Revolution in Understanding of the Ageing Process

Cynthia Kenyon, a researcher into aging at the University of California, claims that sugar is the new tobacco.

"We gave our worms a tiny bit of sugar and it shortened their lifespan by revving up the insulin pathway. I didn't go home," she laughs, "I went straight to the store and I bought a book on low-GI (low-glycemic - low sugar) diets and found a recipe and that was it, I changed immediately."

Kenyon now avoids all sugar, except dark chocolate, as well as bread, and sticks to low-GI foods.

The Guardian

Cynthia Kenyon, the lead researcher, now avoids all sugar.

Apparently the link between sugar, insulin and aging is the over-stimulation of receptors related to the aging process. Disabling the daf-2 gene resulted in worms living twice as long and appearing healthy up until their deaths.

The link between diet and aging makes sense when you consider that the gene daf-2, which was partially disabled in Kenyon's worms, activates receptors that are sensitive to two hormones – insulin and a growth hormone called IGF-1.

Later experiments shed more light on the effect of weakening daf-2 activity, which triggers a sequence of events within the cell, including the activation of a second gene, FOXO.

This receptor is normally activated by insulin, and too much sugar in the diet, which may have the opposite effect, overstimulating these receptors, says Kenyon, who warns that "sugar is the new tobacco".

The Guardian

Apparently, while the tests were carried out on worms, the link with humans is strong. People who live much longer are likely to have a mutated daf-2 gene.

For those who doubt the relevance to humans, Kenyon points to studies showing that people who live to be 100 are more likely to have mutations in the daf-2 gene. There are also variants in the FOXO gene that are more frequent among people who live to be 100.

The Guardian

So if I understand this correctly, eating sugar over stimulates receptors related to speeding up the aging process. In worms, disabling a gene involved in this process led to the worms living twice as long and remaining healthy. The link to humans is strong in that long lived people often have a mutation of that gene.

Cynthia Kenyon, the leading researcher responsible for this discovery, no longer eats sugar.

I'm not sure I'm going to look at sugar in quite the same way ever again. This is quite a discovery.

reply to post by ollncasino


Here is a link to low-GI (low-glycemic) foods that if eaten instead of high sugar foods apparently slow down aging.

Glycaemic Index Tables

Noodles, spaghetti, oranges, peaches and peas are considered more low GI while white bread, cornflakes and white rice are considered hi GI.

my mother must have a mutated gen then, because during her 87 years she ate more sugar than the rest of the village together. A cup of coffee was not drinkable unless it was sweetened with 6 teaspoons (she drinks lots of coffee) and snack a lot on everything that has sugar in it.

She is healthy and sits a great part of the day behind her computer.

Sugar is highly addictive, it's one of those "have it once then you're hooked" substances. That's why it's so much of a money maker. And candy companies try to emulate fruit in their packaging, to grab people's need for vitamin C in fruit.

I've been "off" sugar again since September 18, and have gone years without it from time to time. It takes will-power when you start, because in "civilized" (ha!) nations sugar is pushed on the populace from every direction. And once off the cookies, candy, cake, with family, friends, and salespeople trying to push it on you (the true pushers), you must stay determined not to chew on the stuff. Then, in a few days, it's much easier. As long as you don't backtrack, it isn't very hard at all once your body starts to realize you mean it and doubles-down on the benefits of a sugar free diet.

Thanks for this thread.

This makes alot of sense, most people now develop some form of diabetes which then causes other health problems. My dad is in the hospital right now fighting for his life at 73 mostly from a sugar addiction.
I naturally gravitated to a low GI district, only sugar I get is from dark chocolate and yogurt

reply to post by ollncasino


Sugar is also the reason why people 'need' to eat low cholesterol foods. Sugar causes the arteries to inflame over and over until it eventually scars. Inflamed AND scarred arteries catch cholesterol and cause it to build up....which as we all know eventually ends in heart attack.

Now, cholesterol is an incredibly important building block of the body....so high cholesterol isn't necessarily a bad thing...unless you suffer inflamed arteries from sugar intake.

So what does the medical industry do about this? Promote low cholesterol, and cholesterol reducing medication....instead of addressing the ACTUAL problem.

We aren't meant to eat carbs. We aren't meant to eat sugars. We are meant to eat meat and non-inflammatory vegetables, we're meant to boil bones down to broth and consume marrow, and the calcium that comes with that. We're not meant to drink cows milk. We're not meant to farm grain or rice. These things were taught to us by 'The Gods'...and I make that assertion because of all the mythologies that have a God of Agriculture...or writings of how the Gods taught us agriculture. Why? Well it enables the support, although unhealthily, of a large population in a small location. If they were really teaching us to mine for them then this would be a perfect reason...because teaching us this, and enabling uncontrollable population growth on unhealthy eating habits is clearly against the natural progression that this planet enables. We were only ever meant to be hunter gatherers.

Now the problem is too far gone. Our bodies are meant to exist in a state of ketosis, not dependent on carbs for energy. Your OP just validates this theory even more. Thank you for posting it.

Ive been mostly off sugar for a while now. Bread is the only thing i find super hard to cut out of my diet.

Everyone's chemistry is different,therefore not all things apply and are beneficial or detrimental, but if you consider some highly powerful explosives are made from sugar...it probably shouldn't be consumed

It seems to me that since sugar is a powerful adjuvant, it could help to repair damage and speed up digestion. It could also speed up repairs to the body. It is a medicine. It shouldn't be consumed every day.

Speed all those things up and what do you have? A shorter lifespan, but one with more energy. Exceeding the minds capacity of frequency makes us more prone to mistakes also and it can screw up the brain chemistry to make the immune system malfunction. Keeping it's frequency within the parameters that it is designed to work at will make all functions work better. There is a real lot to this subject with a lot of variables. It is almost impossible to explain it as a one size fits all. Too much sugar can cause an imbalance of minerals also as some are used up by the upper effect of the sugar. Fructose and alcohol are processed somewhat the same in the body. Look how old looking a person who drinks a lot gets at a young age.