Vinegar Helps Control Blood Sugar and High Triglycerides.

Type 2 Diabetes is largely a disease of over consumption. Cutting back on your diet or improving the nutrient quality should be the first place to look when trying to make changes to reverse and/or halt the disease. Unregulated blood sugars contribute to increased triglycerides which are both seen increased in individuals with diabetes. 

The best way to improve your blood sugar control is to avoid over consumption of simple sugars. But if that isn't an option, starting to utilize vinegar in your diet when eating foods with simple sugars or carbohydrates is an excellent start. A couple of studies demonstrate this concept. 

The Studies

• From the land of sumo wrestlers there was a human study done on obese individuals conducted over 16 weeks.    
• From the birth place of the Olympics there was a short term feeding study conducted on Type 2 diabetics

The Results

As long as the Japanese participants were consuming a vinegar drink after they ate there was favorable results with reducing their triglycerides. Triglycerides are produced when there is too much sugars in the blood. The liver converts the sugar into fatty acids which get packaged together into triglycerides get sent to fat cells for long term storage.  

The food intake and physical activity didn't differ widely between the groups so it is likely that the reduction in triglycerides was a direct result in consuming the vinegar. 

In the second study there also was a reduction in the serum triglycerides produced immediately after a meal when vinegar is consumed before hand. This hints that the vinegar possibly helps to improve blood sugar control which the second study also confirms by lowering the insulin and glucose spike there is less chance for the arteries  to be damaged by the high blood sugar. 

Study differences

Something that I found interesting was that both studies showed an effect on triglyceride levels. At the same time, there wasn't any noticeable effect on insulin in the longer term Japanese study while the Greek study definitely showed some benefit. This can be interpreted in a couple of ways. 

1. The blood sugars of the obese subjects were not unregulated enough to receive benefit from the vinegar. Alternatively vinegar isn't going to cause low blood sugar on its own.
2. Timing of the vinegar is important to have it in the blood stream before the carbohydrates are consumed. Since the Japanese study consumed it after the meal. 
3. The effect on blood sugar is only temporary and will not be evident in a fasting state. 

It is important to point out that in the Japanese study over the long term as long as the subjects were taking their vinegar they were loosing body fat. This was a effect that couldn't be measured in the Greek study. The fat loss reversed itself when the vinegar was discontinued. 

Clinical experience 

I have a number of diabetic patients who swear by apple cider vinegar for helping to control their blood sugars and as a result their appetite. Using vinegar is a useful dietary tool that can help with blood sugar control and weight loss. It will not replace insulin or other blood sugar lowering medications but with proper diet those medications can become unnecessary since Type II Diabetes is a disease of over consumption. The most important thing for Type II diabetes reversal is abdominal weight loss which vinegar helps with. 

I generally prefer organic apple cider vinegar or red wine vinegar for their mineral and antioxidant content respectively however any type of vinegar will have the effects noted above. Just pick one that you enjoy the most and can incorporate long term.  

Let me know what you think. 

Sources 

Picture from Pixabay, 

Graphs from the studies Japanese and Greek. The line graph was generated based on the data in the Japanese paper.