The Estée Lauder Companies’ research team has been busy proving a new connection between everyday sugar consumption and skin aging. Now, this discovery is set to impact the conglomerate’s new product pipeline and marketing initiatives on existing products.
“[We discovered] major cellular impact, right on the skin cells [after less than two weeks of sugar exposure],” Claude Saliou, Estée Lauder Companies SVP of advanced technologies, global clinical and consumer sciences, told Glossy. “It was quite surprising to see, actually, how profound and quick those changes were happening.”
Published last week in the “International Journal of Molecular Sciences,” ELC’s newest peer-reviewed study documents a new connection between cellular exposure to fructose, an everyday sugar common in most American diets, and the body’s internal responses that age the skin, like inflammation, slowed cellular repair and the development of senescent cells, known among savvy skin-care shoppers as “zombie cells.”
Researchers have long understood that excess sugar in the bloodstream can bind to collagen, creating a stiffening effect on the skin, Saliou said. “But what was not as clearly established is how the skin cells are behaving under this type of stress,” he said. “We’re actually really surprised to see how it has quite a profound impact on skin-cell behavior.”
Saliou has spent 25 years in personal care-focused research and development, including 13 years at Johnson & Johnson followed by the last 12 at ELC.
The in vitro study was written by six in-house ELC researchers and found “high fructose levels affect many critical skin functions that contribute to the aging process and recapitulate several aspects of aging related to AGE [advanced glycation end products].”
The body becomes less and less sophisticated at processing and disposing of excess sugar in the blood as we age, Saliou told Glossy. As we know, elevated blood sugar can cause heart disease, stroke and kidney failure, and can lead to Type 2 diabetes. Now, ELC is looking for ingredients to roll back the negative effects on the skin.
ELC’s new discovery aligns with a growing awareness around the negative impact of sugar on our health. For example, wearable devices that monitor blood sugar, once reserved for individuals with diabetes, have become an elective tool for biohackers and longevity influencers.
As previously reported by Glossy, continuous glucose monitoring devices, which stick onto the arm to monitor blood sugar, are sold by new, well-funded longevity companies like Levels Health, co-founded in 2019 by longevity influencer Casey Means, MD, President Donald Trump’s current nominee for U.S. Attorney General. Meanwhile, Abbott, a market leader in the blood panel category, launched an $89 over-the-counter CGMD in 2024 called Lingo, marketed to healthy consumers seeking better personal health insights. Health trackers like Oura, Whoop, Fitbit, and the Apple Watch integrate with many CGMD brands to allow users to add these insights to their health data.
In many ways, sugar is a top enemy within the burgeoning longevity movement, which is one reason why ELC plans to leverage the study’s findings into longevity-focused skin-care ingredients in the long term and new marketing materials in the short term. To do so, ELC is building an AI-powered model to isolate new ingredients that help to target cellular dysfunction caused by sugar, which will impact the new product pipeline as early as 2027.
This process has proven effective in the past for ELC. For example, one of the conglomerate’s newer ingredients, sigesbekia orientalis extract, was discovered using a model created from a similar in vitro study. This resulted in two 2025 launches: Estée Lauder Revitalizing Supreme+ Bright Radiance Power Soft Milky Lotion and Creme Moisturizers.
More immediately, the company plans to leverage the new glycation study into consumer-facing campaigns promoting existing products that help combat similar cell damage, such as certain antioxidants and ‘autophagy activator ingredients’, which prompt the body’s cellular cleanup processes.
“Sometimes [it’s about] connecting the dots, right?” Saliou said. “We are invested in understanding skin, which then becomes the basis for the solutions that we are also seeking.”
