Quit sugar – look 20 years younger

That’s what a new study just out finds, comparing people’s looks with their sugar intake.

The story was covered in today’s Daily Mail and is completely consistent with everything we are learning about healthy ageing. In Jerome and I’s book Ten Secrets of Healthy Ageing, out today, we discuss how the best way to switch off genes that age you is to eat a low GL diet, keeping your blood sugar level dead even. The study, published in the British Journal of Dermatology, found that every 1mmol/l increase in blood sugar, the perceived age of that person rose by five months. A healthy blood sugar level is around 4 – 5mmol/l. A diabetic might have a level above 10mmol/l. That equates to looking several years older. Wendy, who recently completed my BioAge Check is a case in point. “Due to following the advice for the low gl diet, my bio age has dropped to 35 (I am 47). Three years ago I had the body of a 65 year old. I was told I probably wouldn’t make it to 50. Now I feel on top of the world and look years younger.” Eating a low GL diet switches off DAF3, the grim reaper gene that affects insulin, and switches on FOXO, known as ‘sweet sixteen’ because of it’s anti-ageing effects. According to gene expert Professor Cynthia Kenyon “Your supply of natural antioxidants goes up, damping down damaging oxidants.There’s a boost to compounds that make sure the skin and muscle building proteins are working properly, the immune system becomes more active in fighting infection and genes that are active in cancer get turned off.’ In Ten Secrets of Healthy Ageing we explain how this works. I’ll be doing a seminar on Low GL eating as a means to reverse ageing, diabetes and heart disease, as well as weight loss in my nationwide Healthy Ageing seminars this month.