Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast, where Dr. Stephen Gundry shares his groundbreaking research from over 25 years of treating patients with diet and lifestyle changes alone.

Dr. Gundry and other wellness experts offer inspiring stories, the latest scientific advancements, and practical tips to empower you to take control of your health and live a long, happy life.

Soda is number one on the list of stay away from yes, even diet soda.

Now, if you think diet soda is better than regular soda, you're wrong.

All of these ingredients in diet soda, now we know, kill off friendly bacteria in our gut, dramatically.

Yes, I'm talking about things like aspartame, sucralose, which is called Splenda.

Even now the zero sodas have escalphane, which is now recognized as just as evil as Aspartame and sucralose.

So there's no way out of this problem.

Now, diet soda fools your brain.

Your tongue has no sugar receptors.

It has sweetness receptors.

Now, back in the day, the only time you encountered sweetness

was when you were eating fruit or happened upon it, honey.

That sugar would go into your bloodstream.

It would prompt your pancreas to make insulin, and that would handle the sugar.

Your brain would get sugar, and it would say, oh, that's sugar. So when you have an artificial soft drink, a diet soft drink, the signal is sent to your brain

and your pancreas that you're having sugar because you tasted something sweet.

Your pancreas kicks up insulin, which is a fat storage hormone, but worse, your brain doesn't

get any sugar, and your brain says, wait a minute, you've been robbed, you've been cheated.

I tasted sugar.

They lied to you, go back and get some more, and keep getting it until sugar arrives in my brain.

That's why when I was at my peak weight, I was drinking eight Diet Cokes a day

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