Do you want to: Break-down your skin, collagen, elastin, & age faster?

Break-down your bones? Reduce your immunity? Promote a chronic systemic yeast overgrowth? Damage your teeth? Increase your acne? Damage and stress-out your heart? Damage your kidneys? Break-down the capillaries in your retina? Increase the risk of diabetes/or, make it worse? Gain more weight and make it harder to lose weight? Mess with your mood?

Eat sugar...

Sugar consumption and the resultant glycation rapidly produces advanced glycation end-products or "AGEs". (Yes, AGEs). It does exactly what it says: breaks down important structures, leaves a mess of broken-down collagen & elastin, and ages you.

Some visible signs of glycation caused by sugar consumption is an orange-peel texture usually starting on the chin, but is not uncommon elsewhere on the face. When you get it, it is near impossible to reverse.

In recent years, many scientific studies have revealed that advanced glycation end products are among the crucial contributory factors of skin aging. Receptors for AGEs - are generally expressed in the epidermis and dermis, and it has been observed that the damage is even greater in the sun-exposed areas of the skin as compared to sun-protected areas.

Accumulation of AGEs in the skin has been observed both in diabetes and during chronological aging. Proteins with slow turnover rate, such as collagen I and IV, as well as long-lived proteins, such as fibronectin, are primary targets of glycation reaction in the skin. This advanced aging process is accelerated in all body tissues when sugar is elevated and is further stimulated by ultraviolet light (UVA & UVB) in the skin.

When you eat sugar, glucose and fructose (sugars) link together the amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) present in the collagen and elastin that support the dermis (foundational skin structure where new cells develop), and create a condition called cross-linking.

Because collagen has a long half-life, it allows the accumulation of damaged age-related lesions. Cross-linked DNA fragments of damaged collagen, elastin, and other supportive structural proteins create a yuk-layer of waste products within the layers of the skin. This 'yuk' layer is called lipofuscin. Lipofuscin deposition in the skin is evidenced by texture changes and discoloration. It is near-to-impossible to eliminate lipofuscin within the tissues.

Besides external stimuli, endogenous (internal) processes trigger aging and excessive free radical production. Free radicals are particles that damage healthy cells in our body. These unstable molecules are missing an electron and seek to steal an electron from stable molecules in order to stabilize themselves.

Unfortunately, that means the molecules that are “robbed” of an electron then become unstable! This causes a chain reaction, known as a free radical cascade, that creates additional free radicals in our bodies. (Note: this is why I STRESS taking antioxidants as supplements, and very active antioxidant serums to scavenge the free radicals, and prevent the cascade of aging they cause.) Other internal causes of aging are: nuclear/mitochondrial gene mutations, premature cellular senescence (aging & dying), shortening of telomere, reduced cell proliferation (growth & turn-over), and impaired immune functioning.

Long-term fructose consumption accelerates aging as expressed by changes in various age-related markers measured in collagen from skin and bones. The focus on collagen is warranted because collagen is present ubiquitously (everywhere in the body), accounts for as much as 30% of body proteins, and mainly in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the skin.

The ECM is the largest component of normal skin and gives the skin its unique properties of elasticity, tensile strength and compressibility. Glycation can affect both biochemical, mechanical and physiologic functioning of collagen. The deleterious effects of glycation on collagen play a significant role in the pathogenesis of the aging process and many complications of diabetes.