I’ve heard that too much sugar in your diet can cause wrinkles. Is this true and is there anything I should be eating to slow down the ageing process?

Some skin experts believe that sugar is one of the worst culprits when it comes to ageing. The top part of our skin, the epidermis, is made up of four to five layers of cells, the outermost two of which are flattened and dead, and below it is a hive of activity packed with arteries, veins, lymph vessels and nerve fibres, oil-producing glands, sweat glands and two protein structures known as collagen and elastin, which act a bit like a body stocking, holding the skin together.

Collagen consists of bundles of interlacing protein fibres, which tend to run lengthways in the skin of the face and neck. White in colour, collagen has a great ability to absorb shock, giving the skin strength, resilience and firmness.

The view is that when blood-sugar levels are high — eg, when you have just eaten those mid-morning biscuits — a process called “glycation” takes place in the skin, which involves the blood sugar binding to the collagen fibres, making them harden. Dermatologists such as Nicholas Perricone, skin doctor to the Hollywood elite, believe that this causes loss of flexibility, elasticity and tone and encourages the formation of wrinkles and sagging. Perricone is joined by some cosmetics company research and development experts in believing that glycation is one of the worst skin agers.

Cutting back on obvious sources of sugar such as sweets and fizzy drinks, cakes and biscuits is a good start, as well as limiting carbohydrates that are digested rapidly and turned quickly into blood sugar, such as sugary breakfast cereals, croissants, muffins and puddings. In the war against wrinkles, it is also well worth tucking into vegetables that contain the yellow pigment lutein, according to Pierfrancesco Morganti, professor of applied cosmetic dermatology at Naples University. He and his team found that women who took a daily 10mg lutein supplement for 12 weeks had better protection against the sun’s ageing ultraviolet rays than those who didn’t, meaning better skin hydration and fewer wrinkles. A 100g serving of spinach or watercress will give you 10mg of lutein, as will a large red pepper or 200g of romaine lettuce. Other vegetables and fruits containing lutein include parsley, Brussels sprouts, sweetcorn and oranges.

Many of these foods also give us vitamin C, a nutrient that the dermis needs to make strong, healthy, wrinkle-protecting collagen. It is possible, according to the dermatologist Professor Nicholas Lowe, that diets even slightly deficient in vitamin C may compromise collagen production. As this vitamin cannot be stored in our bodies, a good daily intake is recommended. Some of the best-known foods for vitamin C include citrus fruits such as oranges and satsumas, papaya, peppers, strawberries and kiwi fruit, along with peas and dark green vegetables such as broccoli.

Protein, from foods such as eggs, milk, fish, lean red meat, Quorn and tofu is another crucial building-block for collagen. Having several servings of any of these each day will help to keep up intakes of good-quality protein so that production can be maintained at an optimal rate. The omega-3 oils in oily fish are also potentially useful. The special essential fats they contain are vital for “waterproofing” the structure of cell walls, and a deficiency of them leads to dry skin that is more prone to wrinkling. A couple of servings each week of oily fish such as salmon and mackerel are well worth including in your anti-ageing plan.

You can still indulge in a bar of chocolate. Surprisingly, this doesn’t raise blood sugar quickly — so at least it shouldn’t give you wrinkles.

If you have a nutrition question, e-mail amanda.ursell@thetimes.co.uk