It is probably no surprise to anyone that excessive sugar is not good for you. Sugar is certainly bad for your teeth and your waistline, never mind making you more susceptible to diabetes and the long term consequences of obesity.
What many people don't know is that sugar is also dangerous for your skin and its health as well. Sugar affects your skin in several ways, gradually making your skin look older and more inflamed.
When you ingest extra sugar beyond what your body needs, the excess sugar can bind to proteins in the body including collagen and elastin. This process, which is called glycation, makes the collagen and elastin, which are the building blocks of your skin, more stiff and rigid.
This stiffness in the skin results in more fine lines and wrinkles appearing, thereby making a person look older than they may actually be. SkinCeuticals does have topical product that helps combat glycation within the thinner skin arounds the eyes in the form of A.G.E. Eye Complex, which is a bestseller within our office.
In addition to the premature aging that occurs by sugars linking to your proteins, excess sugar consumption is pro-inflammatory to your system and your skin. When you eat food high in sugar, otherwise known as high glycemic foods, your blood sugar increases, and that sugar surge signals your body to release insulin and insulin-like growth factors.
This hormone chain cascades into activating the release of cortisol and androgens, which further results in a low grade state of inflammation. When the skin inflames from within, people prone to rosacea will experience more redness and flareups in addition to activating the sebaceous glands and flaring up acne.
The simplest solution to these troubling internal chain reactions is to reduce or stop eating high glycemic foods. If you never ate such foods, you would do fine nutritionally.
Your body has a remarkable ability to take your dietary intake and change it into the sugar that your body needs to function. This rule does not mean that you can't eat good and nutritious foods. If you eat a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, nuts, berries, and legumes, you will meet all your nutritional requirements and lower your sugar intake without a great deal of sacrifice.
We recommend starting out with a 2 week period of a "wash-out" whereby you eliminate high-carb foods as completely as possible. This cleanse is particularly effective in people with difficult-to-control acne who have failed other aggressive acne treatments.
After one month of sticking to this program, most people with rosacea and acne experience a significant improvement in the appearance and feeling of their skin. When it comes to the skin prematurely aging, the difference in the skin will take longer, but at least the further appearance of aging will be arrested.
The hackneyed saying "you are what you eat" happens to be true in the sense that what we eat affects our skin from the inside out. Obviously, there are more aggressive treatments that we offer here at Maine Laser Skin Care to treat the consequences of problems such as acne, rosacea, and aging. However, dietary changes will help the skin healing process while preventing further damage and inflammation.
Hopefully, this information will enable you to make healthy changes in your diet that will be good for your body and your skin. Feel free to call us if you have any questions concerning your skin and the effects of diet on the skin, or to schedule a free consultation.
Our phone number in Augusta is (207) 873-2158 and in Scarborough is (207) 303-0125. We are now open by appointment only, and our staff is regularly monitoring the phones.
If we don't pick up the first time you call, simply leave a message and we will get back to you as soon as we can. Also, while the risk of COVID-19 is still out there, please continue to stay safe at home for now, be well and kind, and we will get through this together.