A Little Sugar Goes a Long Way

Insulin sensitivity may be affected by eating nearly normal amounts of certain sugars

Eating too much sugar can change how your body responds to insulin - a hormone that is heavily involved in diabetes. Does eating normal amounts of sugar also have an effect?

Eating even normal amounts of certain sugars may increase cholesterol levels and change how your body responds to insulin.

 

Try to limit the sugar you eat.

According to Kaspar Berneis, MD, of University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland, and colleagues, studies have repeatedly shown that diets high in calories and fructose (a type of sugar) can affect insulin sensitivity and cholesterol levels.

Insulin is a hormone that manages levels of sugar in the blood. One main role of insulin is to keep the liver from making too much glucose (a type of sugar).

If someone has low insulin sensitivity or insulin resistance, the liver may keep making too much sugar. If blood sugar levels rise too high, a person may be at risk of diabetes.

From their study, Dr. Berneis and colleagues found that people who drank high amounts of fructose had lower insulin sensitivity than those who drank high amounts of glucose.
In other words, the livers of people on a high-fructose diet produced more sugar than the livers of people on a high-glucose diet.

People who drank moderate to high amounts of fructose or sucrose (another type of sugar) had higher levels of LDL cholesterol (the "bad cholesterol) and total cholesterol, compared to those who drank high amounts of glucose.

These findings suggest that moderate amounts of fructose and sucrose can change insulin sensitivity and the body's ability to burn fats compared to similar amounts of glucose, the authors concluded.

The size of this study was small, with only nine normal-weight men between 21 and 25 years of age.
Because of this limitation, more research is needed to see if different amounts of sugars have similar effects on other populations, including women and older adults.

 The research was published August 28 in Diabetes Care, a journal of the American Diabetes Association.

Anxiety and Aging 



We all know about the various factors that contribute to the aging process. An unhealthy diet and lifestyle habits such as smoking, drinking and lack of exercise and sleep can all add years to your age. Premature aging can cause an early onset of diseases and mental illnesses along with physical signs of old age that include wrinkles and age spots on the skin, thinning and graying hair, and brittle bones to name just a few. New research has also indicated another factor that adds to the aging process – anxiety.

A recent study by researchers from the Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA suggests that phobic anxiety can increase the risk of premature aging. Phobic anxiety includes stress and intense fear about commonplace circumstances such as heights, enclosed spaces, and crowds. Such phobias along with anxiety attacks can contribute to the aging process. The study used the blood samples from over five thousand women aged between 42 and 69 years of age. These participants were taking part in the Nurse’s Health Study – a long running investigation into different facets of women’s health that started its data collection since 1976. Apart from studying reports of blood samples from this cross-sectional group, the participants were also given a detailed questionnaire that measured the level of phobic symptoms and disorders. Researchers came to the conclusion that the telomere length of the blood cells in phobic women was shorter than in their non-phobic counterparts. The study noted that women with severe cases of anxiety had a telomere length that was 0.09 units below the average length. Telomeres are the bits of DNA protein found at the end of chromosomes that protect their genetic data and prevent them from deterioration. The length of telomeres has long since been linked with increased risk levels of heart disease, mental illness and death. As a result of this study, shorter telomere levels may now be linked with the aging process and according to the study can add up to six years to your age. The bigger worry is that shorter telomere length is not reversible. Keeping in mind that phobic anxiety is a treatable condition, researchers hope that the results of this study encourage people to take the necessary steps to identify and treat the problem as early as possible.

Many experts regard this study as a notable addition to the theory that psychological stress adds to the aging process. However, there are equal amounts of people who are skeptical about generalizing these findings. They insist that there is no direct cause and effect link established by the study and that at the most it indicates a possible connection but not a definite one. As one expert in the field states, “this study fails to prove which problem came first - the anxiety or shorter telomeres." What is agreed on however is that the results of this study warrant further investigation into what causes the aging process and how stress can affect a person’s lifespan.

References:

1. http://healthfinder.gov/News/newsstory.aspx?docid=666550
2. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247792.php



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