"Vinegar and Artery Function"
There was a famous study from Harvard
published back in ’99 that found that women who used
oil-and-vinegar salad dressing about every day
went on to have fewer than half the fatal heart attacks
compared to women who hardly ever used it.
Less than half the risk of the #1 killer of women.
They figured it was the omega-3s in the oil
that explained the benefit,
but I know what you’re thinking.
Those who use salad dressing every day probably also eat,
salad every day.
But no, they were able to adjust for vegetable intake
so it didn’t appear to be the salad,
but why does the oil get the credit and not the vinegar?
If only there was a way we could test that.
Well, what about creamy salad dressing?
They’re also made from omega-3 rich oils like canola—
in fact even more so than oil and vinegar dressing.
So if it’s the oil and not the vinegar,
then creamy dressing would be protective too.
But it’s not.
No significant decrease in fatal heart attack rates
or nonfatal heart attack rates for that matter.
Now it could be the eggs or butterfat
counteracting the benefits of the omega 3s,
but maybe the vinegar is actually playing a role. But how?
Well, if you were paying close attention
in the vinegar weight loss video,
the title of that paper was
“Vinegar Intake Enhances Flow-mediated Vasodilatation Via Upregulation
of Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase Activity.”
In other words, vinegar enhances arterial function
by allowing our arteries to better dilate naturally
by boosting the activity of the enzyme in our body
that synthesizes nitric oxide,
the open sesame signal to our arteries that improves blood flow.
If you remember, acetate is cleared out of your blood
within a half an hour after consuming a salad
with a tablespoon of vinegar in it,
apparently not enough time to boost the AMPK enzyme
but within just ten minutes,
those kind of acetate levels can boost the activity
of the nitric oxide synthesizing enzyme
within human umbilical cord blood vessel cells
in a petri dish.
But what about in people?
They measured the dilation of arteries in the arms of women
after they had a tablespoon of rice vinegar,
a tablespoon of brown rice vinegar,
or a tablespoon of forbidden rice vinegar,
in other words vinegar made from black or purple rice.
All the vinegars appeared to help,
but it was the black rice one
that mostly clearly pulled away from the pack.
Black rice contains the same kind of anthocyanin pigments
that make some fruits and vegetables blue and purple
and may have independent benefits.
For example, if you give someone a big blueberry smoothie
containing the amount of anthocyanins
in a cup and a half of wild blueberries,
you get a nice spike in arterial function
that lasts a couple hours,
Thus the highest maximum forearm blood flow
in the forbidden rice vinegar intake group
might be attributed to an additional
or synergistic effect of anthocyanin with the acetate.
But it could also just be the antioxidant power
of anthocyanins, in which case balsalmic vinegar,
which is made from red wine,
may have a similar effect, as it was shown to have
remarkably higher free radical scavenging activity
than rice vinegar.
Enough to counter the artery-constricting effects
of a high fat meal?
We’ve known for nearly 20 years
that a single high fat meal -
Sausage and egg Mcmuffins with deepfried hashbrowns
can cripple our artery function,
cutting the ability of our arteries
to dilate normally in half,
within hours of it going into our mouths,
compared to frosted flakes.
Even with that massive, unhealthy sugar load,
no effect on the arteries
because there was no fat.
And not just animal fat we're talking about,
a quarter cup of safflower oil
had a similar effect.
In fact, the very first study to show
how bad fat was for our arteries,
basically dripped highly refined soybean oil
into people’s veins.
But extra virgin olive oil isn’t refined.
We know some whole food sources of plant fat
such as nuts actually improve artery function,
whereas oils, including olive oil worsen function,
but they didn’t specify extra virgin here.
You can see, smell, and taste
the phytonutrients still left in extra virgin olive oil—
are they enough to maintain arterial function?
No. A significant drop in artery function
within three hours of eating whole grain bread
dipped in extra virgin olive oil.
And the more fat in their blood,
the worse their arteries did.
Ah, but what if you ate the same meal
but added balsamic vinegar on a salad.
That seemed to protect the arteries
from the effects of the fat.
Now, balsamic vinegar is a product of red wine.
Would you get the same benefits just drinking
a glass of red wine?
No. No improvement in arterial function
after red wine. Hmmm.
Why does balsamic vinegar work,
but red wine not?
Maybe it’s because the red wine lacks the benefits
of the acetic acid in vinegar
or, maybe it’s because the vinegar lacks
the negative effects of the alcohol.
And a third option might be it was
the salad ingredients,
and had nothing to do with the vinegar.
To figure out this puzzle all we’d have to do is…
test non-alcoholic wine.
And nonalcoholic red wine worked!
So maybe it was the grapes in balsamic vinegar,
not the acetic acid.
And indeed if you eat a cup and a quarter
of seeded and seedless red, green and blue-black grapes
with your sausage and egg McMuffin,
you can blunt the crippling of your arteries.
So plants and their products may provide protection
against the direct impairment in endothelial function,
unless those products are oil or alcohol.