Can Vinegar Help Reduce Cholesterol?

When a person has an elevated level of cholesterol in his blood, there is the potential for the blood vessels to begin to accumulate fatty deposits, which can essentially narrow the arteries. This narrowing will inevitably affect the way in which blood is circulated throughout the body, depriving the heart and the brain (among other organs) of oxygen that can increase the potential for heart attack and stroke, respectively. To counteract this condition and lower your cholesterol, you really need to start looking at your diet as well as other methods to usher yourself into good health. But, you can also look to alternative methods as sort of an adjunct treatment for high cholesterol, including introducing some vinegar into your diet, specifically apple cider vinegar.

Apple cider vinegar is essentially a doubly fermented apple, or at least a doubly fermented crushed apple. When an apple is left to ferment, it'll first turn into alcohol (with a little help from yeast) and then develop into vinegar, which is ultimately an acetic and an amino acid.

For years, apple cider vinegar has long been touted as a sort of "cure-all" remedy for virtually everything that ails you, according to a 1950's American book on the folk guide to good health. Most of the "cures" the book claims have no real proof or evidence to actually back up any of their statements, but it has led people to try apple cider vinegar to treat today's ailments, including high cholesterol.

It is believed that, much like garlic, apple cider vinegar can lower lipid levels in a person's blood, which basically means lowering a person's cholesterol. Currently, studies are limited on the actual efficacy of apple cider vinegar as a treatment for high cholesterol. The majority of the positive claims are personal accounts on the benefits of apple cider vinegar. The only real study that has been done with apple cider vinegar in relation to cholesterol was performed on rats, with positive results. This has led some to believe that apple cider vinegar would work the same on humans.

No one really knows how much apple cider vinegar a person actually needs to take in a day to potentially see any positive results in his cholesterol. Yet, most people, or at least those that employ the use of apple cider vinegar for health, believe that a single tablespoon each day will take you a few steps down the road to wellness.

Currently, there isn't enough proof to tell someone whether apple cider vinegar will help lower your cholesterol. If you're look for alternative methods, it doesn't hurt to try using a tablespoon each day along with a doctor-prescribed approach to lowering your cholesterol.