STOP Drinking Soda. Your Gut Will Thank You. | Dr. Will Bulsiewicz

The Exam Room by the Physicians Committee

Physicians Committee

Carroll, Health & Fitness, Diabetes, Science, Nutrition, Vegan, Pcrm, Barnard, Weightloss, Food, Health, Recipes, Medicine, Diet

4.9 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2025

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We know that kombucha is better for you than soda, right? But just how differently do these two beverages affect the gut? When you choose a ginger kombucha over, say, a cherry cola, the impact of that decision may be greater than you think. Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, gastroenterologist and best-selling author of Fiber Fueled, takes us inside the digestive tract to help us understand the big impact of these seemingly small choices.

Plus -- an update on Chuck Carroll's health journey. Doctors at the Mayo Clinic have a new theory about what may be causing Chuck's debilitating symptoms.

In this episode of The Exam Room you'll learn:

- How kombucha benefits the gut

- The impact of soda vs kombucha on the body

- How acid in soda and kombucha can put microplastics in your body

- What to know about alcohol in kombucha

- How added sugar impacts the microbiome and the immune system

— — SHOW LINKS — —

Will Bulsiewicz

Courses: https://theplantfedgut.com

38Tera: https://38tera.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theguthealthmd

— — —

GreenFare 21-Day Kickstart with Chuck

Starts July 12 in Herndon, VA.

— — —

Chef AJ’s Plant Powered Party in Las Vegas

https://theplantpoweredparty.com

— — EVENTS — —

International Conference on Nutrition in Medicine

Where: Washington, DC

When: August 14-16, 2025

Tix & Speakers: https://www.pcrm.org/icnm

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The Exam Room Podcast

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Chuck Carroll

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ChuckCarrollWLC

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChuckCarrollWLC

X: https://www.twitter.com/ChuckCarrollWLC

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Physicians Committee

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Today on the exam room.
0:04.0	Cambucha is the product of fermentation of sweet tea.
0:09.0	So I live in Charleston, South Carolina.
0:11.0	You go to any restaurant downtown in Charleston, they're going to ask you, do you want tea?
0:15.0	And if you say yes, they're going to give you a choice.
0:18.0	Do you want sweet or unsweet?
0:19.0	Sweet tea is an old southern tradition where basically you boil the tea and you start pouring the sugar in and you make it as sweet
0:25.8	as you possibly can so that the sugar is coming out of your ears. Now, if you take that same sweet
0:31.1	tea that's so popular in the South and you add kombucha to it, that kombucha contains the microbes, both bacteria and yeast, that are necessary in order to transform that sweet tea.
0:44.8	And what those microbes will do, Chuck, is they will consume the sugar.
0:48.6	Not to zero, but you will notice what emerges is acid.
0:52.8	And what disappears is a lot of the sweetness. A lot of the
0:55.4	sweetness starts to fade. And the reason that this is is that the sugar is being consumed and
1:00.4	transformed into organic acids. Welcome to the exam room podcast, brought to you by the
1:09.6	Physicians Committee. Hi, I'm the weight loss champion Chuck Carroll, raising health IQs coast to coast and around
1:15.8	the world.
1:16.9	Hi to the exam room.
1:17.9	He's listening in Greensboro, North Carolina, Arvada, Colorado, and Warsaw, Poland.
1:24.1	Wherever you are, we appreciate you helping to make the world a healthier place.
1:28.3	This is episode 57 of season 8, number 656 overall.
1:34.3	Soda versus kombucha.
1:37.3	Both are carbonated, both are sweet, but when it comes to your gut, there is a big, big difference.
	...

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