The trouble with that charbroiled burger and biggie fries isn’t just the damage it does to your waistline and the smell it leaves in your car and on your clothes. Both, with plenty of other foods, are packed with appropriately named components called AGEs. That’s short for “advanced glycation end products,” tongue twisters that can age your arteries and cause big health trouble faster than the kid at the counter can ask if you want fries with that. These foods have more to hate than just AGEs, but let’s just go there for today (rather than the morgue, where AGEs and other parts try to get you).
What exactly are AGEs? In short, they’re destructive “Frankenproteins” created by high-temperature cooking and also by the interaction of proteins and sugars in your bloodstream. They’re not scarce: Any of us eats three times more AGEs every day than our bodies can handle. That’s because AGEs give fried, grilled, roasted and crispy-baked foods like meat, french fries and snack foods their delicious caramelized flavor and satisfying crunch.
Tastes so good; hurts your body so bad. AGEs may be involved with a huge catalog of body agers: The development of brain plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease is just one effect. AGEs also collect in the lenses of your eyes, causing cloudiness and cataracts, weaken the collagen that keeps skin firm and elastic, and make connective tissue in your joints stiff. (Knees hurt when you get off the couch? Blame the chips!) AGEs also stiffen arteries, which leads to high blood pressure, and they make the cells that line your blood vessel walls fragile. That opens the door for gunky, heart-threatening plaque to grow.
When AGEs connect with receptors on cell walls, they also ramp up inflammation, increasing your risk for diabetes. These bad guys also produce 50 times more free radicals — rogue oxygen molecules that damage cells and their DNA — than normal proteins do.
Diet is the biggest source of the AGEs raging through your bloodstream. What’s good about that is that new research from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City reveals that you can lower your AGE levels dramatically by making a few smart food choices more often and tweaking the way you cook your food. In a study of 350 people, researchers found that those who adopted a low-AGE diet for four months saw levels of AGEs in their blood fall as much as 60 percent.
Lucky for you, AGE-proofing your body doesn’t mean sacrificing pleasure or taste. Here’s how to make it happen:
Cook comfort-food style. Boiling, poaching, stewing, steaming or making soup can produce AGE levels in meats and other proteins that are 50 percent lower than those found in fried, broiled, grilled or roasted items. Yes, it’s OK to grill and roast sometimes, just try to change up your cooking style a little more often than you currently do.
Have a dab of almond butter. Or use a slice of avocado instead of cheese or butter. In one German study, people who ate the most saturated fat — found in full-fat cheese, full-fat milk, ice cream and fatty meats — were twice as likely to have signs of high AGEs, compared with those who ate the least. But don’t cut fat entirely. Those who ate moderate amounts of plant-based fats, such as nuts, avocados, and olive and canola oils, had lower levels than those who ate very little of these good fats.
Opt for soft grains. A bowl of oatmeal or a slice of whole-grain toast (topped with that almond butter!) contain significantly fewer AGEs than crunchy cereals, the Mount Sinai researchers say (cereals are often highly processed to shape the “pellets”). Again, crunchy, commercially processed breakfast cereals aren’t entirely off-limits — just keep portions moderate, and switch off some days.
Reach for veggies or fruit instead of sweets or snack foods. Doughnuts, cake, crunchy crackers, chips … skip ’em all and go for the natural flavor and crunch of produce. You’ll get a break on the AGEs and flood your body with protective phytochemicals that help protect against them and the aging they do.
The YOU Docs, Mike Roizen and Mehmet Oz, are authors of “YOU: Being Beautiful — The Owner’s Manual to Inner and Outer Beauty.”
To submit questions and find ways to grow younger and healthier, visit realage.com.
