What Are Apple Cider Vinegar Gummies?
Apple cider vinegar gummies (also called apple cider gummies) are a dietary supplement containing a concentrated form of apple cider vinegar, a vinegar made from fermented apples.In recent years, drinking apple cider vinegar has become popular in the health and wellness space. This is because apple cider vinegar contains acetic acid, which some believe aids weight loss, improves blood sugar control, and lowers cholesterol.
However, many people dislike drinking apple cider vinegar because of its sharp flavor. This spurred supplement manufacturers to create apple cider vinegar gummies, which mask the vinegar’s acidity with added flavorings, sweeteners, and sugar.
Most apple cider vinegar gummies contain the equivalent of 500 mg of apple cider vinegar per serving, around 5% of which is acetic acid. They often also include added vitamins and minerals. For example, goli apple cider vinegar gummies, which are a popular apple cider vinegar supplement, contain the following:
- Apple cider vinegar powder: 500 mg
- Sugar: 2 g
- Beetroot: 40 mcg
- Pomegranate: 40 mcg
- Vitamin B9: 200 mg DFE
- Vitamin B12: 1.2 mcg
Apple Cider Vinegar Gummies: Benefits
The most commonly claimed benefits of apple cider vinegar gummies are that they aid weight loss, improve blood sugar control, and lower cholesterol levels.Let’s look at what science says about each to see which, if any, are valid.
Apple Cider Vinegar Gummies and Weight Loss
Supplement sellers say that apple cider vinegar gummies boost weight loss by curbing your appetite, thus helping you consume fewer calories.Research suggests this isn’t completely off-base.
Studies show your body has to neutralize the acids you eat as they pass through your digestive system. This slows digestion, which may help you feel fuller for longer.
For example, a small-scale study conducted by scientists at the University of Lund found that people who ate pudding containing water and 30 ml of apple cider vinegar digested their meal 10% slower than those who ate pudding containing water alone.
Despite this, there’s little high-quality research showing apple cider vinegar aids weight loss.
One oft-cited study published in the journal Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry had 175 obese people follow their regular diet and take a placebo, 15 ml of apple cider vinegar, or 30 ml of apple cider vinegar daily for 12 weeks.
The results showed that those who took the smaller dose of vinegar lost ~2.6 lb, and those who took the larger dose lost ~4.2 lb. Conversely, the people who took the placebo gained 0.9 lb.
Importantly, however, a company that makes apple cider vinegar conducted this research. While this isn’t a guarantee the results are fraudulent, it’s sensible to wait until a disinterested third party replicates them before accepting them wholesale.
The only study to come close was published in Journal of Functional Foods and found that people who drank 30 ml of apple cider vinegar daily and followed a calorie-controlled diet lost more weight than those who followed the diet alone (~9 lb vs. ~5 lb).
The scientists believed this was likely because those who took apple cider vinegar had less of an appetite and thus consumed fewer calories than the other dieters. That said, this may have been because drinking apple cider vinegar makes many people feel nauseous rather than because apple cider vinegar has inherent appetite-suppressing properties.
These studies aside, most research shows apple cider vinegar does little to support weight loss.
In a review of 25 studies, scientists at UCL University College found that most studies investigating the link between apple cider vinegar and weight loss are either biased, methodologically flawed, or both.
For instance, four studies included in the review compared the effects of taking apple cider vinegar against a placebo. However, in these studies, the placebos used were apple cider vinegar pills, lactic acid, and balsamic vinegar, which all likely have similar effects to apple cider vinegar.
Thus, the authors concluded that there’s no convincing evidence that apple cider vinegar helps you lose weight. A review of 16 studies investigating how taking acetic acid (the active ingredient in apple cider vinegar) affects body mass index (BMI) reached a similar conclusion.
At bottom, there’s little evidence that apple cider vinegar promotes weight loss. What’s more, there’s no evidence that apple cider vinegar gummies can help you lose fat.
Drinking apple cider vinegar (in its liquid form) may abate your appetite, which could help you consume fewer calories, though it may only do this because it makes you feel like vomiting, which makes you less inclined to eat.
Apple Cider Vinegar Gummies and Blood Sugar Control
Under normal circumstances, your body regulates the amount of sugar in your blood by producing the hormone insulin, which shuttles nutrients from your blood into cells.However, health conditions such as diabetes and prediabetes impair some people’s ability to control blood sugar levels, which can adversely affect their health.
Encouragingly, the results from animal and human research suggest apple cider vinegar may be able to help.
For example, studies on healthy people and those with diabetes and prediabetes tend to show that taking apple cider vinegar lowers fasting, average, and post-meal blood sugar levels.
Two reviews that analyzed the results of 19 studies echoed these findings, too.
That said, both reviews concluded that it’s too early to draw firm conclusions about apple cider vinegar’s effect on blood sugar control because studies supporting its efficacy are usually small, short, and potentially colored by bias.
As such, it’s sensible to count this as a potential rather than “proven” benefit until more high-quality research replicates the above findings.
Apple Cider Vinegar Gummies and Cardiovascular Health
Many people believe that apple cider vinegar can improve cardiovascular health by lowering cholesterol and triglyceride levels in your blood, reducing your risk of conditions such as heart disease.There’s some evidence supporting this stance.
A 2021 systematic review and meta-analysis of 9 studies found that most research suggests supplementing with apple cider vinegar reduces total cholesterol levels and tends to lower triglyceride levels.
There are stipulations, though.
For instance, these effects were only pronounced in studies on people with type 2 diabetes that lasted at least 8 weeks and involved taking 15 ml of apple cider vinegar daily or less.
The benefits were less significant in shorter studies involving healthy people, especially if they took large doses. That said, taking apple cider vinegar did appear to increase HDL (“good”) cholesterol in healthy people, which wasn’t the case for people with type 2 diabetes.
Again, there’s no evidence that apple cider vinegar gummies have the same effect as apple cider vinegar. If they do, apple cider gummies may benefit people with type 2 diabetes who have high cholesterol. They’re unlikely to benefit otherwise healthy people, though.
