Elec Telegraph

Sugar can leave you sour-faced (Filed: 31/07/2002)

A sugary diet is bad for your complexion and brain. Charmaine Yabsley reports

Cut it out

A spoonful of sugar may make the medicine go down, but it'll make you look older in the process. In Britain, we consume 1.25lb of sugar each week - an increase of 31 per cent in the past two decades - which may contribute to our growing obesity. Recent research shows that our increased intake of sugar is also affecting our skin, making us look older.

Not so sweet: a diet high in sugar can lead to serious health problems Nutritionist Natalie Savona, author of Perfect Skin (Piatkus, £5.99), says that in a process called glycosylation, sugar (glucose) in the blood attaches itself to proteins until the protein can no longer function properly. "Look at the effect elevated blood sugar levels have on diabetics," Savona says.

Diabetics are particularly prone to hardening of the arteries, loss of nerve function and sight, and kidney disease, most of which are due to glycosylation. "Although this is what happens with diabetes, it shows that the damage caused by generally having too much glucose in your blood can be similar. In particular, a more subtle ageing, or loss of the way cells work and repair themselves, occurs."

Damage by excess glucose can have a negative effect on skin, says Savona. As collagen forms about 40 per cent of the body's protein and is an integral part of your skin, any damage by glycosylation will leave the skin baggy and wrinkled. Inside, the body's cells are less nourished and find it more difficult to eliminate waste product.

Recent research published in the New Scientist revealed that sugary snacks might damage vital body proteins and cause premature ageing. Experiments suggest that high levels of sugars in the blood cause proteins to stick together. Usually, special enzymes unstick the glycated proteins, but if sugar levels are raised between meals, the enzymes cannot cope and the proteins become permanently damaged.

Sugars also affect our ability to fight off infection. "When we eat sugars and refined carbohydrates, they do not come naturally packaged with the nutrients needed for them to be processed by the body," says Savona. "This means they call on the body's reserves, depleting nutrients which could be used for more crucial purposes." Sugar also interferes with the way the body uses vitamin C, which is needed for the formation of collagen and elastin - necessary for healthy, supple skin, as well as for a strong immune system. Furthermore, sugar and refined foods create ideal conditions in the digestive tract for feeding yeasts and other unwanted organisms, which could lead to thrush or candida. It may also make your digestion sluggish, ultimately affecting all parts of the body.

Sugar is also present in bread, pasta, rice cakes, fruit juice, sodas and most pre-packaged snacks, such as biscuits or sweets.

When you eat pure sugar, it enters the bloodstream immediately, instead of slowly as it would as part of whole foods. Insulin is then secreted and stores the sugar into cells. As there is now not enough sugar in the bloodstream, your brain senses that you are in a "time of famine" and sends a red alert to your adrenals to release adrenalin and cortisol. Adrenalin releases energy from sugar stored in the liver and muscles and cortisol breaks down your own muscle mass to turn it into sugar. Since excess sugar damages brain and body cells, this influx of sugar into the bloodstream triggers the secretion of insulin, which immediately stores away this new sugar into cells.

If you have a sugary diet, your adrenals will be continually responding to red alerts. Eventually, the adrenal reserve will become depleted, and you will suffer from decreased muscle mass, excess weight on the waist, lowered metabolism and premature accelerated ageing. The onset of type II diabetes could also be triggered.

Cut it out

Add honey to tea or coffee if you need sweetener - or switch to a herbal alternative, such as peppermint or chamomile. If you feel a mid-afternoon slump, have a banana or rice cake. They are full of slow-release carbohydrates and give more energy for longer. Cutting out one teaspoon of sugar a day will save you about 105 calories a week.

-- Anonymous, August 05, 2002

Answers

It would be easier to cut the coffee out of my sugar and creamer.

-- Anonymous, August 06, 2002

Fructose, the kind of sugar in fruit, takes some breaking down to get glucose, and therefore is better for you than foods which turn into glucose almost immediately.

-- Anonymous, August 06, 2002