maple syrup is just dehydrated trep so it's pretty much pure sugar isn't it I mean if you look at Sugar compared to maple syrup compared to honey I mean they're all carbohydrates they're all sugars but they do different things in the body and I want to look at maple syrup specifically if maple syrup is just pure sugar because it's dehydrated sap then how does it respond differently in the body you see there's a few things that make maple syrup different from sugar we'll talk about them vaguely and then we'll get into the literature number one if you look at maple syrup there's different darknesses right there's different levels of like how dark it is some are very clear some are very dark the darker the maple syrup the more the antioxidant content now we know from other literature that antioxidants are potent when it comes down to improving insulin resistance so right then and there we know something's different I would almost consider maple syrup more of a whole food whereas sugar is just more of a like sugar right additionally maple syrup in and of itself has a lower glycemic index we're looking at like a 54 versus a 65 compared to Sugar so already it's lower glycemic but that's not what we're here to talk about anyone can Google that the next thing is the mineral content once again you have 25% of your daily value of zinc in a pretty much a small serving of maple syrup and like 125% of your manganese and other minerals as well so there's definitely a mineral component so again full spectrum it's more of a food but let's look at the scientific literature now after today's video I put a link down below for seed daily symbiotic if you're trying to change your diet up I would would recommend you add a good quality probiotic or at least some good fermented foods in if you don't go that route but seed is a unique probiotic because it has a Prebiotic and a probiotic in one capsule so you see there's two sort of capsules in one so it breaks down in different areas of your gut so you have a better likelihood of proper colonization of the bacteria in the lower part of the intestinal tract where you want the bacteria to colonize so seed is super unique with how they're built but also it's the only probiotic that I personally would recommend I think most probiotics are garbage because they all break down in the Hostile gut so seed is unique and I definitely recommend you check them out and that is a 25% off discount link for people that watch this channel so again 25% off in the top line of the description underneath this video let's talk insulin there was a study that was published in the Journal of functional foods this study took a look at dextrose brown rice syrup corn syrup and compared it to maple syrup okay they found that the maple syrup had a lower BL sugar response and a lower insulin response okay well that's good news right there in and of itself unfortunately that was in rodents so let's look at some human data now human data is lacking but there is a newer study that hasn't been fully published yet it was just announced last July it was a 42 person crossover design trial where they gave subjects a couple tablespoons of maple syrup or a couple tablespoons of liquid sucrose basically liquid table sugar and they had them do that for four weeks and then they crossed over they they switched groups and did it again for another four weeks what they found was interesting the group that had the maple syrup in both instances ended up having a better score on their oral glucose tolerance test what that means is when they gave them sugar later on they had better insulin sensitivity better insulin response better glucose uptake they literally handled the glucose better so what that tells us is that maple syrup is just less daunting and less throttling on the body in terms of the glycemic impact right so overall it had a better impact on insulin sensitivity and insulin resistance the reason behind this could be a few different things but for one it's probably the antioxidant profile so let's talk about this for a second there's a study published in pharmaceutical biology that took a look at maple syrup medium grade maple syrups they not even super high quality stuff just medium grade and they identified 24 different active compounds in maple syrup they found things like benzoic acid they found Gaelic acid they found cafeic acid they found flavonols like epic cakin and kakin those are things that you're going to find in green tea they also found quatin which is what you'd find in high concentrations in like Capers I personally take quatin supplements because quatin is so awesome so bottom line is there's a lot of compounds not to mention the researchers said there were quote unquote multiple other finate compounds but they were in such small quantities they weren't really worth listing out however it is at least speculated that it's not any one particular compound that's having an impact it's the collective nature of all these different small amounts of antioxidants and flavonols that make maple syrup so unique as a matter of fact the researchers even said and I quote the mixture of antioxidants rather than any one compound counteracts the unhealthy effects of sugar in maple syrup whoa okay so we are admitting that sugar is problematic but what's in is that maple syrup might have compounds that help counteract some of the negative attributes of sugar okay so how do we choose the right maple syrup well it seems as though the darker the better here's another study to back this up it's quite interesting though the journal medicinal food compared 30 different types of maple syrups and they again they found that the darker the maple syrup the higher the antioxidant content they also found the lower the nitric oxide synthes levels in the human body meaning there was more of an antioxidant activity in the body when darker Maple syrups were consumed we do know that antioxidants reduce oxidative stress okay like antioxidant oxidative stress that's the whole point of an antioxidant and we know quite clearly that reducing oxidative stress improves insulin resistance so although there's not a randomized control trial with maple syrup on insulin resistance we can at least infer at least to a certain degree with pretty strong strong feelings that or at least data I don't want to say feelings but data that maple syrup is probably better than regular sugar when it comes down to insulin resistance because of the antioxidant profile but to back this up there was another study published in journal functional foods where they took maple syrup that had two phelc compounds sort of exacerbated they took two of the finic compounds words are not worth even trying to pronounce here because they're complicated but these are active in Maple Sy and they sort of enhanced those to make them more strong to see what impact it would have they found that when subjects consumed this honey it ended up inhibiting what is called Alpha glucosidase and Alpha amas these are enzymes that break down carbohydrates sugars starches so when those are inhibited you don't break down the sugars as much and they stay in the gut more which may explain why we'll talk about in a little bit there's an effect on the gut microbiome too made some of the sugars somewhat indigestible because we lack the enzyme to break them down therefore less blood glucose insulin response with it again all because of phenolic compounds antioxidants flavonols it's a different sugar than table sugar that's refined bleached and stripped of all its minerals and nutrients let's talk inflammation for a moment because here's a big piece right we think inflammation is just something that happens when you get older or it's just what happens when you retain water I mean inflammation is a bummer right this is like a Hallmark characteristic of people that are unhealthy metabolically unhealthy or just don't feel good there was a study published in helon and it was a large analysis taking a look at Maple syrup's impact on inflammation in spite of having sugar in it they found that once again the fin compounds in maple syrup reduced interlukin One beta which is like the precursor to an inflammatory Spike and also prosta gland in E2 you remember all the talk about like seed oils being inflammatory or at least a lack of Omega-3s being inflammatory that's all prostag gland in E2 we're talking about there so when you are in a state of having increased inflammation these prostagland and e2s elevate it seems as though maple syrup has compounds in it that actually bring those prostag gland and e2s down similar like Omega Omega 3s would not in the same fashion of course but similarly to how we would look at that researchers also noticed there is an inhibition of nitric oxide synthes which is usually happening just prior to inflammation and a subsequent reduction in what is called nuclear Factor Cap B which is like sort of a master switch for inflammation within the body so we're not talking any like small little oh we measured a slight decrease in interlukin 6 no there was actually a decrease in the master regulator of inflammation with maple syrup consumption there were a couple compounds specifically in the maple syrup that reduced nitric oxide synthes or nitri oxide Levels by 92.5% and reduced prostag gland and E2 levels by 89.5% nothing to sneeze at again where do you draw the line if you have 300 grams of sugar from maple syrup you're not going to be putting yourself in the best spot and it's not going to be good and you're going to end up in a bad situation especially if you're in a surplus so if you're at uh maintenance calories or slight deficit swapping out regular sugar from maple syrup could be quite the GameChanger for you there is one particular ingredient called Quebec that is in maple syrup that seems to directly have an impact on reducing inflammation though there was a some literature that demonstrated that it can reduce lipopolysaccharide induced so basically leaky gut induced inflammation most of the time with maple syrup it's again it's the combination of all these different ingredients and compounds but Quebec all seems to be unique in and of itself now let's pivot over to visceral f F and fatty liver for a second wild wild stuff this study was published in nutrients and it was done in rats but it's very fascinating what they did is they gave rats a high-fat high sugar diet for eight weeks then they gave them either one gram of refined sugar or one gram of various natural sweeteners like maple syrup Agave things like that they found that maple syrup significantly reduced insulin resistance compared to the other sugars especially the refined sugar and significantly reduced interlukin 1 beta in the liver okay so it reduced inflammation in the liver and reduce insulin resistance markers that alone is the recipe for fatty liver and a recipe for visceral fat accumulation so when we reduce those you're potentially reducing visceral fat and you're potentially reducing fatty liver whoa just by swapping out sugar for maple syrup now you don't have to just take my word for it I'm going to read an excerpt from the study and the researchers themselves natural sweeteners especially maple syrup molasses and agave syrup attenuate the development of insulin resistance and reduce hepatic inflammation compared to sucrose in overfed rats okay we know this is in rats but we do have good literature in humans too more literature needs to come out we need more studies but it's pretty darn fascinating there was one more study in endocrinology and Metabolism another fascinating one where they took a look at the microbiome and they found that a regular Baseline diet with 10% % just changing 10% of the calories to come from maple syrup versus regular sugar maple syrup ended up changing the microbiome so dramatically that it impacted glucose uptake overall it impacted the bacteria that specifically Aid with the short chain fatty acids that help glucose metabolism at the end of the day I want you to remember that a carb is a carb is a carb if you are counting carbs period I don't care what carb it is if you're counting carbs the number matters but if you're not counting carbs carbs and you're trying to eat a nutrient diet I do think there is Merit to swapping out your regular sugar for maple syrup just go for the darker thicker later harvest the later the Harvest the more powerful the antioxidants I'll see you tomorrow