Vinegar research and sugarcane vinegar's health effects
What it found
Sugarcane vinegar lowered blood fats and body weight in mice fed a high-fat diet, and showed antioxidant effects in lab tests.
The paper also describes how vinegar is made and what compounds it contains.
What they found
Animal and lab studies
Blood fats in mice
In mice fed a high-fat diet, sugarcane vinegar significantly reduced total cholesterol, triglycerides, and LDL cholesterol, and raised HDL cholesterol. It also reduced blood sugar and fat accumulation.
Antioxidant effects
Sugarcane fruit wine and original sugarcane vinegar had strong scavenging effects on DPPH and OH in lab tests, and chelated metal ions. The effect increased with sample volume.
Body weight and organs
High-concentration sugarcane vinegar effectively reduced body weight in high-fat mice. Except for a significant increase in lung, other organs showed no significant difference.
Other findings
Compounds in vinegar
Sugarcane vinegar is rich in phenolic substances like vanillin, coumarin, chlorogenic acid, and caffeic acid. Its total phenolic content was higher than commercial apple cider vinegar beverages.
How vinegar is made
Vinegar is made by a two-step fermentation: yeasts turn sugars into alcohol, then acetic acid bacteria turn alcohol into acetic acid. Sugarcane vinegar uses sugarcane juice fermented with wine yeast and LB acetate bacteria.
Aroma and flavour
Vinegar's flavour comes from acetic acid and other compounds like organic acids, esters, ketones, and aldehydes. These are influenced by raw materials, microbes, and production process.
What the authors conclude
- They say future research should focus on using multi-omics technologies to better understand how microbes produce volatile organic compounds in vinegar.
- They note that it is highly challenging to explain the production processes of these compounds because they change during vinegar making.
How it was done
Health problems are closely linked to diet, and vinegar has long been used in traditional medicine. The authors wanted to map the current state of vinegar research and highlight areas for future study.
The authors reviewed existing studies on vinegar, including its production, chemistry, and health effects. They also used bibliometric analysis to visualise the knowledge map of vinegar research based on literature data.
What it can’t tell you
- The health effects in this paper come mainly from animal and lab studies. They cannot show what happens in people.
- The paper does not report human trials on sugarcane vinegar's effects on blood fats, weight, or antioxidants.
- The review describes many compounds in vinegar but does not prove that any of them cause health benefits in people.
Who paid
- Conflicts
- The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
- Authors work at
- Guangxi Minzu University, China; Institute of Agro-Products Processing Science and Technology, China; Guangxi Key Laboratory of Fruits and Vegetables Storage-Processing Technology, China
The paper
- Title
- Vinegar: A potential source of healthy and functional food with special reference to sugarcane vinegar
- Type
- ReviewThe authors read earlier studies and describe what they found. It isn’t a new study.
- Evidence
- Animals and lab studies
- Summarised from
- Full text
- Licence
- CC BY.
- Cite
- Chen GL, Zheng FJ, Lin B, et al (2023). Vinegar: A potential source of healthy and functional food with special reference to sugarcane vinegar. Frontiers in nutrition. doi:10.3389/fnut.2023.1145862Free full textPubMed 37006937DOI
Summary written 26 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error