Everyday Health Tips

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Friday afternoon, the office Halloween party. A plastic cauldron of fun-size candy sits on the break-room counter, next to deviled eggs dressed up as eyeballs. Your coworker in cat ears takes one peanut butter cup and goes back to her desk. You are on your third pass. Each time, your hand is in the cauldron before your head has voted. By four there is a small nest of orange wrappers in your blazer pocket. She did not look like she was trying at all. So what does she have?

Worth a look

3 everyday foods a gut doctor says may be quieting your body's own ‘I'm full’ hormone

Your body has its own ‘that's enough’ signals. The best known is GLP-1, the hormone the new weight-loss shots copy. Your gut releases it after you eat, and it tells your brain you are full. In a 2021 study, a friendly gut microbe called Akkermansia helped mice release more of their own. So part of that ‘I'm full’ signal is still yours to look after.

In a short video, New York gut doctor Dr. Gina Sam names the 3 common foods she says get in the way, and the simple plan she uses instead. It includes Akka, the daily capsule she helped create: that same friendly gut microbe, plus milk thistle and artichoke, two long-trusted liver herbs. Two capsules a day, made to support healthy liver function and metabolism.

Show me the 3 foods →

A short video. Worth watching before tomorrow's candy bowl comes out.

What's happening

The answer may be sitting under her ribs, on the right.

Your liver gets described as a filter. It is also a gland. It makes hormones, and one of them, called FGF21, carries a specific message to your brain. That's your liver's way of saying enough sweets for now. The brake on candy starts in your liver.

In 2016, teams in Iowa and Copenhagen tested it in mice. Mice given extra doses of it ate about seven times less sugar than usual. Mice that could not make it went back for more. The hormone went after sweets and almost nothing else.

Then a Copenhagen group looked at people. They checked the genes and eating habits of 6,514 Danish adults. A common version of the gene behind this hormone came with a measurable pull toward candy. Carriers had 19 percent higher odds of landing in the top third of sweet eaters. In a smaller test, people who disliked sweets had about 50 percent more of the hormone in their morning blood.

Stopping at one is partly a message. Your liver sends it, and your brain decides whether to listen. Some bodies send it sooner and louder. Your coworker in cat ears may have a louder liver.

That's the part most people miss: the message is slow. In Boston, adults drank fructose, the sugar that makes up half of table sugar. Their ‘enough sugar’ hormone rose more than threefold and peaked about two hours later. Your hand works in seconds. Your liver writes back in hours.

Stay with me, because midlife adds a twist. Estrogen helps keep fat out of the liver, and as it falls, fat tends to move in. In a US national survey, about a third of women past menopause had a fatty liver. Before menopause, under a quarter did. A fattier liver tends to make more of the hormone, yet in mice, heavier bodies seem to hear it less, like a radio turned up in a noisy room. In people, that is still an open question. The numbers below tell the rest.

The pulse: the liver's sugar signal

2 hrs When the liver's sugar signal peaked after adults drank fructose, then faded by five hours	7x Less sugar eaten by mice given extra doses of the hormone, compared with what they usually chose
+3 g Extra sugar a day for each copy of a common gene version, in 6,514 Danish adults	1 in 3 Women past menopause with a fatty liver in a US national survey, versus under 1 in 4 before it

Sources: Dushay et al., Molecular Metabolism (2015); von Holstein-Rathlou et al., Cell Metabolism (2016); Søberg et al., Cell Metabolism (2017); NHANES 2017-2020 analysis, Menopause Review (2025)

Worth a look

Before you zip up the costume, turn sideways at the mirror. A gut doctor explains what that view is really showing you

Stand side-on, let your stomach relax and look. If your belly sits flatter in the morning and pushes past your waistband by evening, part of that swell may have little to do with fat. When your gut moves slowly, it holds on to what it should have cleared, and you carry it around all afternoon.

Dr. Gina Sam, the gut doctor from the top of this letter, spent years running a clinic devoted to one question: how fast food moves through you. She built a morning routine around it that takes about seven seconds. It centers on Emma, a plant-based capsule she helped create to support regular, comfortable mornings and a calmer belly. No laxatives, no fiber scoops.

See the 7-second morning routine →

Dr. Sam walks through it in a short video.

What matters most

Your liver makes a hormone, FGF21, that tells your brain you have had enough sugar. In mice it cut sugar intake sharply.
Among 6,514 Danish adults, a common version of the hormone's gene was linked to eating more candy, and people who disliked sweets carried more of the hormone.
The signal is slow. After a fructose drink it peaked about two hours later, long after the hand-to-bowl decision.
Fatty liver turns up in about one woman in three after menopause. A fattier liver may get its sugar message across less clearly, which is still being studied.

What you can do today

The smallest step: tonight, put your two favorite pieces on a saucer and sit down to eat them. A plate and a chair give the rest of you time to catch up with your hand.
Try a two-hour pause. After your first treat, set the oven timer for two hours before deciding on more. That is roughly when the liver's sugar message peaked in the Boston study.
Keep the trick-or-treat bowl by the front door instead of the kitchen, and fill it with candy you do not love. Out of reach is the easiest brake there is.
If you are past menopause, ask at your next checkup how your liver numbers look. A routine blood test can flag extra fat there early.

Why this matters

Halloween opens a season of sweets that runs straight through New Year's. If every handful at the cauldron feels like proof that you are weak, you spend nine weeks at war with yourself. People at war with themselves tend to quit, usually by January. Sound familiar?

For generations, a sweet tooth was filed under character. Good girls skipped dessert. A second cookie came with a little confession: I'm being bad. Whole diets were built on the idea that wanting sugar is a moral weakness strong people rise above. The research tells a plainer story. Wanting sweets is partly a conversation between your liver and your brain, tuned by genes, slowed by timing and changed by midlife.

So I want you to exhale for a second. Those wrappers in your blazer pocket say nothing about your character. Your coworker's body may send its stop note sooner, and yours deserves some help hearing it.

Our take

A fair word about the evidence. Most of what we know about this hormone comes from mice. The human gene effect is small, about three grams of sugar a day per copy. And sugar does its harm in proportion to how much you eat, never from a single peanut butter cup.

Longtime readers know the liver keeps turning up in stories that look like they are about willpower. Your part is practical: a plate, a pause, a checkup. If you want to give your liver some backup, Dr. Sam's short video on the 3 foods is a good place to start. And if your evenings end with a tight waistband, her 7-second morning routine is the other one to see. If you take daily medicines, run any new capsule past your pharmacist first.

Think of your liver as a pen pal who writes back slowly. The letter that says enough is already on its way when you reach for the first piece. Tomorrow night, between doorbells, put two favorites on a saucer, set the oven timer for two hours and give the mail time to arrive.

P.S. Curious which 3 everyday foods made Dr. Sam's list? Tap here to see them before tomorrow's candy bowl comes out. It takes less time than carving a pumpkin.

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Which candy can you never stop at just one of? Be honest. Hit reply.