Improve Your Health with Balsamic Vinegar

... from weight loss to cancer prevention

Whether you want to lose a few pounds, prevent or reverse diabetes, protect your bones, reduce blood pressure and heart disease risk, or boost your immunity and fight cancer, balsamic vinegar can help.

Weight Loss and Blood Sugar Regulation

Japanese researchers found that giving 1 or 2 tablespoons of vinegar to obese subjects for 12 weeks significantly reduced body weight, visceral fat, BMI, waist circumference and triglyceride levels. Researchers at Arizona State University found that people who took a tablespoon of vinegar with lunch and dinner lost an average of two pounds over 4 weeks. Vinegar helps with weight loss by keeping blood sugar levels from spiking and improving insulin resistance, which also helps prevent, reverse or manage diabetes. In fact, the Arizona researchers noted that vinegar may be as effective as the medications acarbose and metformin (glucophage) in controlling blood sugar.

Mineral Absorption and Bone Health

Vinegar helps absorb minerals. This is especially helpful in getting maximum benefit from the calcium in greens, which often contain oxalic and other compounds that interfere with absorption. A 1999 study on rats showed that vinegar not only improved absorption of calcium, but after 32 days calcium in the bones had improved.

Cardiovascular Health

Acetic acid (which is found in all types of vinegar and is responsible for most of vinegar's health benefits) has been shown to reduce blood pressure in hypertensive rats. Cholesterol has also been brought down in rats, but not yet in human studies. However, balsamic vinegar in particular has been shown to dramatically inhibit oxidation of cholesterol and to prevent atherosclerosis in humans.

Immunity, Cancer and Aging

The polyphenols in balsamic vinegar improve immunity, fight cancer and can keep us staying young and energetic. Acetic acid inhibits tumor growth.

Kondo T. Vinegar intake reduces body weight, body fat mass, and serum triglyceride levels in obese Japanese subjects. Bioscience, Biotechnology and Biochemistry. 2009 Aug;73(8):1837-1843.

Challem J. A spoonful of vinegar helps the blood sugar go down. June 23, 2011, www.dlife.com.

Johnston CS. Examination of the antiglycemic properties of vinegar in healthy adults. Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism. 2010;56:74-79.

Johnston CS. Vinegar improves insulin sensitivity to a high-carbohydrate meal in subjects with insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care. 2004;27:281-282.

Kishi M. Enhancing effect of dietary vinegar on the intestinal absorption of calcium in ovariectomised rats. Bioscience, Biotechnology and Biochemistry. 1999 May;63(5):905-910.

Kondo S. Antihypertensive effects of acetic acid and vinegar on spontaneously hypertensive rats. Bioscience, Biotechnology and Biochemistry. 2001 Dec;65(12):2690-2694.

Iizuka M. Inhibitory effects of balsamic vinegar on LDL oxidation and lipid accumulation in THP-1 macrophages. Journal of Nutritional Science and Vitaminology. 2010;56(6):421-427.

Plowman J. Flavone acetic acid: a novel agent with preclinical antitumor activity against colon adenocarcinoma 38 in mice. Cancer Treatment Reports. 1986;70(5):631-635.