This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep and Athletic Greens.

Sugar is the number-one thing we can all use less of in our lives—in fact, just thinking about it releases insulin! Sugar turns on many mechanisms of disease and death, including inflammation. It fuels cancer and heart disease, it drives hormonal changes, it slows metabolism, and it literally shuts down the body’s ability to burn fat. On top of all that, sugar is highly addictive: the more we eat, the more we want.

In this episode of my Masterclass series, I am interviewed by my good friend and podcast host Dhru Purohit about why sugar is so harmful to our health, why the type of sugar really doesn’t matter, and much more.

Dhru Purohit is a podcast host, serial entrepreneur, and investor in the health and wellness industry. His podcast, The Dhru Purohit Podcast, is a top-50 global health podcast with over 30 million unique downloads. His interviews focus on the inner workings of the brain and the body and feature the brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset.

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep and Athletic Greens.

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In this episode, we discuss (audio version / Apple Subscriber version):

Why sugar is so detrimental to your health (4:39 / 1:04)
Sugar dosage and how it compounds throughout the day (11:45 / 8:20)
Are healthier sugar options really any better? (15:53 /11:23)
The many different types of sugar (19:43 / 16:02)
What to look for to see how your body responds to sugar, including labs (28:21 / 24:35)
Questions from our community, including the impact of sugar on the microbiome, fungal overgrowth, natural food-based sugars, and more (37:20 / 33:46)

THE CHARLIE KIRK SHOW, JANUARY 2ND, 2026