Q. I wrote you some months ago about the vinegar diet, but I’ve gotten no reply yet. Does this diet work? Or is the diet a scam to get my $23, plus postage?
A. First, let me apologize to you and everyone else for whom I am unable to write a reply. I get so many letters and e-mail messages that I can respond to only a small percentage of them. Unfortunately, I also am unable to respond to anyone directly.
I cannot tell you whether you will lose the weight you desire through this or any other diet. But I can help you evaluate ads for a diet to help you decide if it’s worth your money.
Most commercial diets have a special component (some would call it a gimmick) that is used to set it apart from the hundreds of other diets being sold. This component (in this case, vinegar) is usually a single food or supplement that has been used by many people for other reasons.
This helps ensure that the component is probably safe, at least in moderate amounts. But is it particularly effective? The vinegar diet brochure you sent with your letter says, “Vinegar is a fundamental key to life. It is needed to burn fats and carbohydrates.”
Well, acetate and acetic acid (the main ingredient of vinegar) are important chemical products in the metabolism of foods, but I can find no evidence that vinegar is needed in the diet.
My search of the medical literature over the last five years found one study on five people that showed blood sugar levels were somewhat lower after eating when acetic acid was part of the meal.
Does this mean that adding acetic acid or vinegar to the diet will help lose weight? I can’t find any proof for that claim, but if vinegar replaces oils in your diet, in salad dressing for example, you will get fewer calories.
Also, be very careful of testimonials, such as those in sales brochures. Even assuming they are true, it’s impossible to say whether one person’s experience with something as complex as weight loss will have a bearing on your situation.
Also, like many other weight-loss pitches, this one sells a “weight-loss program” that probably includes a well-balanced diet with moderate intake of calories and lots of exercise. Remember, if you add water or any other safe substance, plus make these other changes, you probably will lose weight.
So, if you require a weight-loss program to have a special twist to it (and one that won’t cause harm) to motivate you to exercise and eat in moderation over a long period of time, it may be worth it. It’s your decision.
Future file on Alzheimer’s disease: It is presumed that many of the major chronic diseases we face today, such as Alzheimer’s, arthritis and multiple sclerosis, are caused in some way by the immune system reacting to foreign “invasion” that then leads to attack of the body.
It’s been frustrating because it’s not clear what the source of the foreign material is. But a study recently reported in the Journal of Neurology shows even stronger evidence that, for Alzheimer’s disease at least, the culprit is a virus.
By comparing brain tissue of 40-year-olds who died from an HIV infection with those who didn’t, researchers found that the plaques that are characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease were present in those with HIV and not in those without HIV.
Does this mean that one or more of certain viral infections over a lifetime could cause Alzheimer’s disease? Is it one particular virus that we are not aware of? And, if identified, can we treat it or prevent it with a vaccine?
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Write to Dr. Douma in care of the Chicago Tribune, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611.
