForest Clinton Jarvis, an obscure country physician published "Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor's Guide to Good Health,鈥� in which he extolled the virtues of apple cider vinegar and honey, conveying the general impression that the mixture would cure almost anything.
I hadn鈥檛 heard of apple cider vinegar until I was asked about it and although the claims I heard from my caller sounded hoakey, I thought I better look into them. I did. I read through the Braggs鈥� pamphlet and skimmed Dr. Jarvis鈥� book. It was clear that the 鈥渆vidence鈥� consisted of some sketchy vinegar history and ebullient personal anecdotes. After that, apple cider vinegar became sort of a running gag on the show. When someone complained that they were unable to get stains out of their bathtub, or that they were losing hair, I would say 鈥渉ave you tried apple cider vinegar?鈥� After a while the joke wore off and I did not encounter this magical vinegar again until four decades later when Dr. Oz gushed about its astonishing effects on his show. Once more I heard about reducing blood sugar, losing weight and having day-long energy. The evidence? A flurry of anecdotes from women who were amazed by what a teaspoon of the stuff could do. I was amazed by how a highly trained physician swallowed it all.
After poking some fun at Dr. Oz鈥檚 credulity, apple cider vinegar got relegated to the back burner. But then in 2024 it catapulted to my attention once more when a paper appeared in the prestigious British Medical Journal Nutrition with the title 鈥淎pple cider vinegar for weight management in Lebanese adolescents and young adults with overweight and obesity: a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study.鈥� This wasn鈥檛 the Daily Mail or the National Enquirer, this was a proper peer-reviewed journal that documented serious weight loss with apple cider vinegar. As might be expected, a press release about the study attracted massive media attention.
I read the paper in which the authors described giving 5, 10 or 15 mL of apple cider vinegar or a placebo daily to randomized groups of overweight subjects for 12 weeks. The trial seemed to be well done, and it prompted me to modify my view about apple cider vinegar although I adhered to the policy, one that I always emphasize to students, of not basing too much emphasis on a single study. Trials have to be repeated and results duplicated before we start jumping on any bandwagon.
I do remember noting a couple of items. There wasn鈥檛 much of a dose-response effect. The groups that consumed either 5 or 10 mL had very similar results in terms of weight loss. The other puzzling result was the amount of weight lost, as much as 7 kilograms over 12 weeks. That was astounding! Those are the kind of numbers one sees with Ozempic and Wegovy, the highly touted GLP-1 agonists. I thought that was surprising especially given that there is no apparent physiological explanation for how vinegar could cause such an effect. But that is what they found, and I couldn't find anything wrong with the study, so I even introduced it into my lecture on weight control.
Within a couple of weeks of the publication of the paper I began to notice some letters to the editor questioning the quality of the research and the dramatic weight loss reported. Soon the criticisms mounted to such an extent that the journal sought an independent review by experts who found a number of flaws with the procedure and also concluded that the statistics had been improperly analyzed and the results in fact could not be supported by the data. A year after the paper was published, the journal decided to retract it. Needless to say, that did not silence the apple cider vinegar proponents who still make extravagant claims of benefits. As for me, I continued to make reference to the study in my lecture, but this time not about the benefits of apple cider vinegar for weight loss. I used the study as an example of the need to be appropriately skeptical even when it comes to a peer-reviewed paper. As it turned out, I was not done with apple cider vinegar. In 2025, a Netflix series entitled 鈥淎pple Cider Vinegar鈥� caught my attention. It was based on the story of Belle Gibson, an Australian 鈥渨ellness influencer,鈥� who falsely claimed that her brain cancer, which she did not actually have, was cured by natural remedies such as apple cider vinegar. This also made it into my lecture.
This whole sordid apple cider vinegar business did intrigue me enough to find out what this brown liquid that so many sing the praises of tasted like. I bought a bottle of Bragg Apple Cider Vinegar that the label described as 鈥測our daily dose of wellness.鈥� I tried it on French fries. Didn鈥檛 do well.
