Saying many people love adding too much sugar to almost everything they eat and drink is so true. As a matter of fact, from the amount of added sugar in many of your favourite diets, to the sweet stuff you mix into your coffee, you may be consuming almost 270 calories of added sugar each day.
Surprising? Well, taking about 17 teaspoons of sugar will amount to 270 calories of sugar. Although sweet stuff tastes good, it can also affect your skin. All it takes is one look in the mirror to see how that sugar diet went back to work on your skin while you were sleeping.
But what is it about a sugar diet that when taken, causes your body to fight back with a vengeance, affecting your skin? The thing is, sugar is an inflammatory food, so it causes inflammation within the body.
When you eat a lot of sugar, the sugar goes immediately into your gut, and then into your bloodstream, leading to inflammation. The inflammation that happens when you’re on a sugar diet with a high glycemic index can worsen certain skin conditions.
High-glycemic foods such as candy, white bread, soda, salad dressings, and other baked goods contain refined and processed sugars and starches which causes your insulin to spike.
In this article, we’ve explained how a sugar diet can affect your skin. Here’s how;
How does sugar affect your skin?
Glycation, a natural chemical reaction that happens when sugar levels in the bloodstream spike beyond what insulin can handle, is caused by excess sugar in the bloodstream. Glycation affects the skin part that keeps it ‘springy’ i.e collagen and elastin.
Collagen and elastin are proteins, when linked with sugars, become weaker. And when they are impaired, the signs of ageing become more pronounced; skin becomes less elastic and drier, causing sagging, dull skin appearance, and wrinkles (all because these two proteins are essential to skin building blocks).
The more glycation in your body, the quicker your skin ages. This is especially very common for people with diabetes as they have a more difficult time controlling their blood sugar levels. It has even been found that diabetic patients tend to age faster than those without elevated blood sugar.
Therefore, if you know you’re consuming too much sugar, you need to stop that as soon as possible; reduce the intake of your sweet stuff. Though it is not easy to cut out sugar completely, it is advisable to look at your sugar intake within your diet. Try to have no more than the recommended amount (100 calories per day); that is what the body can handle without adversely affecting your skin.
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