Drinking apple cider vinegar may help with weight loss but its health benefits are overstated

By Stephen Hughes, Anglia Ruskin University

Each morning at breakfast, my partner gives me orange juice that tastes more sour than expected. One day, she explained that she adds apple cider vinegar to improve my health.

As a former primary schoolteacher she swears by the stuff. She tells me she kept apple cider vinegar in the staff room so that when children became ill with diarrhoea and vomiting, she could take it immediately to protect her from the illness.

I was sceptical about yet another immune-boosting miracle ingredient. Apple cider vinegar is a natural product made of fermented apple juice that has gone sour. Apparently, the best stuff is cloudy and has sediment, known as the “mother”, because it is relatively unfiltered – this is where the good bacteria lives. Without the mother, there’s unlikely to be much benefit to taking apple cider vinegar.

But is there any real benefit in the first place? I decided to turn medical sleuth and investigate whether apple cider vinegar is as good for health as it sounds. There isn’t as much scientific evidence to support its popularity as a health tonic as some influencers might like to think.

Claim: disinfectant properties

Vinegar has a long history as a surface decontaminant and perhaps this is why salad dressings contain vinegar – as well as adding flavour, it may kill micro-organisms on raw vegetables.

But does apple cider vinegar’s decontaminant qualities translate to the human gut? Our stomachs produce acid, which acts as a natural barrier to infection, so how can adding more acid help?

Research suggests that apple cider vinegar delays stomach emptying so perhaps increased time in contact with stomach acid might account for the claimed protective effect against enteric infections.

Claim: weight loss and management of type 2 diabetes

There are plenty of anecdotal claims that apple cider vinegar can aid weight loss, supported by limited evidence from several small studies.

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