aNSWER: TRUE
It literally ages you!
To begin to understand how sugar is problematic for the skin, we need to introduce Advanced Glycation End Products and their acronym AGEs.
DIVs Associate Professor Greg Goodman explains that AGEs represent one of the end products of the ageing process.
“They occur when the sugars that you eat bind to proteins in your body. Healthy collagen and elastin, those wondrous proteins in the skin that make it elastic, supple and plump, are effected by sugar, which causes degeneration of our skin.”
Sugars can bind forcefully and irreversibly with collagen and elastin, making them become stiff. The impact includes delayed wound healing, stiffening of blood vessels which makes their appearance more obvious, loss of skin flexibility and an increase of coarseness. Voila, more wrinkles are created.
“As collagen has a low cell turnover, the accumulation of AGEs is very hard to shift and leads to long term coarse wrinkling. Basically more sugars = more wrinkles. If you happen to be sun damaged as well, the result is even more noticeable,” said Associate Professor Goodman.
Have we scared you sugarless yet? If not read on...
Our advice? Some foods can inhibit the deposition of these protein-sugar complexes in the skin, these include: berries, especially blueberries (fresh or frozen), green tea, or if you’re getting really gourmet the mushrooms that grow on wild mulberry trees. So the first step is replacing chocolate with a handful of delicious berries and swapping sugary soft drink for a herbal infusion. If you must have an egg at easter make it dark chocolate, which generally contains less sugar.
The section of the skin cell that the AGEs connect themselves to is called a docking point or a receptor in medical terminology. Interestingly enough this receptor together with its docked Age molecule goes by the acronym of rAGE, which too is very appropriate as this connection creates inflammation in the skin. As this binding is long term, it is common for the inflammation to become chronic and any chronic inflammation is very unhealthy for the skin, resulting in the worsening of many skin diseases such as psoriasis, rosacea, eczema and acne which in addition to wrinkles nobody wants.
Skincare plays an important role in your skin’s health both in preventing further wrinkles from occurring and softening those that exist. An important ingredient to look out for is Vitamin A, which can be potent, so make sure you speak to one of our skincare experts for advice on the correct product before starting. Our expert staff can also give you complimentary advice on DIVs wrinkle and skin ageing treatments such as Pelleve, Fractionated CO2, Skin Needling and Venus Viva.
Patient before Venus Viva treatment for upper lip wrinkles and after. Treatment performed by Melissa Daniell (RN)
*All results shown on our website have been achieved by our team members. Please note that results are individual and may vary.