Medically reviewed by Minimalist Health Specialist - Written by Viddhi Patel (Journalist) on 22nd Feb 2021
All About Glycation and Why Vitamin B3 Can Slow it?
Sugar entices us with its pleasure-giving capability, but we all know it has been a sly villain. We are worried about carbs and their effect on our hearts, but what if I tell you that eating sugar might cause premature aging?
Sure, eating sugar-filled candies make you feel younger. But your skin & body do not share your interest. The story that unfolds with sugar consumption is anything but a sweet one.
The thing is, when your system has sugar molecules, they hit the body's cells so hard, storing them into fats and proteins, forming covalent bonds in a process called glycation. Which other forms AGEs, advanced glycation end products, transform protein fibers to become stiff and malformed.
The proteins vulnerable in the skin to glycation are also the ones that give your skin its plumpness, collagen, and elastin.
Exposing these proteins to mutinous sugars turns them weak, discolored, and less supple. The skin's surface holds a witness to it by presenting wrinkles, sagginess, and dullness.
Aging and AGEs
The gradual deterioration of the human body's physiological functions critical for survival is aging. The piling up of cellular damaged products over time is the primary cause of aging. Aging skin characteristically includes wrinkles, dryness of the skin, thinner skin, reduced elasticity, dermal and epidermal atrophy, etc.
While many internal and external factors can cause aging, recent studies have exposed that AGEs are crucial to skin aging.
Knowing the not-so-sweet Glycation and AGEs
The sustained high blood sugar causes connective-tissue damage and chronic inflammation and can lead to draining conditions, namely vascular tightening, cataracts, Alzheimer's, and pancreas and liver ailments.
Glycation
The complex process of formation of AGEs involves a spontaneous non-enzymatic reaction called glycation.
Scientifically, the reaction of a free reducing sugar with free amino groups of proteins, DNA, and lipids results in Amadori products.
The Amadori products undergo various irreversible dehydration and rearrangement reactions leading to:
AGEs- advanced glycation end products
The whole glycation process results in a loss of protein function and impaired elasticity of tissues like blood vessels, skin, and tendons.
The acceleration of this process is likely in the presence of hyperglycemia and tissue oxidative stress.
It implicates further in the pathogenesis of diabetic complications and aging since there are no enzymes to remove glycated products from your body.
The Three Distinct Stages of Glycation Reactions
Early-stage
The rapid, molecular products ('early glycation products') are unstable but relatively harmless. They may break down into the same molecules that created them.
Intermediate stage
The molecular rearrangement of early glycation products to form more stable 'intermediate glycation products' called Amadori products. They can reverse themselves and recreate the first glycation products.
Advanced stage
Intermediate Glycation Products degrade due to various factors. These reactions are irreversible and result in tar-like residue formation that we now know as AGEs.
What is Glycation doing to you?
AGEs molecular structure compels it to bind to the amino groups of tissue proteins in abnormal manners. This phenomenon is called cross-linking. It causes body tissues to turn inflexible, deformed, and dysfunctional before their intended time.
The AGEs receptors are generally expressed in the epidermis, dermis and comparatively higher in sun-exposed areas.
The uncalled-for presence of AGEs makes your complexion prone to assailants, such as UV light and cigarette smoke.
The glucose comes as an assassin for your supple skin, first disabling the cells, rendering them abnormal, and creating free radicals. Your skin's aging process suffers for real with this double impair strategy to age your skin.
Measuring Glycation
Glycation is real, and everyone is party to it. It can be measured by scientists using Visia complexion-analysis cameras. Sugars and proteins have cross-links formed that emit fluorescence.
Children's fluorescent image comes out dark, but with each decade passing, AGEs and the brightness accumulate further and further. By the time we are senile and feeble, our Visia visages will be identical to a firefly.
The age when AGEs bursts the bubble
When we reach our 30s, external signs of glycation turn visible as all the stocked-up sun damage, environmental stress, and hormonal changes appear on your skin. The commencement of AGEs development is nothing but that your skin starts to AGE.
Your young body is armed with resources that can fight off all the damage the world has to offer. You have a booming production of collagen. But with time, the sugar by-products start building up, and subsequently, the body's ability to fight, the wall your body once built gets weaker and more vulnerable.
How does glycation accelerate?
Rue the day you first put a Gulab Jamun in your mouth all you want, but refined sugar alone can't be cursed for everything going on in your life.
Whole grains, fruit, even vegetables, upon digestion, turn to glucose, but they don't possess the same poisoning effect. Omitting sugar entirely is also not the answer. Sugar is an essential fuel for cells and energy metabolism, critical for our survival.
People with normal glucose levels experience glycation gradually throughout their lifetime, and it is not something to sulk over. Your diet and lifestyle affect the time of the emergence of the effects on your skin.
- Smoke depletes the antioxidants in your skin. Hence, smokers experience premature yellowing of skin as their vitamin C and E are geared to act on all the oxidation that smoking causes. Smokers, as a result, can't fight off the natural glycation process.
- White bread, cakes, croissants, rice cakes, crackers, bagels, etc., are foods high on GI (glycemic index), and adding them ultimately means you are asking for more trouble.
The glycation reactions take place daily in your body. The waste product formation rate is related to age, health, blood sugar levels, and various factors. In comparison, people with diabetes are particularly at a greater risk of AGEs accumulation because of their blood sugar levels.
Can glycation be terminated?
Glycation cannot be barred entirely from happening, but it can be slowed.
All carbs eventually turn into sugar, but good ones like ones from brown rice, whole-grain bread, you get less glucose from them, and you get it more slowly.
Companies are working on "AGE busters" apparently that can break the cross-links once they've already formed.
You probably came across the claims that vitamin B3 promotes your skin's health and reduces aging signs, and is excellent at it. Does this claim hold robust ground?
Moving forward, let us understand why and how exactly vitamin B3 gives you a younger, healthier look.
Vitamin B3 inhibiting glycation
Scientifically referred to as nicotine and known as niacin, this vitamin has many names, and you need to know them to get to know your skincare products.
A micronutrient, niacin, is essential to regulate your metabolism and nervous system function. Also infused with antioxidant properties (excellent in anti-aging skincare), it is a crucial nutrient that is critical for our body to survive.
Niacin inhibits glycation that creates these unwanted end products, according to research. It also highlights that it has the potential to prevent diabetes progression. Turkey, chicken, peanuts, avocados, mushrooms, and numerous other foods, along with whole-grain foods, are fortified with niacin.
Niacin can raise your high-density lipid or HDL cholesterol, in layman terms, the good cholesterol, and lower the LDL, the bad cholesterol, and triglycerides, helping prevent heart disease. Supplements of niacin can have side effects like skin flushing and rashes.
The Different Names Associated With B3-
Other standard terms around niacin are nicotinamide and niacinamide, and both are interchangeable. Although molecularly similar and similar effects, they are different from B3. Anti-aging and health use in the skincare industry, however, count them closer to vitamin B3.
Both niacin and niacinamide share numerous similar properties and effects, their primary function being to convert into its central metabolically active entity, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, referred to as NAD+.
Coming to uplifting aging skin with Vitamin B3
Niacinamide, a skincare ingredient, is worthy of all your love and attention. Among retinol and vitamin C, niacinamide is another standout, thanks to its versatility for skincare concerns and skin types.
Toners, serums, and highly concentrated leave-on treatments include vitamin B3 or niacinamide. It is compatible with all your skincare routine products, including the ones with retinol, peptides, hyaluronic acid, AHAs, BHAs, vitamin C, and all other antioxidants.
The Benefits of Vitamin B3
It works with natural substances in your skin to minimize enlarged pores, tighten loose pores, improve uneven skin tone, soften skin lines and wrinkles, reduce dullness, and strengthen the surface.
The skin barrier improving the ability of niacinamide reduces the impact of environmental damage. It helps repair the damage. If left to the devil, your skin will turn older, dull, and less radiant.
Niacin and niacinamide increase healthy lipids called ceramides, which binds cells together, forming a protective layer that locks in moisture and plumps the skin—further improving the appearance and texture of dry skin, building a significant barrier against viruses, bacteria, and other antigens.
The antioxidant function of niacin fights free radicals. The unpaired electrons can potentially destabilize cells, damaging their molecular structure and DNA in the oxidative stress process. The abundance of free radicals can collapse cell structures that materialize as wrinkles on our skin.
Niacinamide is great for your skincare routine due to its proven topical use. It has a broad array of facial skin aging improvements, such as reducing hyperpigmented spots and red blotches. Data shows that topical niacinamide reduces fine lines and wrinkles, skin yellowing, and improved skin elasticity.
Skin type versatility
Sensitive or rosacea-prone skin also can benefit from niacinamide suitably. It is non-sensitizing even if you include multiple niacinamide-infused products in your routine.
It renews and restores the skin surface against moisture loss and dehydration, improving the natural ceramides.
Dry skin types can hydrate their dry, tight, flaky skin.
Niacinamide effectively normalizes the pore lining, helping them return to normal. Higher concentrations of niacinamide visibly tighten pores through shoring up of skin's supportive elements.
Incorporating Niacinamide
Leave-on niacinamide products applied to cleansed skin twice daily, maybe a toner to rehydrate and replenish. You can use niacinamide-containing products around your eyes. It helps under-eye circles, softens crow's feet appearance, retains skin-smoothing moisture, and resists firmness loss.
Protect your skin with sunscreen (SPF 30 or above) and add niacinamide to your routine for brighter, younger, and even skin.
Advice by Minimalist
- Sleep.
- Exercise regularly improves glycemic control, which attenuates AGEs in tissues.
- Include foods in your diet that combat AGEs cause eliminating all foods, which contain AGEs, cannot be stopped.
These lifestyle choices optimize your blood glucose range and make it acceptable.
It gives AGEs fewer opportunities to form, but with time, they do accumulate in your body.
