Many people might not know this but that little sweetener you add to your coffee every day doesn’t just put on extra body weight but it can also cause wrinkles over time. Having a sweet tooth not only causes the waistline to grow in size also can do some damage on keeping skin smooth.
MSNBC Health reports:
At blame is a natural process that’s known as glycation, in which the sugar in your bloodstream attaches to proteins to form harmful new molecules called advanced glycation end products (or, appropriately, AGEs for short). The more sugar you eat, the more AGEs you develop. “As AGEs accumulate, they damage adjacent proteins in a domino-like fashion,” explains Fredric Brandt, MD, a dermatologist in private practice in Miami and New York City and author of “10 Minutes 10 Years.” Most vulnerable to damage: collagen and elastin, the protein fibers that keep skin firm and elastic. In fact, collagen is the most prevalent protein in the body. Once damaged, springy and resilient collagen and elastin become dry and brittle, leading to wrinkles and sagging. These aging effects start at about age 35 and increase rapidly after that, according to a study published in the British Journal of Dermatology.
Keep this in mind when thinking about dieting and how sugar can effect the skin later on in life. A high sugar diet can lead to a great deal of unwanted wrinkles later in life which could require twice as much work down the road to fix and put back to normal.
How to change your sugar intake:
- Start reading nutrition labels when you buy food. You would be surprised how much you can learn.
- Drink less juices and soda and more water.
- Eat more vegetables and less processed food.
- Tone down the sweet tooth.
- Less exposure to sun can help keep AGE damage to a minimum.
- Consume more anti-oxidants.
