Is apple cider vinegar really a wonder food and is it worth taking?

Folk medicine has favoured apple cider vinegar for centuries and many claims are made for its supposed benefits.

Apple cider vinegar is made by chopping apples, covering them with water and leaving them at room temperature until the natural sugars ferment and form ethanol. Bacteria then convert this alcohol into acetic acid.

Strands of a "mother" will form in the cider. These are strained out of many products but left in others, and are often the target of health claims. The "mother" can also be used to start the production of the next batch of cider.

But will apple cider vinegar really help you lose weight, fight heart disease, control blood sugar and prevent cancer? And what about claims it is rich in enzymes and nutrients such as potassium?

Weight loss

The evidence that apple cider vinegar helps fight fat is weak.

A short-term study in Japan added two daily drinks of 15 millilitres of apple cider vinegar mixed with 250 ml of water to the usual diet of overweight men and women. Their weight fell by about one kilogram over 12 weeks, but returned to usual levels within four weeks.

According to a UK study, it may be that vinegar can suppress appetite. When offered a pleasant-tasting vinegar drink, one that was less palatable, or a non-vinegar drink with their breakfast, volunteers who downed both vinegar drinks felt slightly nauseated. Not surprisingly, this depressed their appetite, with the least palatable vinegar drink having the greatest effect.

Others claim taking apple cider vinegar with meals will help digest proteins faster and therefore generate higher levels of growth hormone. This is claimed to break down more fat cells. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence to support such ideas.

Claims that pectin – a type of viscous dietary fibre – in cider vinegar will help weight loss by making you feel full for longer ignores the fact that the pectin in apples is not found in apple cider vinegar.

Heart disease

Pectin is again credited for cider vinegar’s supposed benefits for heart disease, with claims it "attracts bad LDL cholesterol".

However, the Japanese study referred to for weight loss found no difference in LDL cholesterol with either a low or higher amount of cider vinegar over a 12-week period.

Others claim that cider vinegar works like a broom to clean toxic wastes out of the arteries. Sadly, there’s no evidence for that one either.

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