What Apple Cider Vinegar Will Do for You (And What to Watch Out For) | Ep. 112

What Apple Cider Vinegar Will Do for You may surprise you. In this episode, I share the real benefits—and the hidden risks—of adding ACV to your routine, based on my own experience and what the science says.

✨ Here’s what we cover:
• How ACV may help balance blood sugar levels
• How it supports digestion by increasing stomach acid
• Whether it helps reduce bloating, reflux, or indigestion
• The one important warning you need to know before using ACV regularly

If you're thinking about taking apple cider vinegar every day, this is the honest breakdown you need.

👍 Like, comment, and subscribe if this helped you make an informed decision!

Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/

Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/

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Credit for the music used in this podcast:

The Beat of Nature

Music by Olexy from Pixabay

Chapters

• 1:01 Welcome and Introduction
• 2:24 Blood Sugar Benefits
• 6:29 Digestive System Support
• 9:26 Food as Medicine Philosophy
• 13:23 Dental Health Warning
• 19:21 Closing and Call to Action

Transcript

Fiona Kane: 0:31

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast with Fiona Kane. Today, I'm actually going to be talking to you about apple cider vinegar. I'm going to talk to you about the benefits of apple cider vinegar, but also something that you need to be aware of. There's a warning in this as well that I will cover later. So both are really important. So I'll start with talking a little bit about apple cider vinegar and its benefits. So what we do know about apple cider vinegar is one of the things that it's really good for is actually helping to balance your blood sugar levels. And it's interesting because I'd read this quite a bit and talked about this quite a bit and I've been trying to convince one of my clients to try this for quite a while someone who's having issues with their blood sugar regulation, and this is someone with diabetes and this client actually did finally try it and said oh my God, you know what, fiona? Wow. So I am actually seeing it. Right now I'm seeing the changes in someone who's actually using apple cider vinegar for their blood glucose levels. So it's really interesting.

Fiona Kane: 1:34

Some of these things they're considered sort of old wives tales or because they haven't done double blind placebo trials and things like that. Sometimes people disregard things. However, it's always really important to look at well, why do people think it was worthwhile and what was the the tale behind it? Because, um, often they're right and often it's true, and you don't need a double blind placebo trial, and especially for something as apple cider vinegar. I'll tell you about the warning later. So there is something you need to be aware of it.

Fiona Kane: 2:07

But apple cider vinegar, like when it's like a food as medicine thing in more cases than not, as harmless. So the worst thing that can happen is nothing happens, and the best thing that can happen is you get the benefit from it. So it's kind of it's not like oh my God, try this terrible drug that's going to make you sick and blah, blah, blah. Which is what people are generally very happy to do is actually try this food as medicine thing. If that doesn't work, then then okay, you use the medicine. But, uh, but yeah, it's um, the risks are quite low in regards to trying food as a medicinal. Uh, you know, um, as far as the food not harming you, you know the timing of medications and whether you need them and all that sort of stuff. That's another story, obviously. Always just talk to your doctor if you're not sure. However, it's funny because people are just so uh. It's funny because people just don't trust food as medicine. But a lot of people for a long time had to use food as medicine because they didn't have anything else, so it's always useful to go back to it.

Fiona Kane: 3:07

I take medications and a lot of my clients take medications. I am not anti-medication. I actually think that modern medicine and medications all have their place. However, if you can do a food as medicine and it works great. So to me it's like well, take as minimum amount of medications as you need if you can find other ways of achieving the same thing.

Fiona Kane: 3:30

So anyway, getting back to apple cider vinegar because I went a little bit off, but you get what I'm trying to say, I'm sure. So apple cider vinegar is really good for helping blood sugar levels, so it improves insulin sensitivity. So also for people with insulin resistance, which is what someone with diabetes type 2 diabetes has, and or pre-diabetes as well, because pre-diabetes is insulin resistant, so just don't always call it that. So what they found is that it may help improve insulin sensitivity and lower blood sugar levels after meals. So studies suggest that taking it with a high carb meal can reduce the glucose spike. So I've talked before about that glucose spike. It's like in high GI foods or foods that are high in glucose or high in carbohydrate, you get quite a spike after a meal. So having the apple cider vinegar can help with that spike and that's what my client has noticed as well. So, yes, it could be particularly useful for managing type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes insulin resistance, which is what I was just talking about. So it is worth testing and measuring.

Fiona Kane: 4:39

I would always say for anyone with diabetes, if you're on medications, especially if it's insulin, be really careful when you're testing and measuring things. Maybe wear a blood glucose monitor and talk to your doctor and make sure you're reviewing medications and things. Make sure you also know the signs and symptoms of having a hypoglycemic attack. So Google that, make sure you're all over it. But generally speaking, confusion and nausea are two of the big signs and you might have acetone breath like a nail polish remover breath, vomiting that kind of thing, but please just nail polish remover breath, vomiting that kind of thing, but please just. If you are taking diabetes medications, it's really useful for you to know what hypoglycemia looks like. So look it up hypo H-Y-P-O glycemia. Even if you type it in wrong, google will fix it for you. Don't worry about spelling, but it's good to know what that is, just in case. So if you're playing around with blood glucose levels, naturally, and you're also on medications, you could potentially push it too low. So it's always good to check that stuff. But besides that, in general it's worth trialing this and trying to see how well it regulates your blood glucose levels.

Fiona Kane: 5:50

So the other thing that apple cider vinegar is really good for it's really good for your digestive system and I've seen this work in lots of different ways. So I've seen this work for people. Sometimes people will just take it at the beginning of the day. It seems to stimulate digestion throughout the day and is really supportive overall and it'll help them reduce their reflux right and they just digest their foods better. Other people might take it sort of before a meal, so a little bit of time before a meal, again for the same purpose to help you digest that meal. Well. But I've actually even seen one client years ago, actually it was more than one client I've seen who'd done this now, where these are people who maybe get really bad reflux at night time and they say they get into bed, they lay down and they just get this acid sort of coming up. And so I've had clients who take apple cider vinegar at bedtime to reduce that acid and it actually works and they're able to sleep better. They're not kind of drowning in their own acid sort of thing.

Fiona Kane: 6:50

So that is something to potentially look into for yourself because it can be really really useful for that and I think it helps because it helps increase your stomach acid, which helps you break down your food better, so that reduces the likely of indigestion. I know that people always think that having acid and reflux and stuff is because you've got too much acid, but it's really stuff is because you've got too much acid, but it's really more usually because you don't have enough acid, that it's not doing its job. And because it's not doing its job and the food sits there for too long, it starts pumping up where it shouldn't be, but it's really about too much acid. So this will help you make that stomach acid and because you're going to break down food more effectively. You know what it's saying here is that you know it's going to really help with bloating and indigestion and, of course, if you're making all of your acids and if you're making your digestive enzymes and you're able to digest and absorb your food, you will get less digestive symptoms because your digestion is working the way it should be. So generally, people get less indigestion and so a lot of these are sort of anecdotal evidence. But anecdotal is still I took it and it worked. Right, that's fine. If you take it and it works, it works. So again, you don't need a double-blind placebo trial. You can't sort of say absolutely it works for everyone and this is absolutely proven thing. But you can try it and if it works for you, then fantastic, right. So because all medications come with potential side effects, so it's good to have a food as medicine option.

Fiona Kane: 8:27

And that's funny because people I've seen articles, people write about food as medicine. It's dangerous, blah, blah, blah, the idea of food as medicine. If people are saying no one should ever go to a doctor, no one should ever take modern medicines, no one should ever do anything in regards to modern medicine, I understand that if you're just saying here, take broccoli instead of having a cancer treatment or whatever, I understand then why people are saying food is medicine's problem. But I see it a little bit differently in that food is medicine, because the food you eat can certainly heal and it can also cause your health problems, because a lot of problems like type 2 diabetes are largely lifestyle related and food related. So the food causes your problem. If you fix what you're doing in regards to the food, it can help fix the problem right.

Fiona Kane: 9:23

So food absolutely can be a medicine, but does that mean it is the only medicine? No, and does that mean it's instead of other medicines? No, it is just one of the strategies, one of the tools you use in your toolkit of things that can be beneficial. So I think it's like, because sometimes people what is it like zero sum game? Or they see things as like one thing or the other thing. What is it like zero-sum game? Or they see things as like one thing or the other thing.

Fiona Kane: 9:50

And the way I see it is you want to have good nutrition, you want to move your body, you want to make sure that you're remembering to breathe sometimes which is one of my biggest issues you want to make sure you're eating well. Now, if there's medications that are beneficial to you, you want to make sure you're taking those as well. But if you're able to do all of these things and you're doing meditation, you're sleeping well and you've got your connections and all of the good things that I talk about all the time on this podcast. If you've got all of those lifestyle factors going really really well and your diet is going really well and you don't need the medication, fabulous, right. So it's not, uh, avoiding medication when you really do need it and it's not me saying, oh, cure your cancer by eating broccoli and don't follow the doctor's advice not at all, right.

Fiona Kane: 10:39

So I think people who they get very fixated on what it means food is medicine. Food is one of the medicines, and there's many medicines, as well as sleep and exercise and gratitude and lots of different ways of supporting your mental and physical health. So food is one of them and it's certainly worth a try, with many things, to try the food option because generally it's cheaper, simpler, easier to access and less side effects. Right, simpler, easier to access and less side effects, right. So when I say food as medicine, that's what I mean as food as medicine, not don't take medicine, only look at food. I don't mean that. I don't say that so just because some people get their knickers and they're not, when you use the term food as medicine, but when I say it, that's what I mean.

Fiona Kane: 11:27

Also, there's some evidence that apple cider vinegar can be used in regards to weight management and I think it's like part of the, because it's helping with the digestion and support the digestion. You're using your calories better and maybe they say sometimes it can promote feelings of fullness, so that might be part of it as well, but I think that again, it's part of a whole. Don't just start swallowing apple cider vinegar to lose weight. I think you do all the things and that might be part of the strategy. Studies have also shown in animals shown help with heart health and it's saying that it can lower things like cholesterol and triglycerides. But certainly what we do know is if you manage your blood glucose levels, that sorts out triglycerides and cholesterol. So, uh, so that probably just relates back to the fact that it helps with the blood glucose management. That's why it helps the heart, because if you manage your blood glucose, which is metabolic syndrome, you're going to be supporting your heart.

Fiona Kane: 12:28

It's also apparently used as diluted as a home remedy for things like acne and dandruff. So because it's got antimicrobial properties and pH balancing properties, apparently some people swear by using it for those purposes of supporting things like pH balance and skin issues. So now, what I need to warn you about, though, in regards to apple cider vinegar, is what's good for your tummy and what's good for your blood sugar levels is not necessarily good for your teeth, so I'm going to give you some warnings about this, in regards to how to help with your teeth. This also actually would go for lemon, because a lot of people drink lemon. There was the lemon detox. That was a really popular thing, I know, about 15 years ago, everyone was doing the lemon detox and they were all losing their enamel on their teeth because lemon is so acidic. So just have an awareness around.

Fiona Kane: 13:33

If you're having kind of lemon and lime juices, or if you're having apple cider vinegar, you do have to consider your teeth because, like I said, what's good for your gut might not necessarily be good for your teeth, and this is a conversation I was having with a friend a few weeks ago, and she's been having issues with the enamel in her teeth. So this is one of the things that we addressed and we talked about, so I'm going to give you some suggestions. Uh, I'm going to be reading from a list because it's easier just for me to read than remember it all. But I'm going to read from a list, so excuse me for those of you who are watching that, the fact that I'm reading. Anyway, it's really important that we understand we need to protect our teeth because you don't grow back enamel. You've really got to protect your enamel. So the suggestions are here.

Fiona Kane: 14:20

So one is you dilute the apple cider vinegar. You dilute it with water. So say, one to two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, but you have that in a cup of water. So let's say like 200 mils of water or something. So that reduces the acidity and it minimizes the direct contact with your teeth because there's water as well as the apple cider vinegar. So that can make a difference with how much of the acid actually gets on your teeth. The other is to use a straw, because if you use a straw, then what you're doing is depending on how you use it. If you direct the liquid towards the back of your mouth, you might be bypassing your teeth for the most part, if not entirely. Another thing would be to suggest, after you've had apple cider vinegar, to rinse your mouth out with plain water. So you're just wanting to get rid of that, any residual acid on your teeth.

Fiona Kane: 15:16

The next thing is to wait before brushing for brushing your teeth, and the reason being when you've had, and the recommendation is to wait at least 30 minutes. So acid will temporarily soften the enamel on your teeth and so if you brush too soon you can actually damage your teeth, you can actually damage that enamel permanently. So what you want to do is you want to leave it for half an hour so that the enamel strengthens up again and so there's not so much acid on your teeth. So waiting half an hour is a really really good idea, like the other thing that is recommended. It might be like limit your frequency so see what works for you, so whether or not you're having it once in the morning or once in the evening, or if it works for you to have it at one or two of your larger meals in the day. But just see, you might work out the timing and you know, work out that if I just take it once or twice, that works really really well. I don't need to be taking it four times a day.

Fiona Kane: 16:26

And in saying that too, I don't know any brands I can recommend straight up. I'm not quite sure what's available, but I do know that apple cider vinegar is starting to be sold in a capsule form and if it's just apple cider vinegar in there, then that might be beneficial as well, because if it's in a capsule, clearly not going to be affecting your teeth unless you crunch on it or it opens up in your mouth, but other than that you'd be safe. I don't know how well that works. Compared to regular apple cider vinegar, you obviously can't have as much in the capsule. I think there's some people doing concentrates and things and I haven't made myself an expert on that yet, so I can't comment one way or the other, but you could test and measure what works for you and that certainly wouldn't be damaging the teeth. So that's sort of the other thing to consider as well.

Fiona Kane: 17:18

So you really want to protect the enamel and your teeth. When you're looking at these kind of whether it's lemon or apple cider or whatever it is you really want to make sure that you're protecting your teeth as well. So have an awareness around this. If you're using these things for blood sugar regulation or if you're on some sort of diet, or if you're using it for your digestion, it can be great for all those things, but just have a real awareness around protecting your teeth. So, anyway, I will leave it there for today. I hope you found that useful.

Fiona Kane: 17:53

Please remember to like, subscribe, please comment and share, and I'd love you to rate and review this podcast.

Fiona Kane: 18:02

The more people find out about it, the more I can do and the more I can devote time to researching topics and discussing topics and the time to getting more guests on as well. So please, please, support my podcast in any way you can, and the more and if people subscribe because I think 80% of people who are watching my podcast and listening to my podcast are not subscribers but if you subscribe, it gets rated a lot more and a lot more people see it, and then and you know, that works better for me and I would really appreciate that it gets rated a lot more and a lot more people see it, and that works better for me, and I would really appreciate that it works better for other people as well, because the information that I'm trying to get across will get through to more people. So it's a win-win for many of us. Anyway, thank you so much for your support and I hope you have a great week. I'll see you all again next week. Thanks, bye.