David PerlmutterPresident,, Perlmutter Health Center · Board-Certified Neurologist | Functional Medicine Pioneer | #1 New York Times Best-Selling Author | International Speaker | Host of The Empowering Neurologist Podcast

The "Right" Kind of Sugar

12 Jan 2017 · 1 min

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1:18

In this brief lecture, neurologist and nutrition expert Dr. David Perlmutter argues that the distinction between natural sugars (such as organic maple syrup or honey) and refined sugars is irrelevant—"sugar is sugar" and its consumption should be stopped. He also critiques the growing trend toward artificial sweeteners, citing data that consumption of artificially sweetened beverages is associated with nearly double the risk of obesity and diabetes compared to sugar‑sweetened drinks. Perlmutter emphasizes that this is not a recommendation to replace artificial sweeteners with sugary drinks; rather, he advises eliminating all sweetened beverages. By doing so, individuals can gradually diminish their craving for sweetness, making it easier to maintain a low‑sugar diet over time.

Chapters

There's a big push these days for the right kind of sugar in the diet, and, you know, oftentimes when I lecture, people say, well, what about organic maple syrup or honey that comes from bees that live on an ashram somewhere that have been blessed and meditate twice daily? The bottom line is that sugar is sugar. It really doesn't matter, and you've got to stop eating it. Whether it's organic and has other things in it that might be good, That won't offset the detrimental effects of sugar in your diet. And having said that, you know, there's a big push these days to use artificial sweeteners. And it turns out when you look at the data, your risk for obesity and diabetes drinking, for example, artificially sweetened beverages is almost twice as high as it would be if you were drinking sugar-sweetened beverages. And please hear me very clearly, this is not a call from me to you that you should start drinking sugar-sweetened beverages. You've got to stop them both. And when you do that, You stop satisfying your sweet tooth, and hopefully with time you'll be desiring the notion of sweet less and less, and ultimately that may be a lot easier for you.