No, drinking vinegar will not miraculously control your blood sugar – EL PAÍS USA

Should you drink vinegar to control your blood sugar? We could answer that with another question: do you really need to control it? This is not an unreasonable thing to ponder, as fluctuations in blood glucose are completely normal and, if we are healthy, our body handles them with ease. In other words, this is not something that you should worry about.
There is a belief that any rise in blood glucose is inherently harmful, and this drives some people to obsessively try to control blood glucose peaks as if it were actually useful among the general population. The truth is that if you do not have glucose management issues, drinking vinegar is not something you need to incorporate into your life anytime soon. And if you do have a problem – be it insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes – drinking vinegar is an anecdotal matter that will not improve your condition and should in no way have a special relevance among the measures that you take.
Yes, it does. It is true that vinegar intake reduces postprandial blood glucose when it accompanies meals rich in complex carbohydrates. This is a crucial point, because if a person takes it to avoid glycemic peaks after having some candy or a soft drink (which are rich in simple sugars), it does not work so well.
Vinegar helps control blood glucose mainly through two mechanisms: on one hand, it delays gastric emptying, making the food take longer to reach the intestine and lengthening the digestion; and on the other, due to the effect of the acetic acid on the enzymes that hydrolyze the carbohydrate chains (breaking them down into glucose molecules), hindering this process and, therefore, delaying the absorption of the molecules. But this knowledge is not even remotely new. So why is drinking vinegar not recommended by nutritionists to everyone, everywhere?
Simple: because that is just one of many things that can soften the blood glucose curve, and not the first choice when a patient needs this kind of control, as nutrition professionals steer clear of deceptively simple solutions to very complex problems.
The main mistake when it comes to this kind of ideas is not to contextualize them correctly. Implying that drinking vinegar has a crucial or relevant role in our health and devising “methods” that revolve around this practice or that take it as a fundamental pillar is not a good approach, even if it starts from an attractive, tantalizing premise.
When it comes to preventing diseases, something like that actually distracts from the truly relevant actions that must be taken. In this specific case, drinking vinegar as a pivotal measure to avoid abnormally high blood glucose levels maintained over time and prevent type 2 diabetes (or to improve the condition of a patient who already has it) will divert attention from what is actually useful and necessary.
This is an example of how, starting from a fact that is technically true, health advice can be distorted, shifting the focus to the wrong things:
Depending on a single trick in the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes is useless. An overall change in habits is necessary; a new lifestyle will make a significant improvement in your chances of suffering from diabetes (or in controlling the disease, if you already have it). There are three main factors that you should pay attention to – and none of them is drinking vinegar.
Regarding diet, the guide states: “Evidence suggests that the overall quality of food consumed […] with an emphasis on whole grains, legumes, nuts, fruits and vegetables and minimal refined and processed foods, is also associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.” Drinking vinegar is not mentioned once in the entire guide.
So, if you decide to drink vinegar, keep in mind that if you do it in a context that disregards the previous recommendations, it will not be a legitimate strategy (even if it technically can reduce the blood glucose curve at some point), and that if you maintain proper habits – and take medication, if indicated – it will not make a substantial difference in the long term.
And above all, if you are a healthy person, remember that your body is perfectly capable of managing glycemic variations, which on the other hand are completely normal and not a cause for concern. What is going to protect you from diabetes is your overall diet and physical activity, not the vinegar you might drink to flatten the spike in blood sugar from eating a banana.
Lucía Martínez Argüelles (@Dimequecomes), is a dietitian and nutritionist with a masters degree in nutrigenomics and personalized nutrition. She is the director of the Aleris Nutrition Center, in Madrid, and author of several books and the blog www.dimequecomes.com (in Spanish).
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