[News article] Sugar Accelerates Aging Process as Much as Smoking Does, U.S. Study Says | Natural Products News and Updates

Sugar Accelerates Aging Process as Much as Smoking Does, U.S. Study Says | Natural Products News and Updates.

Source: sheknows

From the National Post news item by Lindsey Bever, The Washington Post, National Post Wire Services | October 20, 2014 | Last Updated: Oct 20 11:26 AM ET

You knew that drinking sugary sodas could lead to obesity, diabetes and heart attacks — but, according to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, it may also speed up your body’s aging process.

What does cancer eat? Sugar, mostly, and other lessons from my dinner with a professor of pathology

What got my attention was his remark about celery.

You know: the dieters’ wishful thinking on whether eating celery is a sum negative activity, or not.

He was certainly entitled to speak. His name is Dr. Gerald Krystal and he’s a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at University of British Columbia, as well as Distinguished Scientist at the Terry Fox Laboratory at the BC Cancer Agency.

We were perched like vultures over a buffet table, commenting on the many ways to die. Fats, salts, sugars, alcohol: pick your delicious poison. I like ’em all.

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As you age, caps on the end your chromosomes called telomeres shrink. In the past several years, researchers at the University of California at San Francisco, have analyzed stored DNA from more than 5,300 healthy Americans in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from some 14 years ago. And they discovered that those who drank more pop tended to have shorter telomeres.

The shorter the telomere, the harder it is for a cell to regenerate — and so, the body ages.

“We think we can get away with drinking lots of soda as long as we are not gaining weight, but this suggests that there is an invisible pathway that leads to accelerated aging, regardless of weight,” psychiatry professor Elissa Epel, senior author of the study, told CBS San Francisco….

The findings were reported online October 16, 2014 in the American Journal of Public Health.