 Number one, diet doesn't mean healthy. As a former diet sodatic who is drinking eight diet sodas a day, the idea that it does not make you gain weight is quite contrary to its name. Diet sodas over and over again have been shown to cause weight gain. And I'm certainly a perfect example of that. Despite drinking eight of these diet sodas a day, I was 70 pound overweight, even though I was running 30 miles a week and going to the gym an hour every day and eating a healthy, low-fat diet. Why? Because we now know that most of the ingredients used in diet sodas actually change your microbiome, change signaling patterns, and actually promote weight gain rather than the opposite. Big companies use this messaging to lure you to buy the products. But the truth is, it's still as bad or maybe even worse than the sugary drinks that they're replacing. If it says diet on the label, stay away from it at all costs. Think of diet soda as di-soda, D-I-E. Now, most of these diet sodas have an artificial sweetener, but you gotta know who's your friends, who are not your friends, and even whether even the friendly diet sweeteners may not be as friendly as you think. Now, first of all, artificial sweeteners in these diet sodas can increase your risk of diabetes by a whopping 67%. One can a day increase your risk of heart attack by 20%. One can a day at eight cans a day, I was a heart attack waiting to happen. They also kill your gut microbiome. A Duke University study shows that one packet of Splenda sucralose kills off 50% of your microbiome. And folks, if you've followed me, if you've listened to me, if you've read my books, you know that a healthy, diverse, rich microbiome is your key to good health, is your key to weight loss. And the last thing you wanna do is kill it off. Among other things, your microbiome is one of the main things that stands between you and the harmful lectins in the food that you eat. Quite frankly, a lot of the microbiome loves to eat lectins. They've been engineered to eat lectins. And if you kill them off, you've taken away one of your major defense systems of preventing you from being attacked by lectins. Recently, you probably saw in the news that the World Health Organization, WHO, has declared that a spartane is a carcinogen, a major carcinogen. Now we've talked that it's been known for years that there are studies suggesting, proving that at least in animals, a spartane, which is in major diet beverages, does cause cancer, but for the World Health Organization to now come out and declare it a carcinogen, ought to get our attention. Now that's not all. Several of the modern diet beverages that are billed as the new diet such and such or the zero such and such, not only use a spartane, but also use a soulful fame as sweeteners, and that second one has also been tied with being a carcinogen. Now, are there any alternatives out there that make some or a lot of sense? Well, let's start with a lot of sense. As many of you know, I am a big fan of a natural sugar substitute. It's a natural sugar called allylose. Allylose is a true sugar. It was discovered originally in figs. The nice thing about allylose is it not only has no calories, it's actually the only sugar substitute that's been approved by the FDA as a prebiotic fiber. And there's very good evidence that this actually lowers blood sugar consistently if you take it. And that's why I'm in the habit of adding allylose to my black coffee every morning, not because I want sweet coffee. That's not it. I actually want to blunt the effect of coffee on my blood sugar. There are numerous other natural plant compounds. I've been a big fan of inulin, which you can buy as a powder. Inulin is present in chicory. It's present in chicory root. It's present in artichoke. It's present in radicchio, but it can also get it in powder form. It's a prebiotic fiber that has a sweetness. Recently, you may have seen a lot of hype about inocital or myo inocital. This is another plant compound, which is an excellent prebiotic fiber. That just so happens to taste sweet. And it just so happens that I add that to my morning coffee as well. Now, the great thing about allylose is that you can cook with it. You can bake with it. You can put it in baked goods. And you can put it in confections. Quite frankly, several of Gundry MD products now use allylose as our preferred sweetener. Now, stevia is still a safe plant compound. Stevia, unfortunately, has a bit of a bitter taste that many people spot. You can mask that taste, and it can be masked quite well. But just remember that even stevia has the potential of increasing your insulin levels. And the last thing you wanna do is increase your insulin levels. Now, what about xylitol and erythritol? A few months ago, this made major news with a study out of the Cleveland Clinic that erythritol could cause heart disease. That study has been widely critiqued by many, including me, as an incredibly poorly designed study, among which they looked at people who had coronary artery disease and looked at the amount of erythritol in their bloodstream. And they looked at three years during the time the study was done. The first year of the study when people had erythritol in their bloodstream, there was not an erythritol-based sweetener on the market. We manufacture erythritol. So is it way up on my list of great sweeteners? No, but you don't have to be afraid of erythritol because quite frankly, human beings manufacture erythritol. But xylitol and erythritol are available. They're not the deaths that you think. Monk fruit. Monk fruit is frequently added to other sweeteners to improve that sweet taste. It cooks just like sugar and it doesn't have a funky aftertaste. You'll see many combinations of monk fruit and erythritol, monk fruit and stevia. And these are quite good alternatives, but quite frankly, right now, allelos is the big winner. The long story short, anytime you look at any non-caloric sweetener, be aware that you have no sugar receptors on your tongue. Two thirds of your tongue taste buds are sweet receptors, not sugar receptors. And they're there to alert your body that you've just eaten fruit and to produce insulin to handle the sugars from fruit that are coming down the line. When sugar doesn't arrive and your insulin level goes up, your brain thinks that you have been cheated and it sends you back looking for more. And that's why I was constantly looking for another sweet taste. And so many of my patients are addicted to a sweet taste because their brain can't imagine why you're getting cheated. And it can't imagine that the next time you eat this sweet thing, it won't be the real thing. So be careful about choosing a sweetener that has no caloric impact, but allelos will actually feed good gut bacteria and they'll tell your brain, hey, our needs are met, you don't need to be hungry. And that's one of the real brilliant strategies of using allelos to curb hunger and enjoy a sweet taste at the same time. So one of the big questions I get as a diet soda addict is how did you wean yourself off? Well, the evidence was so overwhelming that I went cold turkey. But one of the first things I did was I want an alternative to this. And I was the inventor of the Kohl alternative, which combines sparkling water like San Pellegrino and balsamic vinegar. And you've seen it on TikTok. I was the guy who actually first wrote about it. And I found that that was just the perfect substitute for my diet soda addiction. And actually at dinner last night, I had my sparkling water and balsamic vinegar as my drink of choice. And that's one of the easy, quick ways to wean yourself off. If that's not going to do the trick, get yourself some allelos, sweeten your balsamic vinegar and sparkling water and you'll be surprised how much it's exactly like a diet soda. Great trick. If you found this video helpful, I think you're going to love this one. Not only does fermentation really reduce lectins, but fermentation gives you postbiotics.