Will Total Restore help you lose weight?

Total Restore from Gundry MD is a gut health supplement. However, unlike most gut health supplements, Total Restore is not a probiotic, nor a prebiotic. It is not marketed as a general digestive health aid or a natural cure for bloating, IBS or constipation. Instead, Gundry MD Total Restore is sold explicitly as a way to treat “leaky gut syndrome”. This is a supposed medical condition identified and recognised solely by Dr. Steven Gundry, the maker of Total Restore, Bio Complete 3, and other probiotic supplements for women.

If you’ve read our Gundry MD Total Restore review, then you’ll know we are far from impressed with this supplement. However, in that review we focused almost exclusively on Total Restore’s ability to promote digestive health, to balance the microbiome, and to help with long-term gut health (preventing things like irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, infections, etc). What we didn’t touch on in any detail is Total Restore and weight loss.

One of the main benefits of Total Restore mentioned on the Gundry MD website is its ability to promote weight loss and help with weight management over the long-term. According to the website, Total Restore can help manage appetite and control food cravings, speed up fat loss, and raise energy levels. All of this leads to the claim that Total Restore is effective for people looking to lose weight, paritcularly stubborn belly fat.

So is Total Restore really good for weight loss? Will taking Total Restore help you lose weight? Is Total Restore a good gut health supplement? Are there better probiotics for weight loss? What is the best probiotic on the market right now? Let’s find out together. To begin, we need to take a look at what is actually in Total Restore and how its ingredients might work for weight loss.

Dr Gundry Total Restore Ingredients

What are the ingredients in Total Restore?

This is the question we need to examine before we can say whether this supplement is good for weight loss.

Here is an image of the Total Restore formula as it is shown on the bottle (image taken from the online store to ensure it is up to date):

Do any Total Restore ingredients help with weight loss?

Unfortunately, no, not according to clinical trials anyway. None of the ingredients in Total Restore have ever been shown to help with weight loss in any way whatsoever. Some of these substances are often said to be good for people looking to lose fat and prevent weight gain, but these claims do not stand up to investigation by rigorous scientific testing. At least not to an extent that makes them better than increasing water intake, or even to placebo.

Take licorice powder for example. You will see many health blogs (especially those focused on “homeopathy”) and supplement review sites saying that licorice powder is a great natural substance for everything from blood pressure to inflammation. And like all “natural remedies”, it is said to be great for weight loss too. However, the data does not support the use of licorice for weight loss. Studies looking at licorice and weight loss have found that it sometimes leads to a 1-2% reduction in body fat compared to placebo (but not weight), but results are not conclusive; other trials show no effect from licorice whatsoever.

The small effect seen from studies on licorice no doubt come from the added dietary fiber the participants are getting. More dietary fiber usually means reduced appetite, better microbiome function, and more succesful dieting. Yet licorice is not a particularly good source of prebiotic dietary fiber.

This exact same criticism can be applied to any of the ingredients in Total Restore. Few of them have ever been found to be even slightly effective for helping with weight loss in robust scientific studies. Any benefits in terms of extra weight loss or reduced appetite found in clinical trials almost invariably comes from the extra dietary fiber they provide. None of the ingredients have been found to significantly increase fat loss or weight loss, and none are known to help with appetite or hunger, beyond providing extra fiber.

None of Total Restore’s ingredients are particularly good sources of prebiotic fiber either! For starters, the doses are all pathetically small, even when compared to the clinical studies where researchers found them to be barely effective anyway! But more importantly, there are far better prebiotic fibers to take if your goal is weight management. Dozens of clinical trials have found very good results from the use of prebiotic fibers such as inulin, fructooligosaccharide, and fibers obtained from chicory root. Taking 2-5g of these fibers has been shown time and again to help with weight loss. None of these fibers are found in large quantities in Total Restore!

Total Restore and Diabetes

So what about diabetes?

One of the claims made in some Total Restore reviews is that it may be effective for fighting diabetes, or helping to reduce the severity of diabetes. These claims almost always stem from the inclusion of Berberine in the Total Restore formula. Some people have claimed that berberine may help fight diabetes, and some even go as far as to claim that berberine can prevent or even reverse diabetes! It is also generally true that the health of the microbiome is intimately linked to the development of diabetes; people with healthier, more robust microbiomes tend to exhibit less insulin resistance and develop diabetes at a lower rate (how much of this is related to lower obesity rates among this population isn’t clear).

However, there is little chance that Total Restore can actually help with diabetes.

The evidence supporting the use of berberine for diabetes is thin. We could only find one study showing good results from berberine, and this only used “48 adults with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes” (source). None of the other ingredients in Total Restore have been found to have any effect on the severity or progression of diabetes at all.

Can you lose weight on Total Restore?

Several Total Restore users have reported losing weight, with some people supposedly losing about 10 pounds. However, there is no hard evidence to show that Total Restore helps with weight loss. That said, Total Restore will not prevent you from losing weight, so long as you exercise and restrict calories.

So can you actually lose more weight while taking Total Restore?

The answer, unfortunately, is probably not. At least it’s true that Total Restore wont help you lose fat any faster. Nor will it help you get rid of stubborn body fat, like belly fat or thigh fat. It doesn’t contain any ingredients thought to be particularly beneficial for suppressing appetite, controlling blood sugar, or speeding up lipolysis. Some of the ingredients in Total Restore have shown slight effects in clinical trials, but this is largely due to the fact that they provide some dietary fiber to the microbiome. Total Restore is not a very good prebiotic; the doses are tiny and the sources of fiber less than ideal.

If you are looking for a gut health supplement to help you lose weight, then we recommend using a high-quality prebiotic. Some prebiotics use specific dietary fibers known to be highly effective for promoting weight loss and better weight management. Even probiotics like Bio X4 would be more effective than Total Restore for weight loss!

J. Theorin

Johan Theorin is an author, editor, and competitive cyclist. He is the author of most of the content on this website, and he is the site editor. Johan has spent years researching joint health, sports performance and recovery. He is a leading biohacking expert and an experienced physiotherapist.