Comment by newprint | Hacker News Reader

Comment by newprint | Hacker News Reader

Achtung ! Proceed with caution ! Friend of mine was consuming a lot of Apple cider vinegar for what she consider "health and dietary reasons" and end-up with small hole in her stomach. One day, she felt a severe pain ended up in hospital, where they found a hole. It is possible that she had small ulcer that was made worst by the continuous consumption of vinegar. She stopped taking vinegar, took medication for a while and now ulcer is almost gone. Also, if you have acid reflux, vinegar will absolutely destroy your stomach and make your acid reflux 100% worse.

EDIT: I want to bring up another important point. People who suffer from acid reflux might not notice it's effect for years, but if you look at statistics, they suffer from higher rates of stomach and esophagus cancers, worst teeth and myriad of other health issues. Continuously raising your stomach pH might not be good for your in the long run. Keep this in mind when reading this article. Temporarily taking ACV might work, contentiously for years - not a great idea.

Do you know the amount she was consuming and the brand? Total Dosage, dilution and the per unit strength of the ACV brand can really matter, like anything else we might consume.

The paper does do a good job of describing this pretty important detail: "Groups 1, 2 and 3 consumed 5, 10 and 15 mL, respectively, of ACV (containing 5% of acetic acid) diluted in 250 mL of water daily".

I can almost guarantee if that amount went up to 30-50ML and without any kind of dilution, effects can be pretty adverse.

I've been consuming it by diluting a tablespoon of ACV heavily with some warm water that I can barely taste it. It's really helped fix my acid reflux while all the prescription drugs from my PCP didn't seem to do anything.

The placebo was dilute lactic acid of similar pH. So one might imagine that the acidity didn’t cause the effect and try neutralizing the vinegar. Add, for example, calcium carbonate (cheap and safe) to convert most of the acetic acid to calcium acetate, leaving a neutral solution with extra calcium. Whatever magic other compounds in apple cider vinegar are beneficial seem likely to survive that process intact. The net result would be similar to drinking the vinegar and eating an antacid, minus the tooth damage.

> Also, if you have acid reflux, vinegar will absolutely destroy your stomach and make your acid reflux 100% worse

I replaced my Prilosec prescription (for severe acid reflux) with diluted ACV. After a few years, I no longer needed even the ACV, although I occasionally take it for various other claimed benefits. It has been about eight years since I last needed Prilosec. I don't have a hole in my stomach, and in fact am healthier than most people I know - mostly hooked on some meds.

Sounds like your friend did something wrong. Possibilities: she took way too much ACV, or she didn't dilute it. In my experience, it's pretty common for people to mess up even simple [nutrition and healthcare] instructions.

My dental hygienist told me about an old client who developed caries in her teeth because of the acid.

Vinegar has a similar pH to a Coke Cola. I would hazard a wild guess that the population drinks significantly more Coke than vinegar.

"as good for your teeth as Coca Cola" is a low bar.

No doubt, but an occasional bolus of vinegar seems less harsh than what many people routinely consume.

Could even mitigate further with a straw

The average consumer is not diluting their Coca Cola at a rate of 15ml Coke to 250 mL water, which is the high end of consumption for this study, 5ml to 250ml being the low end.

I didn't believe you, so I looked it up.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4808596

A PH of 2.37 for Coca Cola

https://www.fda.gov.tw/tc/includes/GetFile.ashx?mID=148&id=8...

A mean Ph of 3.10 for Taiwanese apple cider vinegar, and 2.78 for "Imported" apple cider vinegar. Somehow I can't believe what I'm reading but you appear to be correct and if anything are understating your case. Amazing what adding obscene amounts of sugar to a beverage will do to our perception of sourness. What you're saying is so counter-intuitive your post was grey by the time I got to it but unpopular doesn't mean wrong.

Honestly this mostly makes me worry about coca-cola though... maybe we should be diluting it and drinking it through a straw :)

Worth noting that ph is a logarithmic scale.

This means that apple vinegar is more acidic than you might think just by looking at ph if you don’t take that into account.

just for fun, try to convert 2.37 = log_10(x) & 2.78 = log_10(x), and see how large the difference is (A: 234.4 vs 602.6).

Acid lowers pH.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com