The video discusses the benefits of apple cider vinegar (ACV) and how it works in the body. ACV is made by fermenting sugary liquid with yeast and bacteria to produce acetic acid. While there is a lot of confusion and disagreement about the benefits of ACV, it can help with digestion by increasing stomach acid and activating enzymes. It improves overall digestion, aids in breaking down proteins, enhances mineral absorption, helps with acid reflux, boosts the immune system, reduces gas and bloating, and improves insulin sensitivity. However, it is important to use raw, organic, unfiltered ACV with „the mother“ and not expect it to be a magic remedy or substitute for a balanced diet.
Key Insights:
- Apple cider vinegar is made by fermenting sugar with yeast and certain bacteria to produce acetic acid.
- When choosing apple cider vinegar, it is recommended to use raw, organic, unfiltered vinegar with the mother (the solid stuff that remains in the vinegar).
- The pH scale is logarithmic, and apple cider vinegar has a pH of around 3.5, making it more acidic than neutral.
- Apple cider vinegar can help with digestion by increasing acid production, aiding in the breakdown of proteins and activating enzymes.
- It improves mineral absorption and can aid in the treatment of GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) by promoting proper stomach acid production.
- Apple cider vinegar can support the immune system by killing pathogens and maintaining a healthy bacterial balance in the stomach.
- It can alleviate gas and bloating by ensuring proper digestion and reducing the feeding of unwanted bacteria.
- One of the most well-documented benefits of apple cider vinegar is its ability to improve insulin sensitivity.
Transcript
Benefits, is there such a thing as well if you’ve been looking on the internet to see that there’s probably more claims and more anecdotal evidence and more confusion and disagreement on apple cider vinegar than just about anything else out there. Who are the benefits real and if so what does it help with and how does it work if it does today we explain that coming right up.
Hey, I’m Doctor Ekberg holistic doctor and a former Olympic decathlete and if you want to truly Master Health by understanding how the body really works to make sure that you subscribe and hit that notification bell so that you don’t miss anything apple cider vinegar the benefits ACV for short first of all what is apple cider vinegar if you take sugar and you ferment it with yeast you get alcohol and then if you add certain bacteria certain microbes to get acetic acid which is exactly what it sounds like it is a pretty strong acid now when we say strong that means it’s stronger than a lot of acids but not necessarily as strong as some so the strongest acid in the body is hydrochloric acid and even though acetic acid is pretty strong it’s not nearly as strong as hydrochloric acid so we’ll talk about those also so if you’re going to drink apple cider vinegar then you want to use raw organic unfiltered with the mother and why is that because a lot of the benefits you’re going to get regardless but the reason you want to use that is because it’s natural it is derived from whole food from organic apples if it’s raw that means is unpasteurized if it’s on filter it means they haven’t messed with it so the mother that’s the solid stuff that remains behind in the vinegar even though it doesn’t have any specific benefits in itself it tells you still having the whole unfiltered products what’s the result of this process that you’re looking for when it’s raw organic and I’ll filter you know that there’s going to be a little bit of enzymes in there so before we dive into the claimes and all of that we would understand a little bit about the digestive tract your gastro in what is the purpose of your GI tract because a lot of people there so much emphasis in nutrition about what to eat what to put into your mouth but there’s not so much focus on how is it going to get from the mouth into the cell how is it going to become tissue use it we can’t absorb it if we don’t break it down first and that is the purpose of the upper portion of your digestive tract in order for us to break things down we need two things and that acid and enzymes and acid triggers a lot of the enzymes especially the ones in the stomach this is where we get virtually all the benefits vinegar acetic acid of apple cider vinegar acid is a bad thing they’ve heard over and over and over that vegetables and fruits are alkaline good acid is terrible for you well that’s a myth because your body has different pHs there’s different pH in different body fluids in different compartments for different purposes so let’s just talk a little bit of pH so in your mouth you have neutral pH it’s right around 7 your saliva supposed to be neutral and in your mouth when you chew you also have certain enzymes there that don’t need acid to be triggered it’s called salivary amylase and it starts breaking down carbohydrates so animals who eat mostly carbohydrates or herbivores they don’t need a whole lot of acid but animals who need to break down protein who eat meat omnivores or carnivores they need a whole lot more acid what we have to understand about the pH scale is that it’s logarithmic and you don’t have to understand anything about that accept that for every number that the pH goes down it becomes ten times more acidic so 6 is 10 times more acidic than 7 5 is a hundred times more acidic than 7 for is a thousand times more 3 is 10000 times more to is 100001 is 1000000 and 0 pH is 10 million times more acidic than neutral so what does that mean will apple cider vinegar has a pH of around 3.5 that means it’s about five thousand times more acidic than neutral than water but the human digestive tract is designed to break down protein we are an omnivore we have been we have the ability to break down protein and normal pH is somewhere between 2 and 3 when we eat something that needs protein breakdown so we’re about 50 thousand times more acidic than water and we’re about 10 times more acidic than apple cider vinegar so how can apple cider vinegar help what we’re going to get to that in a few moments I want to touch a little bit on the claims that people have like there’s so much anecdotal evidence I’ve seen videos talk about oh you should take it in the morning because it gives you energy you’ll be energized for the day when there is no energy in apple cider vinegar per say it’s more like if you bite down into a lemon you get a shock from the taste of fact from the acidity and this is kind of the same way you’re going to wake up and it’s not a bad thing but it’s not like it gives you energy apple cider vinegar is very popular app for skin treatment and dandruff treatment and hair treatment and there’s some truth to that because your skin is a little bit acidic and you have a bacterial culture just like you have an a biome to have a culture of bacteria in your gut you have a culture bacteria in your skin and under and so forth and it likes to be a little bit acidic so if you apply acetic acid like apple site in the form of apple cider vinegar then you’re going to lower the ph so here’s the thing though you want to be careful because apple cider vinegar is a whole lot more acidic than what your skin like so you want it diluted first acids especially if you use a lot of them you could probably get some irritation or possibly Burns if you use a lot so just dilute it and be careful with that it has been claimed to whiten teeth and whether that works or not I tell you do not do that acid erodes enamel it is possibly one of the worst things that you can do for your teeth whether it works or not don’t even try to find out it has been said to reduce the absorption of carbs and again whether that is true or not if that is a benefit or if that isn’t affect it is certainly not a benefit because we eat food because we’re supposed to absorb it and you don’t take apple cider vinegar to reduce the absorption of carbs you eat less carbs because if you put them in your body and you don’t absorb them guess what happens they end up being food for your pathogenic bacteria and you set yourself up for a host of digestive problems you can use vinegar for a cleaning acid breaks things down but in this case I would use white vinegar because it has the exact same effect but it’s cleaner and if you’re trying to clean something you don’t want to put the unfiltered mother on your stuff because you probably have to wipe that off afterwards understand about this is that there are some benefits and we’ll talk a little bit in more detail but we want to pass the idea of using it as a remedy don’t use it as a medication don’t use it as a magic pill so many people ask the question will does it work who cares we want to find out how it works because if it works but it creates another imbalance then we’re worse off right we always want to figure out how does it work and is it is the end result beneficial because then it’s a good thing to do so don’t ask yourself whether it works now take something for something don’t take it because you have an upset stomach or because you have this or that alright so it only has benefits apple cider vinegar can only have benefit if it gives you something you need which it doesn’t really it doesn’t really have any nutrients or if it solves the problem if it adds something that’s missing so it’s not like it as a nutrient but it can add a little bit of something you’re missing and what is that we said that the human stomach should be as low a PHS between two and three and a lot of people they dismiss apple cider vinegar and said that all will you know it can’t possibly help because it’s not as acidic as the human stomach already is well where they’re mistaken is that they are assuming that everyone has optimal pH to start with that everyone is making enough hydrochloric acid so let’s look at what are the factors that interfere with the production of hydrochloric acid will first of all stress everything in your body the production of acid the production of enzymes everything to do with digestion is shut down or reduced by stress because your body is re prioritizing its resources and anytime you stressed it says digestion is not really important right now let’s do that later so when you are stressed you making less hydrochloric acid less enzymes if you eat too much protein or if you eat too much protein for the amount of hydrochloric acid to produce because hydrochloric acid is primarily to break down protein so the more protein you eat the more more hydrochloric acid and for a lot of people who don’t like meat it’s because they’re not making enough hydrochloric acid so their bodies are telling them hey this doesn’t taste very good because I’m not going to be able to break it down you could have a lack of vitamins or minerals like B1 or zinc they’re necessary for the production of hydrochloric acid alcohol interferes with the production of hydrochloric acid and of calls that the big granddaddy of all double triple whammy is antacids with the absolute worst thing that you can do for your digestion because the acid is there for a reason and if you add an antacid you are shutting off any ability of your body to break down food any ability to complete that process of breaking down the protein is lost when you take an antacid and you’re setting yourself up for leaky gut and allergies and and bloating dysbiosis and so forth it solves a short-term problem it makes it worse next time around so this is kind of what we said with does it work sure but it it relieves the burning but it creates a bigger problems we don’t really care if it works we want to understand the mechanism if you are hypopituitary why because the pituitary stimulates the thyroid and when your thyroid slows down everything in your body slows down including the production of hydrochloric acid and another thing is if you have had bariatric surgery than most of your ability to produce hydrochloric acid is gone so again when they’re talkin when they’re dismissing apple cider vinegar and saying that it can’t compete with stomach acid they’re assuming that stomach acid is being produced by with all of these things going on you can people are not probably not making enough hydrochloric acid and if we look at the people with health issue if we look at the people with IBS or leaky gut or sibo or digestive problem then I would bet you that the number of people who don’t make enough hydrochloric acid is probably approaching 100% so this is why apple cider vinegar is a good idea because most people don’t make enough hydrochloric acid there’s a function there in the body that has been lost by stress and lifestyle and deficiencies and toxicities and if you add some acid is going to make it better so even if it’s not as strong as hydrochloric acid it’s still going to help tremendously and this is where you hear of all of the reported benefits is because it’s getting something back that helps you digest stuff so once we understand that now the benefits become kind of selfish parents so number one is it helps overall digestion digestion starts with taking the big chunks of food and breaking them down into smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller if the first step doesn’t work then the second and third and fourth and fifth isn’t going to work because it’s not getting it prepared in the right way Step One is hydrochloric acid in your stomach when you don’t have that step one doesn’t work so it helps digestion overall by helping that first step by increasing acid we improve the breakdown of protein we split proteins which are long long long long chains of thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of amino acid we split them into short peptides which is chains of a handful a dozen or a couple of dozen amino acids so that the later stages down in the small intestine can break them down into individual amino acids and we can absorb them that’s the only form of protein that we can absorb if it doesn’t get broken down then it doesn’t matter how much protein you eat you can still be deficient in essential amino acids the acid activate enzymes every step of the digestive process is stimulated either by the presence of food or by a certain pH so when we add the acid then we help the body regulate those digestive stages including the production of enzymes most minerals number for improves mineral absorption because most minerals need an acidic environment to be absorbed you can take a bunch of minerals but if you don’t have an acidic environment that they’ll do you no good apple cider vinegar can help with GERD with gastroesophageal reflux disease also known as acid reflux or heartburn how can you do that because that’s where a lot of people are confused they get they eat something at this this burning acid feeling and we tell them to take more acid the seems like it would make it worse right well there’s the confusion because when you eat something you need acid to break it down if you have enough acid that acid is going to sit in the stomach with the protein for an hour or so it’s going to break down the protein and the acidity is going to close off the valve at the top of the stomach if you don’t have enough acid then that valve doesn’t get the right signal to close up it stays a little bit open okay now the food sits there for too long because you don’t have enough acid to break it down now it sits there any bubbles and it sure and sometimes even starts fermenting or awning and then the gases and the bubbles move up and that valve isn’t closed so now it starts burning because you’re getting acid in places it’s not supposed to be the acid is well-protected for an hour or two because that’s what it’s designed for and then when the food is digested then they restore they neutralize they reduce the acidity of that food so that it’s ready to move into the next part of your digestive tract which can’t handle those low stop acidity do everything in your body is really really smart and acid is your friend when you make enough things work when you don’t make enough then it creates problem if even if it seems like it’s burning from too much with reflux by just giving them a supplement a digestive enzyme that has some enzymes and some hydrochloric acid and you can also do get a lot of the same benefits from apple cider vinegar because it’s acid when people add acid and gerd goes away I would say that better than 90% of people have Improvement within days number 6 it helps your immune system it kills pathogens whenever you ingest bacteria because there’s bacteria everywhere that’s your first line of defense for your immune system is to have enough stomach acid because bacteria don’t do so well in acidic environment apple cider vinegar is a natural bacteria that kills bacteria and one of my favorite examples is how the amount of acid in your stomach depends on what you’re supposed to eat so herbivores animals that eat mostly fruits and plants and grass they don’t need a whole lot of acid their pH usually runs in the 4 5 6 range there’s some even monkeys that eat mostly plants that are in the seven range if you are a omnivore you’re typically between 2 and 3 if you’re a carnivore like dogs for example dogs and cats they’ll run in the 1 to 2 range but the most extreme example is a vulture specially the turkey vulture it has the lowest recorded pH of anybody it’s between 0 and 1 which means it’s about 5 million times more acidic than water and neutral and why is that because vultures are supposed to clean up dead stuff so after something dies and it starts weather was sick before or whether it starts to fester with bacteria after it dies that’s not a problem for the vulture they have so much stomach acid that they will digest any sort of lethal disease they can safely eat that animal and they will sterilize all of the food all the bacteria and they won’t spread it around ultimate clean up crew of the nature Kingdom so what’s the point of reiterate that stomach acid is your first line of defense and the better that your stomach work the more stomach acid that you have the better your immune system is going to work as well it’s a very very important for gas and bloating when you sent half digested food down to the bacteria in your stomach supposed to be a very delicate balance there if you digest properly from the beginning I stage 1 2 and 3 then by the time it gets down to the bacteria in the gut it is in the right shape and form if you don’t digest it now you’re going to feed the wrong kind of bacteria you get small intestinal bacterial overgrowth in your large intestine and that’s for gas and low income from so if you want to improve gas and bloating digestion part of that is eating fewer carbs the other part is to make everything work better to reduce stress and have a more acidic environment and number eight is maybe one of the best documented one of the benefits that almost everyone agrees on and that is the apple cider vinegar can make you more insulin sensitive that insulin works better that your body doesn’t have to produce as much insulin if you take some apple cider vinegar it on a daily basis War before each meal and this is one of my favorite points but there’s a lot to talk about on this one it can get a little bit complex a lot of people have already asked me if they should take apple cider vinegar when the fast things that take apple cider vinegar if they’re diabetic etc etc so I want to really dig into the details about that and give you the bigger picture so I can make another video on that topic very soon and if you going to use it then use it to improve your digestion especially if you feel like not making enough hydrochloric acid for any of these reasons and don’t understand why you’re taking it to you using it for the right reasons if you enjoy this video I’m sure that you’re going to love this one thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you in the next video
