Sugar, oh honey, honey
You are my candy girl
And you got me wanting you
 
Ah, the homage we pay to that sweet temptress, sugar! We sing about it, we use it as a term of endearment, and we even have a sport’s event, the Sugar Bowl, to remind us of it.  Yet sugar is a drug, with similar addictive properties as other drugs.  According to the New York Times, two researchers at St. Luke's Mid America Heart Institute and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine concluded that “Sugar is addictive.  And we don't mean addictive in that way that people talk about delicious food. We mean addictive, literally, in the same way as drugs.” 
 
Just say no to sugar and you may find yourself with withdrawal cravings similar to anyone trying to kick a serious drug habit. Yes, sugar, “you got me wanting you!”
 
Most of us know that excessive sugar consumption can cause diabetes, heart disease, obesity, tooth decay, liver problems, and on and on.  But do you know the effects of sugar on skin health and aging?  It can turn a baby-smooth complexion into a sandpaper-rough, inflamed and wrinkled surface.
 
Consider our favorite foods, such as cake, sausage and barbecued ribs.  These are “glycated” foods, which are a byproduct of sugar becoming bound to protein in the cooking process.  Glycated protein damages and ages skin by triggering the formation of toxic sugar that then leads to three key skin aging factors:  inflammation, glycation and oxidative stress. That’s why toxic sugar kills skin.
 
In addition to poor diet producing toxic sugar, which at this point is something of a “duh,” less well known is the fact that toxic sugar is also produced by our body’s normal metabolic process.  A team of research scientists at Fox Chase Cancer Center (FCCC) in Philadelphia discovered that there is an enzyme, FN3K, in the body that converts sugar-bound protein to toxic sugar in skin. Sugar fasts are fine, but eat bread, pasta, rice and other starches and carbohydrates and your body converts these to sugar, which then becomes bound to protein and triggers the forming of toxic sugars.
 
Toxic sugar poses a double-bind dilemma for skin health.  It comes from what we eat and who we are. But there is a way out of the dilemma, identified by the FCCC research scientists who are now working at Dynamis Skin Science. In a second breakthrough, they discovered Supplamine, a dual-action compound that lowers the production of toxic sugar coming from both poor diet and the FN3K enzyme. Supplamine contains an amino sugar (Meglumine), which lowers the metabolic production of toxic sugar, and a natural amino acid (Arginine) that neutralizes toxic sugar from poor diet.
 
If you want to be kind to your skin—and your appearance—here’s a two-step process:
 
1.  Avoid glycated protein, starches and carbohydrates.
 
2.  Apply Supplamine to your skin twice daily. Supplamine is available exclusively in  
     MEG 21 skin-care products.
 
And, keep informed on how to deal with toxic sugar in skin. One source:  www.toxicsugars.com
 
 
About the expert
Annette Tobia, PhD is founder and president of Dynamis Skin Science, which offers the MEG 21 with Supplamine product line.  (www.meg21.com). Dr. Tobia earned her PhD in cell biology from New York University, her post doctoral degree from Rockefeller University, and her law degree at Rutgers School of Law.