How Sugar Can Age You?

As a recovering “sugarholic” myself,  it is hard to avoid those yummy cakes, and croissants and breads and tons of other yummy food. I am avoiding and still exercising a lot of will power to avoid sugar and prevent many unwanted side affects of sugar on my body and skin. A nice taste for a minute, a lifetime of fat on the hips and wrinkles on your face. After this little motto let’s see what overeating sugar can do to our skin.

1-Inflammation

Around 70% of our immune cells in the digestive system are in direct contact with the food we eat everyday. Through this contact our immune system scans the food and defend our body against unwanted bacteria or viruses in it. Further our immune system can be triggered by allergens in the food. All these factors can cause inflammation. One of the main processes that too much sugar ruins our skin (and our body) is through causing inflammation and increasing the level of AGEs or advanced glycation end-products.

What are AGEs?

AGEs or advanced glycation end-products are proteins bound to sugar moieties such as glucose, fructose etc resulting in damaged crosslinked proteins. Damaged AGEs would alter the structure and function that could induce prooxidant and proinflammatory processes in the body. As more AGEs are produced and body tries to get rid of AGEs, our immune cells produce more inflammatory messengers called cytokines, which could augment the inflammatory reaction.

The main signs of inflammation in the skin are redness, swelling and increase in breakouts. To prevent these symptoms avoid adding sugars such as white sugar, brown sugar, agave syrup, molasses, maple syrup and honey. Instead go for more natural sugars such as fresh fruit for your sweet tooth.

2-Wrinkles and Aging

Sad but eating too much sugar can cause wrinkles and make your skin dull. The inflammatory events caused by sugar do not only cause breakouts or redness but also wrinkles in the long run. How does that happen? Basically, sugar attacks healthy and strong collagen in our skin and degrades collagen, which causes dull skin with wrinkles.  This sugar  based attack is caused again by AGEs. More sugar you eat, more AGEs you produce. Result?

More AGEs damage the supple and resilient collagen and elastin, which keep our skin elastic, firm and young looking. When collagen and elastin are damaged they become brittle and dry and cannot support the skin anymore leading to sagging and wrinkles.

In summary: Overeating sugar leads to more AGEs which causes depletion of collagen and elastin, resulting in wrinkles and sagging!

On another note, the AGEs aging effects on the skin starts around 35 years of age and increases with intrinsic ageing. Sunlight further enhances the aging effect of AGE so use your sunscreen. If you are overeating sugar and carbohydrates you can experience AGE effects earlier.

3-Free Radicals

High sugar foods and overeating refined sugars have been linked to production of free radicals in the body.

Free radicals stimulate inflammation and DNA damage, which could be a contributing factor in age-related diseases, aging and even in cancer. Limiting free radical inducing factors like sugar and eating antioxidant rich foods such as fresh vegetables and low sugar fruits could help the fight against free radicals.

4- Dehydration

Keep in mind that our body converts starch (found in pasta, bread, rice and cake) into sugar. So in addition to refined sugars or sugar-rich foods, a carbohydrate-rich diet is not good for our skin either. These foods can suck the water and cause dry and dull skin.

Avoid eating sugar and drink a lot of water. Hydrate your body and skin.

Good news? Prevention?

The good news is it is never too late to prevent further damage. We can precautions to minimize the sugar and AGEs damage to our skin.

One way is to detox diet and give back the lost glow of sugar damaged skin.

Eating a low-sugar low carbohydrate diet with high fiber foods can lower the content of AGEs which could decrease oxidation and inflammation. Eating a healthy diet is actually my favorite and what I am trying to do my best for years. Yes, sometimes a girl falls of the wagon and cannot resist a good ice cream. Guilty as charged! Yet this does not stop me from continuing with my goals.

Another way to support elasticity of our skin is to use products with retinoids (retinol). You can ask your dermatologist which prescription creams would be suitable for your skin. And always use sunscreen!

:)

Dr.Ebru

References

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