Out of the many recent discoveries on the causes of wrinkles, one of the most important and surprising is sugar or high glycemic foods. Why is this important? It's because:
1. It can be easily corrected with dietary substitutions
2. You can achieve younger looking skin
3. You cna also avoid many health prodlems such as diabetes, heart disease, hyperlipidemia and obesity with a low glyceic diet.
So how does dugar relate to wrinkles?
What Sugar Does
The reason sugar has such a negative effect on skin, is a process called glycation. The sugar in your bloodstream combines with proteins forming new molecules known as advanced glycation end products, or AGEs. The more sugar in the bloodstream, the more AGEs accumulate resulting in damage to other nearby proteins.
Collagen and elastin are among the most vulnerable proteins to damage. Collagen is the primary protein of the skin with elastin forming a mesh network giving skin its flexibility. When damaged, these proteins lose their resiliency, becoming brittle and dry, which results in wrinkles and skin sagging. Beginning at about age 35, these aging effects accelerate quickly after that.
A diet high in sugar also influences the type of collagen you have. Of the three types of collagen, types I, II and III, type III is the most stable. Type III collagen is transformed into the more fragile type I by glycation, resulting in less supple skin. AGEs also deactivate the antioxidant enzymes that help protect skin from sun damage, leaving your skin more vulnerable. Sun damage is still the primary cause of skin aging.
Turn Back the Clock on Skin Aging
There is good news, however. There are steps you can take to reverse this damage. Products containing retinoids can build new collagen in the skin. Look for the ingredient 'retinol' in lotions and creams. In addition, there are five steps you can take to keep your skin looking its best:
1. Limit the sugar in your diet. You can't eliminate sugar completely since the necessary carbohydrates you eat, including fruits, vegetables and whole grains, turn into glucose when digested. But you can cut back on added sugar. Try to keep your added sugar intake to no more than 10% of your total daily calories. For example, if you consume 1600 calories per day, added sugar calories should be no more than 160, which is ten teaspoons of sugar.
Many prepared foods contain significant amounts of sugar. Sugars are listed in grams on the nutrition label under total carbohydrates. With each teaspoon of sugar equal to 4 grams, dividing that number on the label by 4 will tell you how many teaspoons of sugar each serving contains.
2. Take a multi-vitamin supplement. According to studies, vitamins B1 and B6 are AGE inhibitors. Be sure you get an added 1mg of vitamins B1 and B6 every day.
3. Use sunscreen. Sun damage is still the primary cause of skin aging.
4. Increase antioxidents both inside and outside. Antioxidents help to prevent sugar from attaching to proteins. Eating an antioxident-rich diet, including nuts and vegetables, along with using lotions or creams containing vitamins C and E will improve the health and appearance of your skin.
5. Protect your skin with new ingredients. Many skin products now contain ingredients such as aminoguanidine and alistin which have been demonstrated to prevent formation of AGEs. In a study using a lotion containing these ingredients, it was shown that treated skin had 21% fewer AGEs than skin that wasn't treated.
In short, controlling your intake of added sugars and taking a daily multi-vitamin along with using skin products containing sunscreen, retinol, aminoguanidine and alistin will turn the clock back on aging skin.
Tags: wrinkles, skin care, health, sugar, health, anti aging