Gaby
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, have uncovered a link between excessive sugar consumption and a person’s biological age. The scientists warn that adding sugar to one’s regular diet can accelerate the biological aging process.
According to the researchers, a significant amount of sugary foods can have a hyper-reactive effect on the body’s biological clock, even if an individual’s overall diet remains healthy.
What the Study Revealed
The dietitians involved in the study recruited 342 middle-aged women, including both African American and Caucasian participants.
On average, the volunteers consumed about 60 grams of sugar per day, with some exceeding 300 grams daily. The researchers observed that those who consumed high amounts of sugar appeared older.
The findings help explain why some people age faster or slower than others who have lived the same number of years. The team believes that sugar consumption is a significant factor that is often overlooked. Based on the data, lead author and dietitian Barbara Laraia asserts that cutting out just 10 grams of added sugar per day “is equivalent to turning the biological clock back by 2.4 months” if maintained over time.
How It Works
Alongside periodic mutations, our DNA accumulates certain modifications over time—epigenetic changes. This collection of changes is known as the epigenetic clock. It allows for a fairly accurate estimation of a person’s true biological age, as reported by Science Alert. Meanwhile, scientists read these epigenetic changes to better understand how old a cell is and what damage or stress it has endured.
It is known that diet, lifestyle, genetics, and diseases influence how quickly a person’s epigenetic clock ticks. However, this is one of the first studies to examine the specific role sugar plays in this process using a diverse cohort.
The results showed that added sugar can alter epigenetic switches related to aging. This occurs even faster than healthier foods rich in beneficial nutrients can turn them off.
Participants who followed a diet rich in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants had cells that appeared younger. Those adhering to a Mediterranean diet experienced the slowest ticking of their epigenetic clocks.
Overall, the more added sugar a person consumed daily, the older their salivary DNA appeared to the researchers. This was true even if their diet was rich in foods that support and repair DNA. Thus, the study’s results confirmed that added sugar can significantly accelerate cellular aging. However, the research was based on dietary records collected over three non-consecutive days. Some previous studies have suggested that cells can appear epigenetically younger or older depending on when the DNA sample was taken, even at different times of the day. Therefore, dietitians believe it is necessary to conduct further, more comprehensive, and longer-term studies among both genders.
“We knew that high levels of added sugar were linked to metabolic decline and early diseases, possibly more than any other dietary factor,” noted Elissa Epel, a co-author of the study. “Now we know that accelerated epigenetic aging underlies this connection,” she added.
The study’s results were published in the JAMA Network Open journal.
For reference, the American Heart Association recommends limiting daily added sugar intake to 25 grams for women and 36 grams for men. This applies not only to that extra spoonful of sugar in tea or coffee but also to servings of syrup or sweet condiments added to food during preparation.
