Achtung ! Proceed with caution ! Friend of mine was consuming a lot of Apple cider vinegar for what she consider "health and dietary reasons" and end-up with small hole in her stomach. One day, she felt a severe pain ended up in hospital, where they found a hole. It is possible that she had small ulcer that was made worst by the continuous consumption of vinegar.
She stopped taking vinegar, took medication for a while and now ulcer is almost gone.
Also, if you have acid reflux, vinegar will absolutely destroy your stomach and make your acid reflux 100% worse.
EDIT: I want to bring up another important point. People who suffer from acid reflux might not notice it's effect for years, but if you look at statistics, they suffer from higher rates of stomach and esophagus cancers, worst teeth and myriad of other health issues. Continuously raising your stomach pH might not be good for your in the long run. Keep this in mind when reading this article. Temporarily taking ACV might work, contentiously for years - not a great idea.
> Also, if you have acid reflux, vinegar will absolutely destroy your stomach and make your acid reflux 100% worse
I replaced my Prilosec prescription (for severe acid reflux) with diluted ACV. After a few years, I no longer needed even the ACV, although I occasionally take it for various other claimed benefits. It has been about eight years since I last needed Prilosec. I don't have a hole in my stomach, and in fact am healthier than most people I know - mostly hooked on some meds.
Sounds like your friend did something wrong. Possibilities: she took way too much ACV, or she didn't dilute it. In my experience, it's pretty common for people to mess up even simple [nutrition and healthcare] instructions.
The "theory" behind ACV is that stomach problems can be caused by H. Pylori overgrowth due to acid underproduction. H. Pylori and stomach acidity problems are easily testable diagnoses via upper endoscopy on a case by case basis. What is NOT controversial however is the much higher vulnerability of the esophagus to acid (on the way up or the way down), pain from which damage is the "burn" in heartburn. The esophagus needs time to heal regardless of whether ACV would or would not help the stomach, and it'd definitely be harmful to the inflamed tissue up there. As I mentioned above, sodium alginate is a remarkably effective and safe treatment for mild and moderate GERD, which is picking up interest as PPIs are coming under intense scrutiny for possible harmful side effects long term. It's not a cure to anything per se, but this isn't medical advice either - people should root cause their stomach troubles with a qualified doctor.
Last time I tried apple cider vinegar the pH was so low it gave me a chemical burn in the back of my throat. It definitely can hurt, so be careful with that stuff.
Vinegar has nothing on the natural stomach acid already present in your digestive system. People don't give enough credit to how resilient the human body actually is.
Paradoxically I found that drinking a glass of diluted (#) vinegar extinguishes the reflux for me. My rationalization is that a sudden punch of vinegar causes the esophagus to slam shut in response to increased acidity, as it is designed to do. By contrast a slower drip of stomach acid was not sufficiently strong to trigger the same reaction.
(#) I dilute it to the point where it's still strong but already drinkable.
This whole trend of “apple cider vinegar cures X” makes no sense to me. My mother, who suffers from acid reflux, wanted to try drinking an acetic acid solution to cure her acid reflux. All because she saw it on Facebook.
Thinking on it, diet trends really are the “TikTok challenges” of old.
I use apple cider vinegar whenever I get acid reflux. It works but often only for about an hour. Perhaps I should start doing it proactively whenever I eat. How much water do you mix it with? I just take a tablespoon of concentrated vinegar.
The goal isn't to keep your acid low it's to keep your stomach moving.
If you have low acid your digestion will be slower and if it's low enough you will develop bacterial infections. PPIs lower your stomach acid and can cause long term issues.
1/2 tablespoon in a large glass of water. Do not drink cider vinegar straight up. It will burn you. Literally.
The placebo was dilute lactic acid of similar pH. So one might imagine that the acidity didn’t cause the effect and try neutralizing the vinegar. Add, for example, calcium carbonate (cheap and safe) to convert most of the acetic acid to calcium acetate, leaving a neutral solution with extra calcium. Whatever magic other compounds in apple cider vinegar are beneficial seem likely to survive that process intact. The net result would be similar to drinking the vinegar and eating an antacid, minus the tooth damage.
Consider an alternative theory: the vinegar is a digestive aid (just like pineapple) and your root cause or part of it is, in fact, indigestion. I only suggest this because I found indigestion to be the one and only consistent cause to heartburn/reflux in myself. Seems like some foods don’t want to break down from normal stomach acid but will respond to other acids. So that’s my theory. But whether it’s accurate or not, it does work.
My wife used to have to throw up every day, sometimes multiple times, for years. It was miserable. Doctors, including a gastroenterologist, prescribed antacids which made it worse. We read an article online that said her acid might be low, and it recommended apple cider vinegar. It literally cured her daily vomiting overnight.
Like lemon, apple cider vinegar is said to produce alkaline byproducts and lower your body pH after consumption, which might be true but doesn’t mean either is a base.
I actually drank a little more than .5 liter of white vinegar as part of some experimentation with those "miracle fruit" tablets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum). Other than a few minutes of burping, I experienced no ill effects.
Edit: Ok, wanted to make a correction after thinking more about that day: My consumed amount was likely around half that. I was consuming various other oddities during this time as well (drinking hot sauce for example) and there couldn't have been room for 16oz of just vinegar. If you've not played around with those tablets, I recommend it even if you get some stomach upset from the things you consume.
EDIT: I want to bring up another important point. People who suffer from acid reflux might not notice it's effect for years, but if you look at statistics, they suffer from higher rates of stomach and esophagus cancers, worst teeth and myriad of other health issues. Continuously raising your stomach pH might not be good for your in the long run. Keep this in mind when reading this article. Temporarily taking ACV might work, contentiously for years - not a great idea.
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