Experts recommend limiting it to less than 10% of our daily calories.
If you want to not only feel but look young, cut extra sugar from your diet. A new study reveals that the body’s cells age prematurely. In fact, this happens even if your diet is otherwise healthy, the researchers clarify.
Conversely, if you get plenty of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and anti-inflammatories from your diet every day, your biological age may be younger than your chronological age.
As a result, the healthier your diet, the younger your body cells are.
“For years, too much sugar has been known to be associated with worse metabolic health and early disease, probably more than any other dietary factor,” he said. researcher Dr. Elissa Epel Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
The new findings suggest that this is due to epigenetic changes, i.e. changes that cells undergo due to lifestyle.
Research
The new findings came from a study of 342 women with an average age of 39. The researchers recorded their diet in detail and subjected them to specific analyzes to record epigenetic changes in their cells.
Analyzes were performed on a saliva sample used to calculate their biological and chronological age. THE biological age basically it shows how old our body is. THE chronological age it’s the time we were born.
The women who participated in the study consumed an average of 61 grams of sugar per day. Actually, in fact sugar consumption varies between 3 and 316 grams per day.
Experts recommend the sugar we eat should be limited to less than 10% of daily calories to us. This percentage corresponds to less than 200 calories (or 50 grams of sugar) on a 2,000-calorie diet.
A small package of milk chocolate provides about 25 grams of sugar. A can of the classic soft drink provides about 39 grams.
findings
In the present study, scientists have found this every 10 grams reduction in sugar consumption daily, long-term can reduce 2.4 months biological age to us.
This is true even for very healthy eaters, they write in the medical journal JAMA Network Open.
The new study also found that the Mediterranean diet in general is strongly associated with youthfulness of the body. The traditional Greek diet, on which the Mediterranean diet is based, mainly includes:
- Fresh fruits and vegetables
- Whole grains
- Legumes and nuts
- Olive oil as the main fat source
- Fish and seafood
- Red meat, processed foods and sweets in measured amounts
New findings prove that existing recommendations to prevent chronic diseases keep the body young, Dr. leading researcher Dr. Dorothy Chiu Postdoctoral researcher at UCSF