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If you’ve taken a look around on social media or any wellness-focused lifestyle sites lately — chances are you’ve seen something about the benefits of “taking” apple cider vinegar.
Bloggers and websites tout the benefits of drinking apple cider vinegar, primarily that it will ramp up your metabolism and help flatten your belly. In the interest of setting the record straight, we’ve rounded up the ways that apple cider vinegar will make you healthier — and the ways it won’t.
You can use it as a hair rinse.
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You may have never considered using apple cider vinegar as a rinse for your hair, but there are some benefits to doing so.
“I use it as my hair conditioner … and I get compliments on my hair all the time,” architect Cheryl Ciecko said. “Even my hair stylist has stopped trying to sell me products because it’s really obvious that my hair is better than it has ever been. I use a baking soda mixture for the shampoo and an ACV solution for the rinse.”
Apple cider vinegar might also help alleviate scalp itchiness, as Healthline noted. Because it’s acidic and many hair issues have to do with your hair being too alkaline, as Healthline reported, the idea is that applying vinegar to your hair will help balance the pH of your hair. Dilute it before applying to your head, though, so as to make sure you’re helping, not harming.
You can use it to remove mold from a shower curtain.
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Chances are you’ve witnessed mold on your shower curtain once or twice, even if you keep the bathroom clean. Because the room is often a humid atmosphere, it’s easy for mold to grow. If you have a washing machine and some vinegar, however, you can clean up that mold without much of an issue.
Lily Cameron, a cleaning expert at Fantastic Services, said that adding about a cup of apple cider vinegar to the machine during the rinse cycle will help get all that nasty mold off your plastic or fabric shower curtain and make sure it’s squeaky clean.
You can potentially use it to help you lose weight.
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You’ll likely hear apple cider vinegar fans talk about its ability to help spur weight loss, science is still unsure.
“I am constantly combing PubMed for definitive clinical meta-analysis and random double-blind tests on any food or supplement to recommend to patients. Apple Cider Vinegar was really hot back in the ’80s and I am seeing a huge resurgence in it again with unreasonable health claims. There is a small amount of clinical data that demonstrates some benefit for lipid reduction, but that is all,” said Dr. Elizabeth Trattner, an integrative medicine specialist and acupuncturist.
Though it might have an impact on fat cells, there isn’t enough evidence there to definitely say that incorporating apple cider vinegar into your diet will make a drastic impact. In an extremely small 2013 study published in the “International Journal of Obesity,” researchers found that apple cider vinegar can suppress your appetite, but will make you very nauseous, so taking a shot of ACV a day may not be the best diet to rely on, health-wise.
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