Dear Friends,
For many years, licorice root has been used in both Traditional Chinese Medicine and Indian Ayurvedic medicine to help with many types of digestive discomfort.
You may be thinking, this is cool – I love eating licorice! Not so fast.
There are two main reasons why eating licorice candy is not going to help your digestion, and why it may be a bad idea for you in general – and I’m not even referring to the sugar content.
You may be surprised to hear that most of the licorice candy sold in the US doesn’t contain any licorice root. I mean zero, licorice is not even listed as an ingredient.
There’s plenty of starch, sugars, oils, artificial stuff and other flavorings, but no licorice in the big brands. Now, some artisan or small candy makers, or some from overseas, do put some “licorice extract” in their candy.
So what exactly is the “licorice extract” in this candy?
Well, it ties to a key concern to be wary of when consuming licorice root. The term “licorice extract” in licorice candy and other food products is typically code for a compound in licorice root called glycyrrhizin.
The food industry loves this compound because it’s about 50 times sweeter than sugar. The concern with consuming too much glycyrrhizin, is it can have adverse effects like raising blood pressure or lowering potassium levels.
How to Get the Digestive Benefits of Licorice Root – Without the Unwanted Effects
This is not a concern with the GutGard licorice root ingredient we’ll be discussing today.
In fact, most licorice root supplement ingredients address the concern with glycyrrhizin – and are labeled as “DGL,” meaning it’s deglycyrrhizinated licorice, and almost entirely free of the unwanted compound.
This is good because the compound which can elevate your blood pressure has been removed, but the way it’s done isn’t so good because what’s leftover isn’t going to provide the digestive support you want – unless you take huge amounts.
Here’s what happens: much of the DGL licorice extracts used in supplements are actually a byproduct of making the glycyrrhizin sweetener compound for the food industry.
The glycyrrhizin is removed and the remaining powder is sold to a supplement supplier. However, most of the important nutritional flavonoid compounds needed to help with digestion are also gone or destroyed in this process.
This is the first area where GutGard is different. It’s made using a careful licorice root extraction process that removes the unwanted Glycyrrhizin compound, but retains the good stuff that offers many digestive health benefits.
In fact, the GutGard powder contains at least 10% of the key flavonoid compounds naturally found in licorice root that can help your digestion.
That’s at least 10 times more than what’s found in other licorice supplements ingredients, and why GutGard works when taking just 150mg daily.
Supports Gut Health in Multiple Ways
What also separates GutGard from others is they’ve invested in research to demonstrate the benefits and safety of GutGard.
Even more exciting, when I first started learning about GutGard about 10 years ago, its benefits were focused mostly on stomach discomfort like occasional heartburn, indigestion and bloating – all of which are good and valuable benefits.
More recent research is finding it may help other parts of the digestion system, like intestinal health and supporting healthy bowel movements.
One of the main ways that GutGard is believed to work is by helping food move normally though your gastrointestinal system, starting in the stomach. This movement is technically referred to as food or digestive motility.
When the stomach doesn’t empty as it should, it often results in the occasional heartburn, indigestion, burping, bloating and other stomach discomfort that many experience.
GutGard isn’t an antacid - that’s not how it works. As a result, GutGard can be used daily for digestive support.
You may know that antacids and other products that reduce acid production are not meant to be used regularly or for extended periods of time because disrupting acid production in the stomach can cause many unwanted health problems.
In addition to supporting normal movement of food through the digestive system, GutGard helps to promote a healthy inflammation response in the gut and provides antioxidant support against oxidative stress.
Benefits Can Start in Just 2 Weeks
In research with GutGard, many users started to experience benefits after 2 weeks, and continued to improve after 4 weeks of daily use. So it’s not an immediate effect, but Gutgard is a supplement made for daily use to maintain stomach comfort and digestive health over time.
In addition to helping with occasional heartburn (both day and night), indigestion, gas or bloating and other stomach issues, the actions of GutGard also can help protect the lining of the stomach. This may also help reduce discomfort, while supporting stomach health and function.
Better yet, GutGard also can support healthy bowel movements and regularity.
In addition, emerging research with GutGard is finding it may support the health of the protective gut barrier, to help guard against what’s called a “leaky gut.”
This intestinal barrier helps control what substances enter the bloodstream through the intestines, and science indicates that GutGard may have a positive effect on the function of this barrier, which is important for overall health and wellness.
Last, you might be familiar with the term “gut microbiome”, which refers to the trillions of microorganisms that make up the environment in our intestines.
Some of these are good, others not so good. Your goal is to promote healthy bacteria and microbes so they can help keep potentially harmful ones in check.
An advantage of GutGard is it doesn’t appear to increase the pH in the intestines, unlike some other digestive relief products. This matters because not only does a high pH disrupt the normal digestive process, it can cause some of the bad stuff in intestines to flourish instead of the good stuff. You don’t have this concern with GutGard.
Plus, research has found that GutGard works well when combined probiotics and digestive enzymes, which is how we use GutGard at NatureCity.
GutGard is part of our digestive super formula, called TrueDYB – with the DYB standing for Digest Your Best.
You not only get all of the digestive support we discussed with GutGard today, but an additional 15 ingredients too.
TrueDYB gives you total digestive “top to bottom” support, which can help other parts of your body too.
By our count, the ingredients in TrueDYB may offer around 25 different health benefits – this is based on the research with the specific ingredients in this drink powder mix.
TrueDYB tastes good too – it’s sugar-free with a strawberry lemonade flavor. Let us know if you have any questions.
Yours for Good Health,
Carl Pradelli
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