Online: | |
Visits: | |
Stories: |
Story Views | |
Now: | |
Last Hour: | |
Last 24 Hours: | |
Total: |
Anecdotes about the health benefits of vinegar proliferate wildly, as do claims by skeptics that it is nothing more than placebo medicine. So, what does the scientific evidence actually say?
According to a review published in MedGenMed titled, “Vinegar: Medicinal Uses & Antiglycemic Effect,” which set out to examine the scientific evidence for the medicinal uses of vinegar, folklore concerning vinegar’s discovery stretch back to the very beginnings of recorded history:
Legend states that a courtier in Babylonia (c. 5000 BC) “discovered” wine, formed from unattended grape juice, leading to the eventual discovery of vinegar and its use as a food preservative.
This fascinating review describes the history of vinegar to be “as colorful as it is practical,” stating that, “Hippocrates (c. 420 BC) used vinegar medicinally to manage wounds and Cleopatra (c. 50 BC) dissolved precious pearls in vinegar and offered her love potion to Anthony. Sung Tse, the 10th century creator of forensic medicine, advocated hand washing with sulfur and vinegar to avoid infection during autopsies.” Interestingly, vinegar “teas” were used by US medical practitioners of the late 18th century for ailments ranging from dropsy to poison ivy, croup, and stomachache,[1] as this was before the production and marketing of hypoglycemic patented medicines.
What Is Vinegar?
The word vinegar comes from the French vin aigre, meaning “sour wine,” and is a byproduct of fermenting a source of carbohydrates, grapes, dates, apples, berries, etc. The chemistry behind the process is described as follows:
Initially, yeasts ferment the natural food sugars to alcohol. Next, acetic acid bacteria (Acetobacter) convert the alcohol to acetic acid. Commercial vinegar is produced by either fast or slow fermentation processes. For the quick methods, the liquid is oxygenated by agitation and the bacteria culture is submerged permitting rapid fermentation. The slow methods are generally used for the production of the traditional wine vinegars, and the culture of acetic acid bacteria grows on the surface of the liquid and fermentation proceeds slowly over the course of weeks or months. The longer fermentation period allows for the accumulation of a nontoxic slime composed of yeast and acetic acid bacteria, known as the mother of vinegar.
It is the acetic acid which is responsible for the tart, biting, pungent flavors of vinegar, but the FDA states that acetic acid is not vinegar and should not be added to food products customarily containing vinegar products.[2] Vinegar actually contains a wide range of food components,[3] [4] including:
In this sense, vinegar is a complex food, irreducible to a singular compound it contains. This also may explain why it has such a broad range of potential medicinal properties. What follows is a list of health benefits associated with vinegar, as disclosed in the aforementioned review.
The Evidence-Based Health Benefits of Vinegar
Vinegar, without doubt, has far more health benefits than listed here. We should remind ourselves regularly that a lack of scientific proof does not constitute evidence that something does not exist, or is not real. Direct experience, of course, is at the foundation of all scientific inquiry and clinical intuition. Owing to the status of vinegar as a food, and its extraordinarily high margin of safety, we can only hope that folks will not be dissuaded from using it as a tonic, or ‘natural remedy’ if that is what they freely choose.
[1] The Online Archive of American Folk Medicine. Available at: http://www.folkmed.ucla.edu/archive.html. Accessed March 3, 2006.
[2] US Food and Drug Administration. Acetic Acid – Use in Foods. Available at: http://www.fda.gov/ora/compliance_ref/cpg/cpgfod/cpg562-100.html. Accessed March 9, 2006.
[3] Morales ML, Tesfaye W, Garcia-Parrilla MC, Casas JA, Troncoso AM. Evolution of the aroma profile of sherry wine vinegars during an experimental aging in wood. J Agric Food Chem. 2002;50:3173–3178. [PubMed]
[4] Natera R, Castro R, Garcia-Moreno M, Hernandez M, Garcia-Barroso C. Chemometric studies of vinegars from different raw materials and processes of production. J Agric Food Chem. 2003;51:3345–3351. [PubMed]
[5] Kondo S, Tayama K, Tsukamoto Y, Ikeda K, Yamori Y. Antihypertensive effects of acetic acid and vinegar on spontaneously hypertensive rats. Biosci Biotechnol Biochem. 2001;65:2690–2694. [PubMed]
[6] Honsho S, Sugiyama A, Takahara A, Satoh Y, Nakamura Y, Hashimoto K. A red wine vinegar beverage can inhibit the rennin-angiotensin system: experimental evidence in vivo. Biol Pharm Bull. 2005;28:1208–1210. [PubMed]
[7] Porsti I, Fan M, Koobi P, et al. High calcium diet down-regulates kidney angiotensin-converting enzyme in experimental renal failure. Kidney Int. 2004;66:2155–2166. [PubMed]
[8] Trinidad TP, Wolever TM, Thompson LU. Effect of acetate and propionate on calcium absorption from the rectum and distal colon of humans. Am J Clin Nutr. 1996;63:574–579. [PubMed]
[9] Dietary intake of alpha-linolenic acid and risk of fatal ischemic heart disease among women.Hu FB, Stampfer MJ, Manson JE, Rimm EB, Wolk A, Colditz GA, Hennekens CH, Willett WCAm J Clin Nutr. 1999 May; 69(5):890-7.[PubMed]
[10] Mimura A, Suzuki Y, Toshima Y, Yazaki S, Ohtsuki T, Ui S, Hyodoh F. Induction of apoptosis in human leukemia cells by naturally fermented sugar canevinegar (kibizu) of Amami Ohshima Island. Biofactors. 2004;22:93–97. [PubMed]
[11] Nanda K, Miyoshi N, Nakamura Y, et al. Extract of vinegar “Kurosu” from unpolished rice inhibits the proliferation of human cancer cells. J Exp Clin Cancer Res. 2004;23:69–75. [PubMed]
[12] Shimoji Y, Kohno H, Nanda K, et al. Extract of Kurosu, a vinegar from unpolished rice, inhibits azoxymethane-induced colon carcinogenesis in male F344 rats. Nutr Cancer. 2004;49:170–173. [PubMed]
[13] Seki T, Morimura S, Shigematsu T, Maeda H, Kida K. Antitumor activity of rice-shochu post-distillation slurry and vinegar produced from the post-distillation slurry via oral administration in a mouse model. Biofactors. 2004;22:103–105. [PubMed]
[14] Hong FU, Ying Qiang SHI, Shan Jin MO. Effect of short-chain fatty acids on the proliferation and differentiation of the human colonic adenocarcinoma cell line Caco-2. Chin J Dig Dis. 2004;5:115–117. [PubMed]
[15] Augenlicht LH, Mariadason JM, Wilson A, et al. Short chain fatty acids and colon cancer. J Nutr. 2002;132:3804S–3808S. [PubMed]
[16] Xibib S, Meilan H, Moller H, et al. Risk factors for oesophageal cancer in Linzhou, China: a case-control study. Asian Pac J Cancer Prev. 2003;4:119–124. [PubMed]
[17] Ebihara K, Nakajima A. Effect of acetic acid and vinegar on blood glucose and insulin responses to orally administered sucrose and starch. Agric Biol Chem. 1988;52:1311–1312.
[18] Brighenti F, Castellani G, Benini L, et al. Effect of neutralized and native vinegar on blood glucose and acetate responses to a mixed meal in healthy subjects. Eur J Clin Nutr. 1995;49:242–247. [PubMed]
[19] Liljeberg H, Bjorck I. Delayed gastric emptying rate may explain improved glycemia in healthy subjects to a starchy meal with added vinegar. Eur J Clin Nutr. 1998;64:886–893. [PubMed]
[20] Johnston CS, Buller AJ. Vinegar and peanut products as complementary foods to reduce postprandial glycemia. J Am Diet Assoc. 2005;105:1939–1942. [PubMed]
[21] Leeman M, Ostman E, Bjorck I. Vinegar dressing and cold storage of potatoes lowers postprandial glycaemic and insulinaemic responses in healthy subjects. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2005;59:1266–1271. [PubMed]
[22] Sugiyama M, Tang AC, Wakaki Y, Koyama W. Glycemic index of single and mixed meal foods among common Japanese foods with white rice as a reference food. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2003;57:743–752. [PubMed]
[23] Johnston CS, Kim CM, Buller AJ. Vinegar improves insulin sensitivity to a high carbohydrate meal in subjects with insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes mellitus. Diabetes Care. 2004;27:281–282. [PubMed]
[24] Ostman EM, Liljeberg Elmstahl HG, Bjorck IM. Inconsistency between glycemic and insulinemic responses to regular and fermented milk products. Am J Clin Nutr. 2001;74:96–100. [PubMed]
[25] Ostman E, Granfeldt Y, Persson L, Bjorck I. Vinegar supplementation lowers glucose and insulin responses and increases satiety after a bread meal in healthy subjects. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2005;59:983–988. [PubMed]
[26] Shelton HM. Efficient Digestion. Available at: http://chetday.com/efdigest.html. Accessed April 11, 2006.
© February 23, 2017 GreenMedInfo LLC. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of GreenMedInfo LLC. Want to learn more from GreenMedInfo? Sign up for the newsletter here http://www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/newsletter.
The post The Health Benefits of Vinegar: Real or Imagined? appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.