You’ve heard it’s true, but maybe you don’t know how diet affects aging exactly. If our diet affects how we age, how can we stop or perhaps even reverse the effects? Research actually proves we can mitigate and even reverse the effects our diet has on our aging.

Advanced Glycosylation End Products (also and appropriately called AGEs) are the result of sugar molecules attaching to a protein without the controlling action of an enzyme. Where the sugar attaches to protein is where inflammation occurs, and when sugar attaches to a collagen protein wrinkles form as the inflammation produces enzymes that break down the collagen. The collagen protein, which was once soft and supple, becomes stiff and inflexible. Basically, the sugar molecule attachment prevents the protein from doing it’s original job. Aging skin is a direct result of AGES in our bodies.

AGEs are well known in the medical community, but are relatively unknown to the rest of us. Research has shown AGEs to be linked to diebetes, cardio vascular diseases, decreased brain function, as well as many other age-related diseases. The majority of the AGEs that attack our bodies as we get older are a result of genetics and our environment.  However, roughly 10% of AGEs are through consumption of foods, and research has proven that we can not only reduce AGEs effects but can also reverse them through diet.

We can reduce the amount of AGEs in our bodies by consuming less sugar and changing the way we cook.  Consuming products that are high in sugar increase the sugar levels in our bloodstream. The rise of sugar in the bloodstream increases the reactions between sugars and proteins which lead to the production of AGEs. Additionally, cooking food until brown is also a major cause of AGEs in our bodies. Scientists have known that cooking foods until brown, or proteins and sugars cooked together without water, forms advanced glycation products.  Grilling a chicken until brown is a good example. That browned skin may taste very good, but that browned and brittle skin is a good representation of what the AGEs do to your skin.

As an example, the National Academy of Sciences of the US says that cooking cereal (granola) for 25 minutes at a temperature of 175 degrees Celsius increases the AGE content by 400%. More examples, click here. Likewise, this same organization shows that a diet soda (with dark coloring) contains almost 9000 more units per cup of AGE content than Orange Juice, click here for table.

Nicholas Perricone, MD, goes into detail about AGES in his book, “Ageless Face, Ageless Mind: Erase Wrinkles & Rejuvenate the Brain” It’s very enlightening, and Dr. Perricone goes into a lot of detail about how AGEs affects the skin and how to change our diets to reduce and reverse AGEs effects on our skin and body. In the book, he suggest that if you are going to grill, cut meats into smaller portions so that they are exposed to high heat for less time. Additionally, he suggests eating fiber-rich fruits and vegetables (see my post on June 10, “Zoning in on Diet“).

Other resources used in this post: Advanced Glycation Endproducts And Aging Skin

I encourage you to provide comments here.

Thanks for reading and find “Efficiency in Fitness” using my program, “Fat Burning Secrets”

Richard

Tags: Advanced Glycosylation End Products, AGES, collagen, sugar consumption

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 28th, 2009 at 12:55 PM and is filed under Aging, Diet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.