Photo: Sonika Agarwal, Unsplash
The Phantom Menace Of Sugar In Your Diet:
We’ve talked about Freakonomics-type stuff here before in any of the “Stealth Health” posts.
But sometimes, things you might need to know get weirder than that.
Because there are good things that are really easy to forget like hydration and mindset.
There are other things that can be much more dangerous, though. Sort-of like living in a house that has black mold you don’t know about.
Still worse than that is a risk that’s been glossed-over with some kind of marketing varnish or PR-massaging.
It looks like a team from UCSF may have found another addition to this list…
The Short Answer:
- It’s easy to overlook some good things.
- Sometimes its also easy to overlook subtle problems.
- Microplastics are just one example.
- A UCSF team looked into the diets of about 340 women to find their sugar intake.
- Their average intake was 62g/day.
- The max levels recommended are 25 for women and 36 for men, by the AHA.
- The FDA recommends no more than 50/day for either.
- Women who had more added-sugar in their diet had cells that looked older and tested older on a type of clock that tests DNA & cell-structures.
- By contrast, those on something more like a Mediterranean Diet had the youngest looking cells.
- When your cells age faster, so does your whole body.
- Added-sugar is associated with metabolic problems and early disease.
- Accelerated cellular aging is probably the cause of the early disease.
- Part of the way added-sugar does this is by creating the opposite of anti-oxidants when your body burns it for fuel.
- The researchers found this damage happens even if the rest of the diet is good.
- The good news is, you may be able to reverse some cellular-aging by reducing your added-sugar intake to at least the recommended levels.
Read on to find out the details…
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Some Pervasive Threats Are Things You Don’t Even See:
One example of a common problem we didn’t know we had is microplastics.
Plastic is really hard to recycle.
It doesn’t decompose gracefully like glass or ceramic.
Nor is it as inert or harmless as we all once thought.
It seems to be everywhere, get into everything, and cause problems even at a very small scale.
…Just like our new arch-nemesis: Sugar!
UCSF Goes Into The Quantum Realm To Ferret-Out Sugar Scaries:
So recently a UCSF team looked into the risks of that second ubiquitous thing, and found some real problems.
In a study of about 340 black and white women, average-aged at 39, UCSF looked at how much added-sugar they got in their diet, and how “old” their cells looked.
The average was about 62 grams/day, with the range going from about 3-300.
For context, the AHA recommends no more than 25/day for women and 36 for men.
The USFDA is a lttle looser up at 50/day for either.
The next part of the test was to use a very small-scale tool called an “epigenetic clock” along with the microscope to check more-closely the age of the women’s cells.
The Tiny Clocks Inside Of Us Keep The Real Score:
The results showed that subjects with higher amounts of added-sugars (not naturally-occurring) in their diets had older looking cells.
By contrast, those on something like The Mediterranean Diet had the youngest looking cells.
These results were verified with the special DNA-clock.
It’s even possible for someone to be aging so slowly at the cellular-level that the clock shows a lower age than the person’s real chronological age!
So why does this matter? Are we all allergic to crow’s feet?
Lots Of Little Changes Can Add-Up To Something Big!:
It matters because when your cells age faster, so do you. That DNA-clock’s measurements correlate to both health and lifespan.
And co-senior author Elissa Epel says it herself,
“We knew that high levels of added sugars are linked to worsened metabolic health and early disease, possibly more than any other dietary factor.”
“Now we know that accelerated epigenetic aging is underlying this relationship, and this is likely one of many ways that excessive sugar intake limits healthy longevity.”
Ever Heard Of Anti-Oxidants? This Is The Exact Opposite; -Everywhere:
We even talked about this type of thing in other studies before.
They showed that both sugar and saturated-fat from milk products create the opposite of anti-oxidants when your body burns them.
These bits then fly around your body causing all kinds of damage.
What’s even more scary about this one is one chilling result.
Even though we like to think anti-oxidants can help, the results show that accelerated-aging from sugar happens regardless of whether or not the rest of the diet was healthy.
So even though it may sound too harsh, your diet may only be as good as it’s [added] sugar content.
Watch Out For The Sneaky Names For Added Sugar In Your Food:
This gets even more complicated when you consider a much more obvious menace, Ultra-Processed Foods.
At least 74% have added-sugars in them of one type or another.
These include sneaky names like:
- Dextrin
- Dextrose
- Maltodextrin
- Maltol
- Maltose
- Mannose
- Panocha
- Saccharose
- Sucrose
- Basically any -ose
- Sorghum
- Treacle
But fear not! There is hope yet!
You can always change and improve.
And the study authors back this up, too!
Don’t Worry. There Is Still Time And Hope!:
Co senior-author Dr. Barbara Laraia [somewhat] saves the day with this,
“Given that epigenetic patterns appear to be reversible, it may be that eliminating 10 grams of added sugar per day is akin to turning back the biological clock by 2.4 months, if sustained over time,”
You might even add foods to your diet that have the group’s list of nutrients that can help your DNA.
These include: Vitamins A, C, B12, E, Folate, Selenium, Magnesium, and Fiber.
So who knows? If you take action soon-enough, there might be a way to stop and reverse some parts of the damage that’s already been done.
That being said, I guess we need to page Dr. Robert Lustig again, because it’s looking a lot like sugar is one of mankind’s worst inventions.
And with more long-term work coming soon to follow it up, we might just be seeing the tip of the iceberg.
References & Links:
• Source: UCSF
• More Coverage: SugarScience – Sugar in UPFs
• Source Study:
•JAMA Gen&Geno. – Essential Nutrients, Added Sugar Intake, and Epigenetic Age in Midlife Black and White WomenNIMHD Social Epigenomics Program
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