When your stomach starts to cramp or you feel queasy, you might want to head straight to your fridge. After all, that’s where the pickle brine is likely to be. Pickle brine is the liquid that surrounds pickles. But for many people, it’s not just a tangy, vinegary concoction that ferments fresh cucumbers into crisp pickles. In fact, anecdotal and (limited) scientific research suggests pickle brine might be a natural remedy for a few stomach ailments, including cramping.
The idea of chugging down pickle brine when your stomach feels yucky might sound odd, but the practice made headlines not long ago when athletes and coaches began touting the liquid’s stomach-soothing and muscle-relaxing benefits. For instance, Sports Illustrated reported that tennis player Grigor Dimitrov leveraged pickle brine to “stay alive” during the 2024 Australian Open. And seven years earlier, CBS Sports noted that pickle brine was becoming the recovery drink of choice for players in the NHL and NFL to avoid muscle cramping.
It’s hardly shocking that the most vocal proponents of pickle brine consumption were (and are) sports professionals, since muscle cramping throughout the body is a regular stumbling block faced during practices and games. But is all the stomach-friendly pickle brine enthusiasm a winning bet or just a barrel of hype? Lori Barrett, a certified registered dietitian at Top Nutrition Counseling, says pickle brine might be worth trying if your stomach isn’t feeling its best — but her go-ahead comes with caveats.
Figure out when to reach for pickle brine
Lori Barrett says there’s evidence supporting the use of pickle brine as a temporary curative for cramping and abdominal aches. Specifically, Barrett refers to a Sports Medicine research article from 2019 that agrees that, due to pickle brine’s high sodium content, pickle brine ingestion seemed to reduce the duration of muscular cramping events in humans by 37% when compared with water ingestion. (For perspective, MedicalNewsToday indicates that a 3.5-ounce serving of pickle brine supplies anywhere from 50% to 115% of the recommended daily value of sodium for an adult.)
Another 2023 trial published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine studied the value of drinking pickle brine for people experiencing cirrhosis-related cramping. Throughout the experiment, participants who drank pickle brine reported less severe cramping than those who only drank water.
Exactly why did 1 milliliter of pickle brine seem to have such a significant effect in the first study? And why did it reduce the severity of cramps for the subjects in the second trial? Barrett feels it’s all about how fast pickle brine helps replace used-up electrolytes, just like an over-the-counter energy drink would. “Pickle brine can help replace our sodium loss due to sweating with exertion,” she says.
However, she doesn’t necessarily recommend pickle brine for solving all stomach issues and cramping. “The vinegar in the pickle brine may help soothe some stomach ailments,” admits Barrett, “But realizing the cause of the nausea would need to be investigated further.”
Avoid getting yourself into a pickle
Are you starting to think that you could tame your worst occasional stomach churning and muscle cramps with a pucker-up food byproduct? Just be careful and know what you’re drinking, as well as how it can affect your body.
Lori Barrett cautions that sending a sudden rush of sodium into your system could lead to unwanted side effects, such as bloating. For that reason, turning to pickle brine to soothe a problem like premenstrual and menstrual cramping, which is often hormonal and can come alongside other unpleasant and unwanted symptoms like water retention, might not be advisable. “With the body already retaining water during that time of the month […] having extra sodium may lead to more discomfort than comfort,” Barrett concludes.
Be aware, too, that the most basic pickle brine solution — such as the stuff found in your nearest pickle jar — is unlikely to contain the potassium, vitamins, or minerals commonly found in energy drinks. Therefore, Barrett recommends that if you want to take pickle brine for a spin, seek out a branded pickle brine product that doesn’t feature added sugars or artificial flavorings but that does include potassium and, if possible, an anti-inflammatory ingredient such as turmeric. That way, you can potentially restore your electrolyte levels more completely, get the most bang from your pickle brine buck, and maybe say goodbye to painful stomach cramping.