Five reasons for those over 50 to give up sugar (middle-aged spread and premature ageing aren’t healthy – or sexy!)
As we reach our fifties, several signs of ageing start to appear which may not be solely attributed to the natural ageing process. Instead, they could be the result of excessive sugar consumption throughout our lifetime.
Among the many dietary and lifestyle factors that trigger wrinkles, high cholesterol, joint pain, and other health issues, sugar consumption is a big one.
Sugar (more specifically, fructose) is at the heart of why we begin to see early signs of ageing in our fifties.
So, if you think giving up sugar is just about losing a bit of weight, you may want to look at want to read on to find out what’s happening to your body when you eat too much of the sweet stuff.
Have you ever wondered about the effects of consuming excessive amounts of fructose?
When we think of sugar, we usually associate it with the white sticky stuff, commonly known as table sugar (sucrose). But that’s only half of the story, as sucrose, once consumed, is metabolised as fifty per cent glucose and fifty per cent fructose.
Glucose is absolutely essential to every cell in your body for good health. So, it might interest you to learn that fructose (fruit sugar) consistently raises our blood sugar.
Fructose (fruit sugar) makes up fifty per cent of table sugar, and every piece of fruit you consume consists of fructose.
When making the decision to cut back on sugar, it’s important to note that it’s actually fructose that should be reduced. This can be confusing, as it raises questions about the potential negative effects of consuming too many high-fructose fruits.
Every cell of your body uses glucose as an energy source, however, fructose can only be metabolised by your liver where it synthesis into fat.
In this article, we’ll discuss five good reasons why you might want to cut down on the fructose found in high-sugar fruits or the hidden fructose known as high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) which is commonly added to many packaged foods.
#1 Middle-aged spread
If it were ever possible to have good and bad fat, now is the time to recognise that where your fat is located is a big deal and can indicate future health issues.
The fat that gathers around the abdomen, which you may have come to think of as ‘just middle-aged spread’ – is visceral fat.
Visceral fat differs from the fat elsewhere in your body as it is internal and surrounds primary organs such as the liver, heart, pancreas and abdominal organs.
It increases your risk of increased blood pressure, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, stroke and insulin resistance and is linked to the over-consumption of fructose.
It’s not pretty, and it’s certainly not healthy.
#2 Premature skin ageing
When consumed in excess, fructose can attach itself to your skin’s collagen, setting off a cascade of damage and destruction.
A process called glycation takes place and can have devastating effects on your skin.
If left unchecked, glycation destroys collagen proteins. Or to put it more simply, triggers the formation of wrinkles.
#3 Signs of ageing in the body
If you’ve ever suffered from joint pain, high blood pressure or trouble with your kidneys, you may be tempted to accept it as part of the natural ageing process.
But something else could be at play. There may be something in your diet playing havoc with the internal harmony of your body.
Yep, you guessed it: fructose.
The ingestion of too much fructose, if it doesn’t end up stored as fat, circulates in your bloodstream and raises uric acid levels (a waste product of urine). Excessive uric acid leads to health conditions, including hypertension, gout and kidney disease.
#4 Stressed out, burnt out, tired.
As you enter your fifties, it’s finally time to relish the rewards of all your past efforts. However, in today’s chaotic and hectic world, people are living longer and working for extended periods which can lead to more stress than you planned in your fifties and beyond.
During times of stress, our bodies release a hormone called cortisol, which is a natural response to stress and part of our ancestral survival mechanism. This hormone triggers the fight-or-flight response, allowing us to react when we feel threatened or under attack.
Unfortunately, modern life can leave many of us feeling under a constant ‘threat’ (workload, boss, family, ageing parents, juggling too many balls…), and when our cortisol is constantly raised the body deals as best it can.
The body isn’t designed for this heightened level of vigilance and can leave us with chronic anxiety, depression and suppressed immune function and we may find we’re loading up on fructose-laden sugar to cope.
Snacking on sugar might seem like the solution to stressful situations. Still, it’s a short-lived fix and further elevates our stress hormones.
A cycle of internal stress develops, leading to health below par.
#5 Fatty lipids or bad cholesterol in your blood.
Your low-density lipoproteins or LDL (bad cholesterol) are particularly susceptible to the damaging process of glycation caused by too much fructose roaming in our bloodstream.
Once glycated, your LDL becomes poorly recognised by the lipoprotein receptors that scavenge and remove these troubling lipids from your bloodstream. Further, the path of debris from all this damage accumulates, putting you at greater risk of heart disease and stroke.
How to cut down on fructose?
The constant overload we put on our bodies from too much fructose is unnecessary and with a few minor adjustments to your daily consumption, you can significantly improve your health.
Try and cut back on any sugar, that includes white and brown sugar, honey, agave syrup, and golden syrup and skip the high-fructose fruits, dried fruit, and concentrated fruit juice in favour of low-sugar fruits like strawberries and blueberries.
Sugar in packaged foods.
Sugar, fructose, corn syrup and agave syrup all have a way of flying under the radar and creeping into many packaged foods. It’s pretty shocking once you start to read the labels!
Read the labels of all packaged foods, such as ready-to-eat meals, soups, sauces, yoghurts with fruit or sugar added, biscuits and the like, and even canned fruits and vegetables have sugar added.
Or course, you could stop eating packaged foods and replace them with freshly cooked food made from natural ingredients, which the human body requires to be adequately nourished.
In conclusion, managing the amount of sugar we eat will improve our overall health and while getting older is inevitable, whether it’s a sprint or a pleasant stroll is up to us and with a few modifications we can take back control of how we age.