Apple cider vinegar

Fermented apple juice, taken above all for weight and for blood sugar.

People take it for

Weight and waist size
Blood sugar
Appetite and fullness
Cholesterol and blood fats
Blood pressure

A plain-English overview, not advice. Written from published reviews and trials and from what people say in public forums.

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What is apple cider vinegar?

Apple cider vinegar is apple juice that has been fermented twice. Yeast turns the fruit sugars into alcohol, and acetic acid bacteria then partly oxidise that alcohol into acetic acid, which is what makes it sharp. Acetic acid is the most plentiful organic acid in it, with chlorogenic acid the main polyphenol and smaller amounts of other plant acids carried through from the fruit. It is sold as a liquid to drink and as dried powder in capsules or set into gummies, which is the form most of the products here take.

Why do people take apple cider vinegar?

Weight and waist size

The thinking. Weight is what sends most people to apple cider vinegar, usually a spoonful in water before meals or a couple of gummies a day. The thinking is that a sour, acidic drink taken before eating changes how the meal that follows is handled, and takes the edge off appetite.

What research has found. Ten randomised trials in 789 adults, most carrying extra weight or living with type 2 diabetes, were pooled in 2025. Body weight, body mass index and waist measurement each came out slightly lower than on a dummy, most clearly in trials of up to twelve weeks at about 30 ml a day. A fair body of trials has looked at this, and most point the same way.

Blood sugar

The thinking. The other reason people reach for it, often the same spoonful and often right before eating, is blood sugar. The thinking rests on acetic acid, which has been studied for what it does to the way muscle takes sugar out of the blood after a meal.

What research has found. This is where nearly all of the research sits. Poolings of controlled trials, the largest gathering 25 trials and 1,320 adults, found fasting glucose and HbA1c lower on average, and a separate pooling of vinegar taken with a meal found smaller rises in glucose and insulin afterwards. The differences were clearest in adults with type 2 diabetes. This is one of the best-studied uses, and several reviews of trials broadly agree.

Appetite and fullness

The thinking. Vinegar has long been put forward as a natural appetite suppressant, which is why many people drink it shortly before a meal rather than with one. The thinking is that it arrives in the gut as a short-chain fatty acid, a kind of molecule the body already uses as a signal about food.

What research has found. Two linked crossover studies in healthy young adults measured hunger, fullness and how much was eaten afterwards. Appetite was lower after drinking vinegar than after a vinegar-free control, and lower still when the drink was made deliberately unpleasant; nausea ratings rose alongside it, and tasting vinegar without swallowing changed nothing. Few studies have measured this yet, so there is little to go on either way.

Cholesterol and blood fats

The thinking. Heart health is the third thing apple cider vinegar has long been sold on, and cholesterol is the part of that most shoppers recognise. The thinking is that whatever the acid does to a meal does not stop at sugar, so the trials that measured glucose usually drew blood fats too.

What research has found. One pooling of randomised trials found total cholesterol and triglycerides lower on average, while LDL and HDL cholesterol did not move. The reductions came from particular groups: adults with type 2 diabetes, those taking 15 ml a day or less, and trials running beyond eight weeks. Research here is still young: a few studies so far, mostly pointing the same way.

Blood pressure

The thinking. Blood pressure comes up less often on the shelf than weight or blood sugar, but it belongs to the same family of reasons, and reviews of vinegar tend to look at all three together. The thinking is the same too: that a daily acidic drink nudges the measurements that travel together in metabolic health.

What research has found. A dose-response pooling of randomised trials estimated that each extra 30 ml of vinegar a day went with systolic pressure about 3 mmHg lower and diastolic about 3 mmHg lower, with the line flattening beyond 30 ml a day. The reviewers rated their own certainty in that estimate as low. Only a few studies have measured this so far, though they mostly agree.

What does apple cider vinegar do in the body?

Vinegar is made in two steps. Yeast ferments the sugars in apple juice into alcohol, and acetic acid bacteria then partly oxidise that alcohol into acetic acid, the sour compound that makes up most of what is studied. Everything else, from the plant acids and polyphenols carried over from the apples to the esters, aldehydes and alcohols made during fermentation, comes along in far smaller amounts and gives each vinegar its own flavour.

What happens after it is swallowed is less settled. Acetic acid is a short-chain fatty acid, a form the body already handles as fuel and as a signal about food. The most direct measurement in people sampled blood from an artery and a forearm vein to see how much sugar the muscle was taking out of the blood after a meal, and found more with vinegar than without. Researchers describe that as a change in how muscle responds to insulin, and it is the thread most of the blood sugar work follows.

What do people say about taking apple cider vinegar?

These are anecdotes people have shared, not evidence.

What people like

Some describe feeling fuller and snacking less, one or two of them within the first days of starting a daily spoonful.
The people who stay with it long-term tend to be those using it in dressings and sauces, where the taste stops mattering.
A couple who tracked their own glucose with a meter or sensor reported smaller rises after meals, though others tracking the same way saw none.
One person on gummies described less bloating and a few pounds lost over three weeks, alongside eating differently and exercising more.

Common complaints

The commonest report by far is that nothing happened: many took it daily for weeks or months and noticed no change at all.
Damage to tooth enamel is the worry raised most often, and in both communities it is why some people stopped taking it.
The taste puts people off repeatedly, described as hard to get down even diluted, and several threads turn into swapping ways to mask it.
Capsules and tablets draw the flattest reports: several finished a whole bottle without noticing anything, and one doubted capsules carry what the liquid does.
A few warn of stomach upset, especially from drinking it undiluted, and one questioned how much sugar the drink itself carries.

How people take it

A teaspoon to two tablespoons stirred into water is the usual amount, taken first thing in the morning or just before a meal.
Starting a meal with it, to blunt the rise from the carbohydrate that follows, is the pattern the diabetes threads describe most.
Masking the taste comes up constantly: hot water with honey and lemon, cinnamon, olive oil, or a sweetener stirred into the glass.
Diluting it well is close to universal, and at least one person drinks it through a straw, both with tooth enamel in mind.
Capsules, tablets and gummies are the usual way round the taste, and a few take those instead of ever drinking it.

Read from these public discussions:

Apple Cider Vinegar - what do we think? (Mumsnet, 2023)
What are the benefits of apple cider vinegar? (Mumsnet, 2021)
Has anyone tried apple cider vinegar capsules? If so, yay or nay? (Mumsnet, 2020)
Apple Cider Vinegar (Mumsnet, 2020)
Apple Cider Vinegar (Diabetes Forum, 2022)
Apple Cider Vinegar (sorting the taste) (Diabetes Forum, 2018)

What forms of apple cider vinegar are there?

Form	What’s different	Per serving, on products we list
ACV powder (capsules & gummies)	Vinegar dried to a powder, then pressed into capsules or set into gummies rather than measured by the spoon.	500 mg to 2.25 g

What else is worth knowing about apple cider vinegar?

Trials mostly used liquid vinegar rather than capsules, commonly around 30 ml a day and as little as 15 ml in part of the cholesterol research. The single capsule trial used 1,500 mg of powder daily. Labels give the amount per serving, which may be more than one capsule or gummy.
Most adults studied were carrying extra weight, living with type 2 diabetes, or both. One 12-week trial was in women with polycystic ovary syndrome, where capsules were added to a prescribed medicine.
The results were not uniform. One pooling found fasting glucose drifted slightly upward rather than downward in apparently healthy participants, and an eight-week trial of 20 ml a day recorded no change in blood pressure in either group.
In the appetite study, lower appetite came with higher nausea ratings, and the deliberately unpalatable drink had the biggest effect. A review looking specifically at safety concluded side-effect risk at the amounts usually suggested appeared small, while calling the research as a whole not yet strong enough for firm conclusions.

If you take medication, are pregnant, or have a health condition, check with a pharmacist or GP first.

The research behind this page (18 studies)

How much does apple cider vinegar cost?

That depends on the form and the pack, so we work out the price of the same dose of every apple cider vinegar product we can find and rank them.

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