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pier25

> they genetically silenced that specific brain region, which completely took away the mice’s preference for sugar

Hopefully it will not come to that in humans and someone finds a way to "re-educate" gut bacteria :)

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Honestly, I'd sign up for something that removed my preference for sugar.

I'd argue I could probably lose 10-15 pounds right away.

Same, I would love to kill my craving for sugar.

I wonder if fecal matter transplants are a way of doing this, since they supposedly populate your gut with 'good' bacteria.

4 hours fast is enough, and eat properly. Trimming in the gut for that goes very fast. I find that skipping breakfast is a nice way as well, and durable over time. You need to get friendly with the sensation of hunger.

I highly doubt that a 4 hour fast is sufficient for anything. Any guy bacteria that can't survive through a nights sleep would have been wiped out long ago.

It's not as much for getting rid of the bacteria but rather ending the continous stream of eating thay we end up with.

They can, but they can also populate your gut with worse bacteria. More research is needed. It is promising but I wouldn't do it until more studies are done.

In the mean time years of eating right will feed the good and kill the bad. Over time you will catch more good bacteria which will grow and multiply. Depending on what you eat, different good foods demand different good bacteria.

I have a good friend who was hired a couple of years ago at a psychological clinic to build a program for treating depression without pharmaceuticals where possible focusing instead on diet, gut health and exercise. After talking with her I got curious and started doing a lot of research on gut health and food. Up until then, I had never heard of fermenting vegetables and I wondered if an experiment with those would help me get over a bad burnout.

I read about all kinds of chemical and nutritional details and studies and edge cases I didn't understand. I tried fermenting some beans which turned out terrible reminding me I had no idea what I was doing. But I kept at it. One day, a couple of months into the experiment, by then I was fermenting successfully and enjoying it daily, when I realized that my life-long love of sugar was simply gone. I have no idea where it went. I wasn't on a diet, I wasn't restricting my food choices in any way other than to be sure I ate a couple of spoonfuls of ferment each day; it just disappeared. I never expected that to happen...

If you really want to kill that craving, try fermenting nearly any vegetable you like and just eat a little bit each day. It takes time for your gut bacteria to improve but fermenting is quick and easy to do and it costs next to nothing. Feel free to get in touch via the email in my profile if you have any questions at all and good luck!

You can do a zero sugar, zero carb fast for three days. Once the gut bacteria starve and die the cravings disappear. The first two days are a bit tough.

Any source for this? Because if this is true, I'm willing to try. Absolutely no carbs is really hard, though. I'd essentially have to drink rapeseed oil for 3 days... Even butter has carbs.

Eating vegetables for three days seems easy enough.

A lot of vegetables have carbs.

Sugars are carbs but carbs are not sugars

I've done it myself (zero calorie water fast) and it worked for me (n=1). The difference between day two and day three is stark. It's free and easy to try. Maybe check with your physician first if you are on medications or have health issues. If the question that you are trying to answer is "will this work for me?" then there aren't any papers that I know of which will answer that. :)

Drink water. This is a full on fast.

Check with your doctor first. My cousin did this for a month got type I diabetes. (I suspect he would have anyway given his genetics, but the fast changed his body enough to bring it on sooner)

Just anecdata- several times I've done something similar and I noticed after 3-5 days I'm just not into grabbing a candy bar or maybe a leftover dessert. When I shop I'm even a little turned off by most sweets.

The most recent experience has been the quarantine. We stocked up on essentials from costco, which meant no sweets. After going a couple of months without candy, I entered a market yesterday wanting to grab some basics and a snack or two. I ended up with beef jerky and some gold fish crackers. It's not like they're healthy, but it's out of character for me.

yeah I'll add to "anecdata".

I've trained myself to not want to add sugar to anything, after a while I stopped wanting to have things that had a lot of sugar in them.

I'll still go for a bit of carrot cake with a coffee on a weekend outing to the shops or something. but my day-to-day activities no longer want sugar in my coffee or tea or Chicroy

It's easy to re-educate them with fasting.

and a long-term diet change

That mostly works if one is able to stay away from other humans and social events forever. For the rest, there are ditches everywhere to fall into.

Self-discipline. Impulses and social pressure are more like brightly lit billboards than ditches. You don’t have to fall for them.

I think our current culture over-emphasizes "self-discipline" or "willpower" and doesn't admit the influence of our environment enough.

Personally, as a nearly-life-long sugar junkie, I know that if I'm around a pile of cookies, it is difficult to resist, and will wear me down until I eat one, and then another, and then another...

On the other hand, if there is no pile of cookies, there's no temptation or possibility of that happening.

I have had much more success with adjusting my environment than with trying to exercise willpower.

Any source on that?

My personal experience: After fasting, I do not start craving sugar unless I eat it again.

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