Imagine a drug that came to market after being shown that it could safely and effectively: * Boost your immune function and improve your resistance to infectious disease * Help prevent and reverse high cholesterol * Reduce the risk of diabetes * Help regulate blood sugar levels * Reduce inflammation * Relieve allergies * Soothe away arthritis and joint pains * Alleviate muscle cramps * Help prevent bone loss * Help prevent and treat colds and flu * Reduce the risk of cataracts * Improve your digestion and overall gastrointestinal function * Improve bladder, kidney, and liver function * Increase your energy levels and reduce fatigue * Boost your metabolism and aid in weight loss And that''s just the tip of the apple. It can also help prevent and treat scores of other common health conditions, ranging from back pain, congestion, constipation, and diarrhea to headache, heartburn, urinary tract infections, varicose veins, and yeast infections, plus, in the process, also improve the appearance of your skin and improve the luster and sheen of your hair, all without any side effects whatsoever. If such a drug existed, surely millions of patients would flock to their doctors demanding that they be given a prescription for it. Most likely, you would be one of them. And because of the multitude of benefits the drugs provided, the drug company that brought it to market could expect to reap annual profits of hundreds of millions, and perhaps even billions, of dollars. But such a drug does not exist, nor is there ever likely to be one, for the simple reason that pharmaceutical drugs are designed to only target specific and limited mechanisms in the body, thereby significantly narrowing the scope of what such drugs can treat. Moreover, few, if any drugs, have much value as a preventive agent, and all of them, even common aspirin, pose the risk of harmful side effects. Fortunately, however, you don''t have to wish that someday a scientist might discover a drug that did provide all of the benefits listed above.

Instead, you can turn to Mother Nature, for she has already provided us with a substance that can do all of the above and much more. That substance is apple cider vinegar. (Hereinafter, apple cider vinegar will often be listed as its abbreviation of ACV.) It''s likely, however, that until now you have not been aware of just how powerful and versatile apple cider vinegar is as a healing agent for so many health conditions. The reason for this is simple. Unlike pharmaceutical drugs, which, in the United States, are heavily marketed to the public via a bombardment of ads on television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet (only the U.S. and New Zealand allow this type of direct-to-consumer drug advertising by the way), in addition to being the primary recommendation of most conventionally trained physicians to their patients, producers of apple cider vinegar are actually prevented by law from making any health claims about ACV.

If they did so, they would soon face heavy fines by federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and might even be forced out of business. (In fact, our nation''s laws with regard to health claims are so draconian that the FDA literally controls the definition of the word "drug," meaning that anytime a health claim is made about a natural healing substance, the FDA can and does assert that said substance is being marketed as a drug, and therefore subject to the same fines and other legal penalties that drug companies face when they make what the FDA terms "unsubstantiated claims." These same hurdles and restrictions are also imposed on most producers of nutritional supplements and other natural products.) Moreover, ACV producers, even if they were allowed to do so, have no incentive to finance the types of studies that pharmaceutical companies underwrite to bring their drugs to market (the cost of doing so today is estimated to be as high as $800 million or more for a single drug before it can secure FDA approval) because, unlike such drugs, ACV cannot be patented. (Patented drugs, once approved by the FDA, enable the pharmaceutical companies that develop them to reap billions of dollars in annual profits by exclusively selling the drugs under brand names for a period of up to 20 years. Only after this exclusivity period expires are competing drug companies allowed to bring generic versions of these drugs to market. This is one of the reasons why pharmaceutical drugs are so expensive--because they have the exclusive right to sell their drugs for so many years, drug companies typically are allowed to charge whatever they want for the drugs during that exclusivity period--and also a primary reason why our nation''s annual healthcare costs today total $3 trillion, a figure that continues to increase.) For these and other reasons, it''s unlikely that you will find much, if any, advertising about apple cider vinegar.

Instead, the companies which produce and sell it are content to simply place their bottles of ACV in the condiment aisles of grocery and health food stores across the country, where they continue to sell because, after all, nearly everyone uses ACV from time to time as an ingredient for salad dressing. Savvy, health conscious individuals, however, also regularly stock up on ACV because they know of at least some of the other health-promoting benefits that ACV provides. In the pages that follow, you will learn about apple cider vinegar''s long history as a healing agent. You will then discover how and why it works, including what modern science has discovered about its healing properties, along with guidelines for knowing what to look for when choosing an apple cider vinegar product. You will also learn how, if you are so inclined, you can make your own supply of apple cider vinegar at home. Most importantly, you will discover how to use apple cider vinegar to treat more than 80 common health conditions, along with its various other uses. Of course, no single ingredient, even one as powerful and versatile as apple cider vinegar has proven to be, can serve as a "magic bullet" when it comes to your health. For this reason, this book also includes a variety of other important and easy-to-implement self-care approaches you can apply as part of your daily health routine.

Now that you know that apple cider vinegar can act as a multipurpose health aid, let''s take a look at what ACV actually is, how and why it works, and the many ways that it can improve your health.