Why does eating a lot of sweets make you age quickly?

Eating a lot of candied fruit, cakes or ice cream increases blood sugar, causing a decrease in collagen, causing the skin to age quickly .

Although aging is a normal physiological process that everyone must go through, the rate of aging is different for each person. People with slow skin aging look more youthful than people of the same age. Among the factors that affect the rate of aging, eating habits have a great influence.

Picture 1 of Why does eating a lot of sweets make you age quickly?
Consuming too much sugar causes premature aging of the skin, manifested by dark skin conditions, age spots, wrinkles.

Research shows that people who often eat sweets and drink drinks containing lots of sugar have a faster aging rate than those who limit their sugar intake. Prolonged high blood sugar levels will increase blood vessel damage, creating a large amount of free radicals. When free radicals appear, they act on the lipid layer of cell membranes, accelerating the skin aging process due to oxidative damage.

In addition, if you consume too much sugar, glycation occurs when sugar binds to proteins in the skin, denaturing these proteins. Two important proteins that help maintain elasticity and youthfulness of the skin are collagen and elastin. The glycation process reduces the amount of this protein, causing the skin to lose elasticity, increase stiffness, and form wrinkles.

Picture 2 of Why does eating a lot of sweets make you age quickly?
Cake is a favorite dish of many people but contains a large amount of sugar, which is not good for health and skin.

The World Health Organization recommends that adults' daily sugar intake should be controlled at 5% of total energy, about 25 g . Below are sweet foods that contain a lot of sugar, which can speed up aging and should be limited in consumption.

1. Candied fruit

Fruit candy is mainly made from dried fruit, with many types of candy soaked in sugar. Therefore, the sugar content in fruit candy is relatively high, with some fruit candy containing up to 70% sugar.

2. Ice cream

Ice cream is a popular dish. Eating ice cream properly can improve your mood, but the sugar content in ice cream is high, about 12-18%. Regularly eating ice cream not only damages the normal function of the body, spleen and stomach, but also causes blood sugar levels to increase.

3. Cakes

Cakes contain very high sugar content. An average portion of chocolate cake provides 235 calories but contains up to 25-30 g of sugar, equivalent to the recommended amount of sugar for the whole day.