 Hey everybody, Dr. Gendry here. What happens if you stop eating sugar for 30 days? Well, I'll tell you sugar is everywhere. It's not just in things like candies and desserts but it's hiding in so-called healthy foods too like bagels, flavored yogurts and instant oatmeal and it's absolutely detrimental to your health. But what if you could cut out sugar for a full 30 days? Well, I'll tell you this. You would notice some remarkable changes to your health and your appearance. For starters, it would be doing your gut a huge favor. Let me give you an example in terms of health. Years ago, there was a study in which participants were asked to take about a hundred grams of sugar. Now, that sounds like a lot but it's actually far less than is typical for an American diet. One group of participants actually had to have some glucose. Another group had to have some fructose, fruit sugar. Another group had to have a glass of orange juice. Healthy, right? They drew blood on these participants every hour for six hours and they looked at the white blood cells, our immune cells, ability to eat phagocetize bacteria and viruses. And lo and behold, for up to six hours after having sugar, including a healthy glass of orange juice that everybody thinks improves your immune system, it completely blocked the ability of white blood cells to eat bacteria and viruses. The very things that are threatening our health. So imagine that that healthy glass of orange juice that you were doing to improve your immune health actually did the exact opposite. It sabotaged your health. Now, bad bacteria in your gut absolutely loves simple sugars. They have the ability to use them to grow and crowd out the good bacteria in your gut that actually can't use simple sugars. So the more simple sugars in your diet, the more bad gut bacteria proliferate and push away the good bacteria that really you need. If you really want to see what happens when bad bacteria get a hold of sugar, you can actually watch my science experiment right here on your YouTube channel. In which we actually show the effect of giving bacteria and other denizens in your gut the sugar you want. It's quite dramatic and I hope you'll tune in and watch it. So when you see what's happening with bacteria and other denizens of your gut eating sugar and see the bloating and the gas at this cause, it's no wonder that sugar many times is actually the cause of irritable bowel syndrome, IBS, and other leaky gut issues. Remember, Hippocrates knew this 2,500 years ago. For those of you who don't know, Hippocrates is the father of medicine. And he always said 2,500 years ago that all disease begins in the gut. So knowing this, and he was right, by the way, we want to give our friendly bacteria the foods they want and deny the bad bacteria, the foods they want, and it's simple as sugar. Now, another important point, when you're looking at labels and looking for sugar, stop looking at sugar. What you want to look at is total carbohydrates. Take total carbohydrates, take away the fiber. That's the next line down. Total carbohydrates minus the fiber will give you the amount of sugar in that serving. And here's the shocker. It won't have anything to do with what it says sugar on the bottom. This was changed by the federal government to hide the amount of sugar. For example, a bagel has about 300 calories and it says zero sugar. But in fact, there's anywhere from 11 to 13 teaspoons in a bagel. There's four teaspoons of sugar in one piece of bread, even though it doesn't taste sweet. That's because refined grains like wheat are so pulverized into fine particles that they instantly become sugar. In fact, a piece of wool wheat bread has a higher glycemic index than table sugar. It's that effective as a sugar source. So if you stopped eating sugar, your gut bacteria would change dramatically. And what would you notice? Well, the first thing you'd notice is that your digestion would change dramatically. The second thing you'd notice is your skin. Now, why would you notice your skin? Well, first of all, the gut and your skin are exactly the same cells. Your gut is basically your skin turned inside out. And what happens on the surface of the gut is reflected on the skin. In fact, there's good correlation between sugar consumption and acne breakouts. For example, but more importantly, sugar is the key component to what are called advanced glycation end products, which are appropriately named ages. A G E's, apostrophe S advanced glycation products form from the sugar you eat and the protein you eat combined with heat in your body. And this makes one of the strongest chemical bonds that's ever been described. It's called the Mallard reaction. That chemical bond stiffens things, stiffens your skin, stiffens wrinkles, and is actually the cause of dark spots on your skin. Some people call them sunspots. Some people call them liver spots. These are actually advanced glycation end products that are deposited in your skin. By the way, they're also deposited in your brain. They're deposited in your heart. They're deposited in your blood vessels and they stiffen your blood vessels. So what happens when you remove sugar? People are absolutely shocked when their dark spots start going away. And in fact, one of my famous patients was driving from Oregon to Palm Springs after doing this for six months. And he was driving his RV and his wife said, George, look at your hands. And he turned the steering wheel to look at his hands and almost ran off the road. And what she was pointing out to him that all of his liver spots at dark spots had disappeared in six months time because he had stopped eating sugar causing advanced glycation end products. So if you want to age rapidly, eat your sugar. If you want to age slowly, stop eating sugar. Your skin will thank you. You will shock your friends on how much younger you look just by eliminating sugar. Last but not least, weight loss. Sugar is absolutely one of the leading causes of obesity in the United States. It's full of empty calories that offer no nutritional value. It actually stimulates your body to create extra fat. And it actually tricks your brain into craving more of it. In fact, studies in rats show that rats will preferably push a lever to get sugar instead of either heroin or cocaine. Now, think about that pushing a lever to get sugar instead of heroin or cocaine. This hits your pleasure, centering your brain better than heroin or cocaine. Finally, we now know that the sugar industry for many years paid prestigious institutions like Harvard to tell people and write papers that sugar had no effect on health, had no effect on weight loss, even though the evidence was overwhelming that it did. These professors and researchers took big sugar money to lie to us. And this made big news a few years ago. So the point is, if you stop sugar for 30 days, your gut health would improve, your skin would improve and your weight would most likely improve. Now, these are just some of the many benefits you could experience without having sugar in your diet. Now, I know it's easier said than done. That's why I put together a video on how to kick your sugar addiction in just four easy steps. And you can check it out right here on my YouTube channel because I'm Dr. Gundry and I'm always looking out for you. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast. Make sure to check out the next one here. Don't look at quitting sugar as a restriction. Look at it as an opportunity to get creative in the kitchen, to learn to love new flavors and to take control of your health.