- Pickle juice has been shown to help prevent muscle cramps in athletes.
- The vinegar in pickle juice can help reduce heartburn and stabilize blood sugar.
- Pickle juice is loaded with sodium, so it’s important not to drink too much at one time.
- Visit the Insider Health Reference Library for more tips.
Pickles have long been a favorite side dish at backyard barbecues, but these days pickle juice has taken center stage.
Pickle juice is available only as Sport drinks, granitas, alcoholic drinksand more, and people have been flocking to it for reported health benefits.
“Athletes may use pickle juice in the belief that it will help improve performance,” he says. matthew black, RD, a dietitian at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. “While others may consume pickle juice under the belief that [help] muscle cramps and hangovers.
Are any of these health benefits true? Should you drink pickle juice every day? Here’s what you need to know about the benefits and drawbacks of this salty green liquid.
Pickles Nutrition Facts
In general, pickles and pickle juice contain the electrolyte sodium, and some recipes may also include added antioxidants like vitamin C and E, he says. amy shapiroRD, the founder of royal nutrition.
These important nutrients come both from the cucumbers (and other herbs and vegetables) that manufacturers use to make pickles, and from the brine, which typically includes a mixture of vinegar, salt, and seasoning, that makes the pickle.
Commercially produced cucumbers are very rarely fermented, but if you buy (or make) fermented pickles, they may also contain probiotics, “good bacteria” that support a healthy gut.
This is what Pickle Juice Nutrition Facts appearance (although will vary by recipe and manufacturing process).
Here are six ways the probiotics and other nutrients in pickle juice can benefit your health.
1. Benefits gut health
Your gut is home to about a billion bacteria, known as your gut microbiome. Keeping these good bacteria thriving can reduce your risk for allergies, arthritis and a host of other conditions.
One way to keep your gut microbes happy and healthy is to consume probiotics, or good bacteria, like those found in fermented pickle juice.
TO little studio 2021 found that people who ate a diet rich in fermented foods had a more diverse gut microbiome and healthier immune systems.
To that end, “eating pickles is a great way to increase your microbiome population,” says Shapiro.
To find out if your pickle juice contains probiotics, look for the words “probiotic” or “fermented” on the label, says Black.
Just know that some companies will add probiotics after the juice is already made instead of letting them grow naturally during fermentation. These products generally have fewer strains of probiotics and probably won’t be as beneficial, says Black.
2. Reduce muscle cramps
Pickle juice has been shown to help prevent muscle cramps in athletes when consumed during or after training.
Shapiro recommends taking a 1-ounce shot of pickle juice after intense workouts to prevent cramps. If he doesn’t exercise regularly, pickle juice might still help with muscle cramps, but there’s no research on non-athletes.
The vinegar in many pickle juices can help with
weightloss
since some research has shown that vinegar can reduce appetite, says Black.
However, there are three big problems to be aware of with this:
- Vinegar reduces appetite making people nauseousso it is generally not well tolerated.
- Furthermore, most of the investigate about vinegar and weight loss involves Apple cider vinegarwhich is not normally used in pickle juice.
- Lastly, most studies on weight loss and vinegar involve drinking vinegar before each meal. Consuming that much pickle juice would result in excessive sodium intake, so this isn’t a recommended weight-loss strategy, says Black.
4. Reduces heartburn
Heartburn can be triggered by acidic foods, which is why people with heartburn are told to avoid them. Despite that, some people report that pickle juice, which is highly acidic, helps relieve their symptoms, says Shapiro. For others, it makes symptoms worse.
“This seems to be subjective,” she says. “There has been no research on pickle juice for heartburn.”
If you want to try it, drink an ounce of pickle juice when you have symptoms. If symptoms get worse, try other remedies for heartburn like consuming ginger or liquid aloe vera.
5. Regulates blood sugar
Research has found that vinegar can improve insulin sensitivity Y lower blood sugar levels, particularly when taken with meals containing complex carbohydrates such as whole grains and vegetables. Vinegar can also help people with type two
diabetes
regulate blood sugar.
“Vinegar helps improve insulin response and therefore helps control blood sugar after meals,” says Shapiro.
Although there are no studies on pickle juice specifically, pickle juice that contains a lot of vinegar (rather than fermented pickle juice) probably has the same effect, she says.
Risks of drinking too much
The biggest risk of drinking pickle juice is consuming too much sodium.
The average adult should consume no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium every day, but most Americans consume more than that. Eating too much sodium can increase blood pressureincreasing your risk of heart attack and stroke.
That’s why most people shouldn’t drink pickle juice on a regular basis, says Black. This includes:
- people in low sodium dietsoften used to treat kidney disease, heart disease, and high blood pressure.
- Persons 14 years and younger have a lower recommended daily sodium limit of no more than 1,800 mg per day (going down to 1,500 mg for children under 9 and 1,200 mg for children under 4), so you should be especially careful when consuming pickle juice.
Insider Takeaway
Although pickle juice is all the rage, there’s little evidence to support some of its purported health benefits, says Black.
Pickle juice can help with muscle cramps or stabilize blood sugar. Fermented pickle juice can help support a healthy gut microbiome. But because pickle juice contains so much salt, it’s not a healthy food.
“These products are high in sodium, so use them sparingly,” says Black. “The benefits may not outweigh the risk of consuming large amounts of sodium.”
