Sugar is unhealthy and can make us fat – most people know that, but dermatologist Dr. Susanne von Schmiedeberg in star-Interview on.
Eternal youth, a wish that many people have. But if this cannot yet be achieved today, then at least the person’s external appearance should appear young for as long as possible. Various creams, beauty treatments and beauty procedures promise eternal visual youth, but doesn’t beauty actually start on the inside?
Von Schmiedeberg looks back on 15 years of experience as a doctor and anti-aging expert. When the pounds started to stick after her third pregnancy, she radically changed her diet and made an interesting medical discovery. Cutting out sugar made her figure slimmer and her skin better. The dermatologist went looking for an explanation for this phenomenon and found it. The skin “saccharifies” and therefore ages more quickly. During her research, von Schmiedeberg also came across an agent that is effective against saccharification of the skin: L-carnosine. An anti-aging care range was born that combats excessive sugar in the skin.
As a doctor and anti-aging expert, you have declared war on sugar. Apart from the fact that it is known to make you fat, what does it do to our skin?
He doesn’t declare war at all because sugar is important, but only when we are close to starvation. But since we have an abundance of food at all times these days, eating an abundance of sugar has also become almost normal for us. When this sugar enters our bloodstream via the gastrointestinal tract as “blood sugar,” it can also enter the skin. Because the sugar molecule is very reactive, it binds to the skin’s collagen fibers. This reaction is called glycation – this creates so-called AGE’s – advanced glycation end products, which after a short time are connected to the collagen fiber. The collagen fibers are permanently damaged by this glycation process, which occurs every second of our lives. You can imagine glycation visually: The collagen fibers are like a wool thread that is always scratched a little with a small knife. At some point it has so many cuts that it tears. So do our collagen fibers. They stick together and harden, become brittle due to saccharification and this is reflected in the skin through the formation of wrinkles and skin aging.
Where is sugar hiding?
Oh, everywhere! First of all, all carbohydrates are sugar; namely sugar molecules strung together to form sugar chains of different lengths. Sugar is not only in our household sugar, sweets, jam, cakes, but also in bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, our beloved soft drinks and alcohol. And sugar is also hidden in sausage products, ready-made sauces, smoothies, ketchup, yoghurts, reduced-fat products, pickles or other canned goods and in almost all ready-made meals. Sugar has over 70 different names with which it appears on the ingredients list of products. It doesn’t just say sugar, but e.g. E.g. glucose, dextrose, wheat dextrin, malt extract or corn syrup. Fructose syrup is my favorite name – it’s the worst of all sugars!
If you now sit back and think about how much of this list you consume in a day or how many nicknames of sugar you have never associated with sugar, then you can understand the extent of the “saccharification” of our society in general and within our body and our skin in particular.
What does the perfect anti-aging diet look like?
It’s very easy! Simply uncover the hidden sugar and reduce it in your diet – done! This is the first step towards an anti-aging routine – without swallowing a single pill. You can get started straight away. You don’t need anything, no prescription, no medication, nothing extra. Take the self-test, start tonight. Tonight, don’t eat any carbohydrates, drink any wine or have a beer after work. Do not eat before 6 p.m. or afterward. You will feel more energetic, fitter tomorrow morning, have no cravings, be more focused and you will definitely look better when you look in the mirror. Just test it out. When you notice success, motivation follows on its own; Maybe add another evening or leave out the carbohydrates in the canteen at lunchtime. Everything you do in this direction will benefit your health – you just have to do it.
Von Schmiedeberg wanted to know how one can live to be 120 years old
How are you on the Glycation process caught on? Sugar is not usually associated with the skin.
At the beginning I didn’t see the connection itself. I looked at the entire body from an internal perspective. Right from the start of my medical studies, I was concerned with the question of how one can live to be 120 years old in good health, whether that is even possible, and if so, how? I have read everything that has been written on the subject of longevity for over 25 years. I have compressed the essence of this in a book that I wrote together with Tina Müller: “It’s never too late to stay young.” It was released in 2014 and was an anti-aging bestseller on Amazon for eight weeks. Now, almost ten years later, it is still very relevant and still available.
As a logical consequence, as a doctor and anti-aging expert, I asked myself: If sugar has such an influence on our health, what about the skin? There has been surprisingly little research on this. According to the motto, if you look old, it doesn’t matter, it won’t kill you. But I don’t want to look old, I don’t want my collagen fibers to harden. So I really dug into this topic – and found an active ingredient, L-carnosine, which can slow down saccharification in the skin and thus skin aging.
Can you explain the function of the active ingredient L-Carnosine to laypeople?
We have L-carnosine in our bodies; children have particularly high L-carnosine levels. But by the age of 30, our body’s natural L-carnosine level has dropped by 70 percent. From then on, the saccharification of our collagen fibers can proceed almost unabated and we also notice this in the first wrinkles. L-Carnosine can counteract this saccharification by acting as a scavenger of the sugar molecules. It attracts the sugar molecules like a magnet before they attach to our collagen fibers. From the point at which L-carnosine levels are again present in the skin, saccharification in the skin can be reduced – this can slow down skin aging.
How can you check the effect on the skin?
First you see the effect. That must also be the requirement for anti-aging care, I think. In order for the active ingredient to work, I ensured that the L-carnosine in my care products is liposomally encapsulated. Liposomes are brilliant because they help the active ingredient get to where we need it. Without this encapsulation, the active ingredient would not get past our skin barrier. In addition, the liposome capsule is made of lecithin, which releases the L-carnosine and can then regenerate and strengthen our skin barrier with its valuable lecithin. This is an effective combination for anti-aging care. And last but not least, there are very good scientific studies that show that applying L-Carnosine to the skin can reduce saccharification.
Scientific studies on skin saccharification – how did they work?
They exist – that’s not exactly a rule in cosmetics. Some studies are also specifically on the topic: For example, a group of scientists artificially saccharified skin cells and then added L-carnosine. The result was a reduction of all saccharification products, in some cases by 120 percent. In addition, L-carnosine in the form of eye drops is now used as an early therapy for cataracts (lens clouding), which occurs particularly in diabetics and is also suspected to be related to saccharification as the cause of the lens clouding.
The jaw area can provide information about the saccharification of the skin
As a professional, can you look at a face and tell that there is a lot of sugar stored in the skin? If so, what are the characteristics?
At least I imagine so. But you can say it very simply in one sentence: “The more carbohydrates and sugar you eat, the more your skin is saccharified.” Very typical of saccharified skin is the so-called early onset of “jawline sagging”, the sagging of the jawline, which then results in a loss of contour with a double chin and simply makes our face look older. The skin develops wrinkles earlier because the saccharification impairs the elasticity and firmness of the skin.
You are an anti-aging expert, what are the biggest skin sins besides sugar?
There are a lot of sins. I always tell my patients, “It depends on the severity of the sin.” Not every sin has a permanently harmful consequence. If I squeeze out pimples and then have pigmentation, if I used the wrong cleanser or the peeling that was too concentrated – this is where I can intervene as a doctor and offer solutions. You can get it back.
It is more difficult, for example, with very severe acne. If this is not treated early, possibly with internal medication, it can result in lifelong scars that can hardly be changed. That’s why it’s my job to say to the parents of these children, some of whom are still young: “You have to do something now, even if a medication sounds bad, it will prevent lifelong scars that will have lasting effects on your children.”
Of course, it’s the same with smoking, alcohol and drug consumption as with sugar. The sin is great, but the disadvantage for the skin only becomes visible after a long delay. Because of the delay, you have no idea how big the sin really is. That’s really mean – but here I’m just trying to educate and that opens a lot of eyes. The great thing about it is that it changes something for the skin, but also for the general and long-term health of each individual and that is a huge advantage.
In your professional opinion, what is the biggest nonsense in the anti-aging cosmetics market?
For me it is completely incomprehensible that in the anti-aging market higher and more concentrated active ingredients are advertised as the most effective, this also applies to peelings. This is simply not correct. On the contrary, every active ingredient has an optimum effect. If it is formulated into a care product with exactly this optimum effect, one can assume that this will only bring benefits to the skin. However, if the optimum of an active ingredient is significantly exceeded, i.e. higher effectiveness is sold with a higher dosage of an active ingredient, this can have significant disadvantages for the skin. This leads to irritation, redness, destruction of the skin barrier and even acne-like skin changes. This can also result in hypersensitivity to the active ingredient. That’s why: More doesn’t always help more! I pay a lot of attention to this when formulating my products.
Source: Novel Facial Cream Containing Carnosine Inhibits Formation of Advanced Glycation End-Products in Human Skin/ Mridvika Narda et al. Skin Pharmacol Physiol. 2018