9 Food and Drinks That Make You Age Faster

Our diet is one of the key aspects of our health, and many processes can be regulated with proper diet. Choosing the right diet requires an individual approach, and there is hardly a unanimous recipe for it. But, food and drinks that negatively impact our bodies and make us age faster are very well known, and there is not much discussion about it. We hardly have an excuse to avoid thinking about reducing them, so we are here to help explore what makes you age faster. If you are having second thoughts or still doubt the direct impact of food and drinks on your appearance, think about how your skin looks different after all those food and drinks you have over the holiday period.  

Unwanted food and drinks that we have decided to tackle today are: coffee, sweet & sugary drinks, alcohol, salty and spicy foods, fried foods, refined carbohydrates, processed, charred and red meat, trans fat and frozen ready meals.  

Does Caffeine Age You?

There are so many mixed signals about coffee's potential benefits or drawbacks for health. Going from the glory of lowering the risk of particular diseases and prolonging your lifetime expectancy to the claim that it is straight-up bad, there are many different types of research with opposite stands. If you feel lost, we're with you. Coffee might be good for us as it wakes us up, brightens our mood, and often gives us an excuse to get out and walk to meet our coffee buddy. But does it make us healthier and help us live longer? Not likely. 

The quantity and the quality of coffee one intakes also play a role here. If you are inspired to read more about it, here is your literature.  When we limit our research to the skin specifically, it doesn't show many good indicators. The high acidity of coffee can interfere with your hormones and impact the amount of oil your skin produces. Coffee drinks with dairy products increase your risk of developing acne. Dehydration from coffee may also cause skin redness or inflammation.  

Sweet & Sugary Drinks - a No-Brainer

Sugar and aging go hand in hand - hence, sweet & sugary drinks are bad. Period. The more you consume, the quicker the cells in your body age. Those drinks contain high amounts of calories and sugar and, in combination with the bacteria in our mouth, form acids that wear down our teeth' enamel and cause decay. The list of diseases one can develop due to sugar starts with diabetes (and the list goes on), along with an undeniable impact on one's skin after consuming sugar. It increases oil and sebum production and can start or aggravate inflammation, clog pores, and worsen skin conditions such as acne and eczema.  

Does Alcohol Age You?

It does. Alcohol reaches all tissues in the body and affects vital functions. Drinking might make you feel more relaxed or more confident at the moment. Still, the adverse lasting effects hugely overpower those short-term indulgences you feel while or shortly after alcohol consumption. According to nutritionists, alcohol is one of the most aggressive compounds to destroy your skin, affecting your complexion severely. You can read here more about how alcohol affects your skin. According to some recent findings, even a little alcohol can harm your health.  

Salty and Spicy Foods - Moderation Is Key

Similar to coffee, salt, and spices have benefits, but there are also some drawbacks. When discussing spicy food, the influence on health is individual as specific health conditions might not take it well. People with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), indigestion, or other digestive issues should avoid eating spicy foods. Read here some more about spicy food benefits and when to avoid it. If you are interested in nutritionist's opinions, you can find them here. 

Salt itself is necessary for our bodies, but too much salt can damage your skin, such as cause puffiness. According to the National Lung, Heart and Blood Institute, adults should consume less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium daily as part of a healthy eating pattern. Excessively salty food can lead to higher blood pressure, which, if not managed properly, can hurt essential organs like your heart, brain, kidneys, and eyes. If and when eating salty food, you must ensure you hydrate properly because the imbalance in your kidneys' filtration system will draw out your body's water supply, leaving your body with less water. It leads to dry, cracked skin and a dull, lackluster appearance.  

Fried Foods - the Evil of Free Radicals

Fried foods are harming your body on multiple levels, and they are one of the foods that age you. If you eat a lot of it regularly, you can develop a higher risk of heart problems. As fried foods are high in saturated and trans fat, they promote fat buildup in your arteries. That can lead to the risk of coronary artery disease, heart failure, heart attack, and stroke. 

Deep-fried food typically causes the skin to produce more oil than necessary, which can lead to breakouts and acne if prone to those. Finally, fried food is connected to free radicals. The aim is to avoid free radicals, which are known to destroy our age cells, including healthy skin cells. The consequence might be your skin aging prematurely in the form of blemishes, wrinkles, and fine lines.  

Refined Carbohydrates - the Story of Glycation and Premature Aging

Also known as empty calories, refined carbohydrates don’t give your body any vitamins, minerals, or energy. On the other hand, they can hurt you in many different ways. Due to the high sugar content, they provide food for your gut’s harmful bacteria, which can lead to acne breakout. As they spike insulin, the body may produce more sebum or oil, the main culprit behind clogged pores forming pimples, whiteheads, and blackheads. Refined carbs facilitate the production of advanced glycation end products—also called AGEs, in a process known as glycation. In short, it is a process that results in sugar and collagen glycation, and when that happens, that collagen molecule is lost forever, which triggers premature aging.  

Processed, Charred, and Red Meat - to Be Put on The "To Avoid" List

The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends limiting saturated fat intake to less than 6% of total daily calories, choosing lean cuts of meat when possible, and limiting consumption of processed meats. The American Diabetes Association, WHO, and AHA also recommend limiting your intake of red meat. Regarding the impact on the skin, the problems are free radicals and their ability to destroy healthy age cells. Charred meat is no better because of the pro-inflammatory hydrocarbons which cause collagen damage.   

Trans Fat - Connection With Sun Damage

Trans fatty acids (TFA) increase UV-radiation-induced oxidative damage on the skin. Simply said, trans fats can make your skin more susceptible to sun damage, and sun damage is one of the most prominent causes of unfortunate signs of aging, like sagging skin and wrinkles. Putting them in the general health perspective, thanks to the numerous research, we are aware we should avoid trans fats because they raise bad cholesterol levels, which can lead to numerous unwanted implications such as heart diseases, stroke, diabetes, and other chronic conditio  

Frozen Ready Meals - Handy Shortcut, Bad Influence

Think twice before buying them, as they are dominantly processed food, high in sodium, added sugars, and saturated fats with low nutritional value, which makes them an enemy of your health. Frozen ready meals can contribute to acne because they are high in salt, sugar, and unhealthy fats. These foods can also disrupt the balance of healthy bacteria in your gut, which can affect the health of your skin.   

This list could go on. Deep research leads to more questions, as plenty of other foods and drinks are open to debate whether they prolong our lifetime or damage our health. The conclusion leads to three directions: firstly, we need to be aware of the quantity of the intake of any food and drink and its quality. Secondly, applying common sense is always a good ally. If you think, processed food and shortcuts like ready-frozen meals can’t be good for your health. Lastly, take our individualistic needs and health conditions into account.