Your physical age is one thing—but your biological can be something different, and it’s the more important of the two.
Our biological age can be years younger than our actual age, and that’s the result of a healthy life, and especially a good diet that’s rich in vitamins and minerals, and low in sugar.
Sugar intake was the single biggest factor in determining biological age, say researchers from the University of California at San Francisco.
They estimated the biological age of 342 women with an average age of 39 from saliva tests and compared their diets. On average, the women were consuming around 61.5 grams of added sugar a day, although the range varied from just 2.7 to 316 grams. The US’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends adults shouldn’t consume more than 50 grams a day. A bar of milk chocolate had around 25 grams of added sugar and a 12-ounce can of cola has about 39 grams.
Those eating a lot of sugar had accelerated biological ageing—their biological age was greater than their actual age—while those who instead followed a healthy, low-sugar Mediterranean diet were biologically younger than their years.
The great news is that it’s not too late to change. Eliminating 10 grams of added sugar a day from the diet turns back your biological clock by 2.4 months, provided you do it consistently, the researchers say.
Stay Healthy,
Janice