Dr. Martin shares a study out of Denmark, where four groups of participants daily drank a liter of soda, diet soda, whole milk or water. Those who drank soda gained weight. Those who drank whole milk stayed the same weight, whereas those who drank water lost 4 pounds!
Join Dr. Martin in today’s episode as he unpacks this interesting study on weight loss!
TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE
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Dr. Martin: Hello everyone. How you doing? Hope you're having a great day. Welcome to another live and always my privilege to share with you some news behind health news and studies. So a Danish study, six months long, just flagged it. Interesting results. They didn't do too much in the study in terms of changing people's diet. As a matter of fact, they didn't change their diet at all. Six months study, they had four groups and what they did is changed their drinking. In group one, they gave them one liter of soda a day. Would they give Pepsi or Coke? I don't know. I didn't ask. One group, Danish study and all of it was one liter. Group one, one liter of soda, group two, one liter of whole milk. So not fat-free, store bought grocery store milk. This was whole milk. They gave them a liter.
Every day, they have to drink a liter of whole milk. The other group, group one was to drink a liter of soda. The group three was to drink a liter of diet soda. Interesting. And the fourth group was to drink a liter of water. Drink a liter of water. Then after six months, six months of doing this every day. So nothing changed in their diet. It was only what they decided to drink. One liter of soda, one liter of diet soda, one liter of milk and one liter of water, H2O. Interesting. It was interesting what they found out. They didn't go into blood pressure. They didn't go into any biomarkers other than weight. And here's what the study said. After six months, group number one, people in that group were given one liter of soda a day. They gained on average 22 pounds in six months. Wow. Now nevermind what else they did to themselves. Like I said, the study was not based on metabolic health. What they were looking for was what would happen in terms of weight. 22 pounds on average.
People in group one, just by drinking one liter of soda a day, they gained on average 22 pounds in six months. Craziness. Now group number two is the group that drank whole milk. They drank a liter of it every day. In six months, you know what happened? Nothing happened. They didn't gain any weight, didn't lose weight. That was with whole milk, one liter a day. The third group, diet soda. So the only thing they changed was drinking diet soda. After six months, there was a gain of weight in this group, three pounds. That's with diet soda versus milk, zero. Now group number four. What did they drink? They had a liter of water every day. Do I recommend a liter of water? No. I recommend two liters of water. But Hey, it's a start. These people didn't drink water before, they might have been drinking other stuff like soda or whatever. They were put into a group and all they could drink was water. The average weight loss in six months of just drinking water was four pounds. Now that's significant, guys. Okay. So let's unpack it just for a second here.
I was reading a study on the weekend of drinking a soda a day, not a liter of it; a soda, 12 ounces. So a little bit less than a half a liter. Increases your risk of heart attack and stroke big time. The amount of sugar in soda is very destructive. So these people gained 22 pounds in a six month period, no changes at all to their diet; only what they were drinking. Now the diet soda one, does it surprise you? Doesn't really surprise me. One of the things that happens, guys, there's two things in the world I want you to drink. I want you to drink water and now they've proven it. Even for weight loss, it's the best. I want you to drink water and coffee, vitamin C. Better to take your vitamin C in coffee than it is to take it in a supplement. I'd made that argument for you for a long time and I'm sticking to it. I would've loved to have seen this Danish study finding out what would've happened if we would've had a fifth group drinking a liter of coffee a day. I believe I need this.
In terms of weight loss, there would've been some weight loss with drinking coffee. The reason I say that is because coffee is one of the best things you can do for insulin. It acts like Metformin. I've been telling you that for over 20 years. Have a coffee with your meal. It's so good for you. And it wasn't really part of the study, but you know me, I'm going to bring up coffee, any chance I get. Vitamin C. Now the diet soda group, they put on an average of three pounds. And this is why I don't want people drinking diet soda. Not only the chemicals and the artificial sugars; I don't like that stuff. I'm not a purist in a sense that you want to have a Diet Coke once a week? I don't recommend it but if you do, I'm not going to unlove you. I won't do that because look, I don't think it's good. I tell people you don't need that stuff. You better to drink water.
But one of the reasons that there was weight gain, now they didn't say this in the study but I'm telling you what I believe happens, these artificial sweeteners do two things. One, at the thought of sweetness. They don't sell Diet Coke for nothing because it turns on your sweetness. [inaudible 00:09:13], they drink soda anymore. I drink diet soda. And some people have come on to our site or whatever and say, "Diet soda is worse." I don't agree with that. One of the worst things you can do is drink a soda. It's so full of sugar. Your body's not made for that. Now, I'm not telling you diet soda's good for you. I just don't necessarily buy that it's worse than drinking an ordinary soda. But it is not good for you and two reasons. One, what we know and what we didn't know 25, 30 years ago, I meant people used to ask me in the 1970s, I mean this, "What do you think about diet soda?" I said, "Look, the studies are not in yet. I haven't seen anything significant yet but I'm betting dollars to donuts that it's not good for you."
I just didn't know exactly why. Chemicals, but what is it doing? What we do know is that it changes your microbiome. So when you have a diet soda, it feeds the wrong bacteria and does absolutely no good for your friendly bacteria. It changes the status of your microbiome. And that's been well established now. So if you're drinking diet soda, you better be taking a broad spectrum probiotic. And I would get you to change your habits and stop drinking. You certainly don't do it for weight loss because look at what this study's shown. People gained weight on diet soda. They gained weight. Now, the one that added the one of whole milk, they didn't gain any weight. They stayed exactly where they were. Now again, and it's almost daily on our private Facebook group, we get people pontificating on dairy because their nature path or their dietician or their natural health doctor will tell them that dairy should be ditched. I don't agree with that, by the way. It should be switched and not ditched. I made that up. I hope you like it. Don't ditch dairy, switch it.
So I'm big on whole milk. What comes out of a cow, don't denature it, don't filter off the cream. You need cream. Cream is good. Grocery store bought milk, not so good. This was whole milk. So what's the idea there? Don't ditch the dairy. You can have dairy. That's why I love cheese. That's why I love butter. There's an essential fatty acid in dairy that is very good for you. It's called CLA, conjugated linoleic acid. Very good for you. The fat is good for your brain. There's some DHA in dairy, in the cream. Don't ever drink skim milk. Don't ever drink 1%. Don't ever drink 2%. I used to tell my patients, "If you're drinking that, that's the size of your brain, 2%." I was teasing a little bit but I didn't like that stuff. I never have. I said, "Now it's too sweet." The reason that people have so much trouble with dairy isn't because of fat in dairy; nobody has trouble with fat in dairy. They have trouble with sugar in dairy, lactose. And lactose is out of control when you take the fat out of milk.
That's why one of the reasons why you see so many people that have trouble and they think it's dairy and they use the whole [inaudible 00:14:02] of dairy but they're blaming all of dairy for white milk and when I say milk, I mean the white Pepsi found in your grocery store. Don't touch that stuff. You don't need that stuff. So obviously guys, the moral of the story is drink water. It's the best in terms of weight loss. And the guys, I know there's no calories in water but that's not the important part. Water, you need. 75% of your body is made up of water. Every cell in your body needs water. One of the biggest things I tell people, your body has 60,000 miles of blood vessels, one and a half times around the equator from your head to your toes and blood needs to flow. And don't make it sticky. When you got thick blood, most people have no idea.
Wouldn't it be nice if we had a little red light on the top of our head that said, "Would you drink more water?" And water has its own route to your bloodstream. Did you know that? It has its own route. Water. When you don't put anything in water, it takes a direct route. Does not pass [inaudible 00:15:48]. Doesn't have to. It goes directly 100% quickly absorbed into your bloodstream. That's why water's so effective. You can go without eating. You can go without eating but you better not go without water. You're not going to last long. You're lucky to make a couple of days without drinking water. And most people are severely dehydrated and they don't know it because they're not thirsty. You know how many people told me that over the years? I used to do the live blood. I used to do their blood. And I said, "You got molasses from blood." And they'd look at me, "What?" I said, "You don't drink water, do you?" "No, I drink this and that. I don't like water, doc."
"Yeah, I can tell. Your blood vessels are dry enough. The river of life, your blood vessels. You're not getting enough H2O, man." And only H2O is H2O. And just to repeat, what's the best water in the world? Spring water, mineralized water. I'd rather not drink out of the top without filtering your water, of course, there's too many impurities there that can sneak into the water system in your city or town. Well water's usually fantastic one. You might have to filter it. But spring water is the best water because of its pH and you don't have to spend a lot of money to do that. And if you want to drink and filter your water and you want to add pH to it, get it more alkaline, add a pitch of salt to it, Himalayan salt. But it's interesting how this study, this Danish study of six months gave us some very good clues. And I think it's important that we understand that. Don't ever drink a soda. Don't ever drink a soda. Don't drink diet soda.
If you can avoid that, if you're going to drink dairy, then I recommend having a cow in the backyard or cream. Don't ever put milk in your coffee. Put cream in your coffee if you need it. I'd rather you drink your coffee black. Now remember what I said about coffee and Metformin. Metformin is the number one selling medication for diabetics and coffee is a tremendous, tremendous regulator of your blood sugar and insulin. It really is. Now don't put sugar in it, whatever you do it, that's why I don't like artificial sweeteners again. There's some people like that stuff in their coffee. And again, you're getting a double wham. One is that any artificial sweetener increases your insulin because your body says, "Oh, I'm going to eat sugar," even if you're not eating sugar. It's artificial. But your body thinks you're eating sugar so you secrete insulin. Now you don't secrete an enormous amount, but it doesn't matter. You're still secreting it. And secondly, what it really does to the microbiome. Those are the things that are really, really important from that study.
And then again, just an add-on, nevermind the 22 pounds of weight gain for the people that were drinking one liter of soda. At the same time I was reading that study, I was reading another one about how it increases your risk 50, 60% of heart attacks and strokes, which is still the number one killer in our society today. When I see young people drinking soda and drinking all these sugary drinks and coffee, so called coffee drinks at Starbucks and these other places that are all just sugar laced, it breaks me. So we got some good stuff coming this week. I know you'll appreciate it. And question and answer Friday, always fabulous. So send in your questions. I try and answer every one of those questions, the ones that I see and people, they're always asking questions, which we appreciate. Ask your questions, don't be shy. And if you don't get our emails, then sign up at Martinclinic.com for our emails because those are always instructive. We put a lot of information in emails and then you can always keep them if you want for reference.
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