Are You Eating AGEs?

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The Trouble of the AGEs

Advanced Glycation End-Products (AGEs) are the result of the chemical process of glycation, which can occur in your body in response to certain foods you ate, or you can consume them directly, if you eat animal products that contained them (because we’re not special and other animals glycate too, especially mammals such as pigs, cows, and sheep).

As a double-whammy, if you cook animal products (especially without water, such as by roasting or frying), extra AGEs will form during cooking.

When proteinous and/or fatty food turns yellow/golden/brown during cooking, that’s generally glycation.

If there’s starch present, some or all of that yellow/golden/brown stuff will be a Maillard Reaction Product (MRP), such as acrylamide. That’s not exactly a health food, but it’s nowhere near being even in the same ballpark of badness.

In short, during cooking:

  • Proteinous/fatty food turns yellow/golden/brown = probably an AGE
  • Starchy food turns yellow/golden/brown = probably a MRP

The AGEs are far worse.

What’s so bad about AGEs?

Let’s do a quick tour of some studies:

We could keep going, but you probably get the picture!

What should we do about it?

There are three main ways to reduce serum AGE levels:

Reduce or eliminate consumption of animal products

Especially mammalian animal products, such as from pigs, cows, and sheep, especially their meat. Processed versions are even worse! So, steak is bad, but bacon and sausages are literally top-tier bad.

Cook wet

Dry cooking (which includes frying, and especially includes deep fat frying, which is worse than shallow frying which is worse than air frying) produces far more AGEs than cooking with methods that involve water (boiling, steaming, slow-cooking, etc).

As a bonus, adding acidic ingredients (e.g. vinegar, lemon juice, tomato juice) can halve the amount of AGEs produced.

Consume antioxidants

Our body does have some ability to deal with AGEs, but that ability has its limits, and our body can be easily overwhelmed if we consume foods that are bad for it. So hopefully you’ll tend towards a plant-based diet, but whether you do or don’t:

You can give your body a hand by consuming antioxidant foods and drinks (such as berries, tea/coffee, and chocolate), and/or taking supplements.

Want to know more about the science of this?

Check out…

Advanced Glycation End-Products in Foods and a Practical Guide to Their Reduction in the Diet

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  • The Pain Relief Secret – by Sarah Warren

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    This one’s a book to not judge by the cover—or the title. The title is actually accurate, but it sounds like a lot of woo, doesn’t it?

    Instead, what we find is a very clinical, research-led (40 pages of references!) explanation of:

    1. the causes of musculoskeletal pain
    2. how this will tend to drive us to make it worse
    3. what we can do instead to make it better

    A lot of this, to give you an idea what to expect, hinges on the fact that bones only go where muscles allow/move them; muscles only behave as instructed by nerves, and with a good development of biofeedback and new habits to leverage neuroplasticity, we can take more charge of that than you might think.

    Warning: you may want to jump straight into the part with the solutions, but if you do so without a very good grounding in anatomy and physiology, you may find yourself out of your depth with previously-explained terms and concepts that are now needed to understand (and apply) the solutions.

    However, if you read it methodically cover-to-cover, you’ll find you need no prior knowledge to take full advantage of this book; the author is a very skilled educator.

    Bottom line: while it’s not an overnight magic pill, the methodology described in this book is a very sound way to address the causes of musculoskeletal pain.

    Click here to check out The Pain Relief Secret, and help your body undo damage done!

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  • What is a virtual emergency department? And when should you ‘visit’ one?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    For many Australians the emergency department (ED) is the physical and emblematic front door to accessing urgent health-care services.

    But health-care services are evolving rapidly to meet the population’s changing needs. In recent years, we’ve seen growing use of telephone, video, and online health services, including the national healthdirect helpline, 13YARN (a crisis support service for First Nations people), state-funded lines like 13 HEALTH, and bulk-billed telehealth services, which have helped millions of Australians to access health care on demand and from home.

    The ED is similarly expanding into new telehealth models to improve access to emergency medical care. Virtual EDs allow people to access the expertise of a hospital ED through their phone, computer or tablet.

    All Australian states and the Northern Territory have some form of virtual ED at least in development, although not all of these services are available to the general public at this stage.

    So what is a virtual ED, and when is it appropriate to consider using one?

    Shutterstock/Nils Versemann

    How does a virtual ED work?

    A virtual ED is set up to mirror the way you would enter the physical ED front door. First you provide some basic information to administration staff, then you are triaged by a nurse (this means they categorise the level of urgency of your case), then you see the ED doctor. Generally, this all takes place in a single video call.

    In some instances, virtual ED clinicians may consult with other specialists such as neurologists, cardiologists or trauma experts to make clinical decisions.

    A virtual ED is not suitable for managing medical emergencies which would require immediate resuscitation, or potentially serious chest pains, difficulty breathing or severe injuries.

    A virtual ED is best suited to conditions that require immediate attention but are not life-threatening. These could include wounds, sprains, respiratory illnesses, allergic reactions, rashes, bites, pain, infections, minor burns, children with fevers, gastroenteritis, vertigo, high blood pressure, and many more.

    People with these sorts of conditions and concerns may not be able to get in to see a GP straight away and may feel they need emergency advice, care or treatment.

    When attending the ED, they can be subject to long wait times and delayed specialist attention because more serious cases are naturally prioritised. Attending a virtual ED may mean they’re seen by a doctor more quickly, and can begin any relevant treatment sooner.

    From the perspective of the health-care system, virtual EDs are about redirecting unnecessary presentations away from physical EDs, helping them be ready to respond to emergencies. The virtual ED will not hesitate in directing callers to come into the physical ED if staff believe it is an emergency.

    The doctor in the virtual ED may also direct the patient to a GP or other health professional, for example if their condition can’t be assessed visually, or if they need physical treatment.

    The results so far

    Virtual EDs have developed significantly over the past three years, predominantly driven by the COVID pandemic. We are now starting to slowly see assessments of these services.

    A recent evaluation my colleagues and I did of Queensland’s Metro North Virtual ED found roughly 30% of calls were directed to the physical ED. This suggests 70% of the time, cases could be managed effectively by the virtual ED.

    Preliminary data from a Victorian virtual ED indicates it curbed a similar rate of avoidable ED presentations – 72% of patients were successfully managed by the virtual ED alone. A study on the cost-effectiveness of another Victorian virtual ED suggested it has the potential to generate savings in health-care costs if it prevents physical ED visits.

    Only 1.2% of people assessed in Queensland’s Metro North Virtual ED required unexpected hospital admission within 48 hours of being “discharged” from the virtual ED. None of these cases were life-threatening. This indicates the virtual ED is very safe.

    The service experienced an average growth rate of 65% each month over a two-year evaluation period, highlighting increasing demand and confidence in the service. Surveys suggested clinicians also view the virtual ED positively.

    yellow hard hat on ground. people are nearby sitting on ground after an accident
    The right advice could tell you whether you need to visit hospital in person or not. 1st footage/Shutterstock

    What now?

    We need further research into patient outcomes and satisfaction, as well as the demographics of those using virtual EDs, and how these measures compare to the physical ED across different triage categories.

    There are also challenges associated with virtual EDs, including around technology (connection and skills among patients and health professionals), training (for health professionals) and the importance of maintaining security and privacy.

    Nonetheless, these services have the potential to reduce congestion in physical EDs, and offer greater convenience for patients.

    Eligibility differs between different programs, so if you want to use a virtual ED, you may need to check you are eligible in your jurisdiction. Most virtual EDs can be accessed online, and some have direct phone numbers.

    Jaimon Kelly, Senior Research Fellow in Telehealth delivered health services, The University of Queensland

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • A Peek Behind The 10almonds Curtain

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    At 10almonds we give a lot of health information, so you may wonder: how much do we (the 10almonds team) put into practice? Is it even possible to do all these things? Do we have an 80:20 rule going on?

    So, here’s what someone who thinks, reads, and writes about health all day, does for her health—and how it ties in with what you read here at 10almonds.

    Hi, it’s me, a member of the 10almonds team and regular writer here, and I’m going to do the rest of this article in the first-person, since it’s using me as an example!

    (PS: yes, the thumbnail is a digital impression of my appearance, though I would correct it that my hair is much longer, and my eyes are more gray; I must admit though it captured my smile, not to mention my collarbones-that-you-could-sit-on)

    Dietary habits

    Before we get to foods, let’s talk intermittent fasting. I practise 16:8 intermittent fasting… Approximately. That is to say, I’m mostly not religious about it, but I will generally breakfast around 12 noon, and have finished eating dinner before 8pm, with no food outside of those hours.

    See also: Intermittent Fasting: What’s the truth?

    Importantly, while I feel free to be a little flexible around start and finish times, I do very consciously decide “I am now fasting” and “I will now break the fast”.

    Note my imperfection: it would be ideal to have the eating period earlier in the day, and have a bigger breakfast and small dinner. However, that doesn’t really work for me (leisurely evening meal is an important daily event in this household), so this is how I do it instead.

    Foods!

    It gets an exclamation mark because a thing about me is that I do love foods.

    Breakfast: a typical breakfast for me these past months is a couple of ounces of mixed nuts with about 1oz of goji berries.

    The mixed nuts are in equal proportions: almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, cashews. Why those four? Simple, it’s because that’s what Aldi sells as “mixed nuts” and they are the cheapest nuts around, as well as containing absolute nutritional heavyweights almonds and walnuts in generous portions.

    Often, but not always, I’ll have some dates with it, or dried apricots, or prunes.

    I go through phases; sometimes I’ll enjoy overnight oats as my breakfast for a month or two at a time. I really just follow my gut in this regard.

    See for example: Spiced Pear & Pecan Polyphenol Porridge

    Lunch: I don’t really lunch per se, but between breakfast and dinner I’ll usually snack on a 3–5 organic carrots (I literally just cut the tops off and otherwise eat them like Bugs Bunny—peeling them would be extra work just to lose fiber). Note my imperfection: I don’t buy all of my vegetables organic, but I do for the ones where it makes the biggest difference.

    If I’m feeling like it, I may lunch on a selection of herbs sabzi khordan style (see: Invigorating Sabzi Khordan), though I’m vegan so for simplicity I just skip the cheeses that are also traditional with that dish. On the other hand, for protein and fat I’ll usually add a cup of beans (usually black beans or kidney beans), seasoned with garlic and black pepper in an olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing (that I make myself, so it’s just those ingredients). See also: Kidney Beans vs Black Beans – Which Is Healthier?

    Dinner: this is my main sit-down meal of the day, and it’s enjoyed in a leisurely fashion (say, 40 minutes average with a normal distribution bell curve running between 20 and 60 minutes) with my son who lives with me. I mention all of this, because of the importance of relaxed mindful eating. In the instances of it being nearer the 20 minutes end, it’s not because of rushing, but rather because of a lighter meal some days.

    See also: How To Get More Nutrition From The Same Food

    Regular recurrences in the menu include:

    I’ll often snack on something probiotic (e.g. kimchi) while I’m cooking.

    See also: Make Friends With Your Gut! (You Can Thank Us Later)

    In terms of what’s not in my diet: as mentioned, I’m vegan, so animal products are out. I don’t drink alcohol or use other recreational drugs, and I mostly drink decaffeinated coffee, but I’ll have a caffeinated one if I’m out somewhere. I’m not a puritan when it comes to sugar, but also, I simply don’t like it and I know well its health effects, so it doesn’t really form part of my diet except insofar as it’s in some ready-made condiments I may sometimes use (e.g. sriracha, teriyaki sauce). I’m also not a puritan when it comes to wheat, but it’s not something I consume daily. Usually on a weekly basis I’ll have a wholegrain pasta dish, and a dish with some kind of wholegrain flatbread.

    See also:

    Exercise!

    First, some things that are lifestyle factors:

    • I do not own a car, and I dislike riding in cars, buses, etc. So, I walk everywhere, unless it’s far enough that I must take the train, and even then I usually stand between carriages rather than sitting down.
    • I have a standing desk setup, that hasn’t been lowered even once since I got it. I highly recommend it, as someone who spends a lot of time at my desk.
    • You may imagine that I spend a lot of time reading; if it’s books (as opposed to scientific papers etc, which I read at my desk), then I’ll most of the time read them while perched like a gargoyle in a sitting squat (Slav squat, Asian squat, resting squat, deep squat, etc) on a balance ball. Yes, it is comfortable once you’re used to it!

    About that latter, see also: The Most Anti Aging Exercise

    In terms of “actual” exercise, I get 150–300 minutes “moderate exercise” per week, which is mostly composed of: 

    • Most days I walk into town to get groceries; it’s a 40-minute round trip on foot
    • On days I don’t do that, even if I do walk to a more local shop, I spend at least 20 minutes on my treadmill.

    See also: The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less, & Move More

    Strength and mobility training, for me, comes mostly in what has been called “exercise snacking”, that is to say, I intersperse my working day with brief breaks to do Pilates exercises. I have theme days (lower body, core, upper body) and on average one rest day (from Pilates exercises) per week, though honestly, that’s usually more likely because of time constraints than anything else, because a deadline is looming.

    See also: Four Habits That Drastically Improve Mobility

    You may be wondering about HIIT: when I’m feeling extra-serious about it, I use my exercise bike for this, but I’ll be honest, I don’t love the bike, so on a daily basis, I’m much more likely to do HIIT by blasting out a hundred or so Hindu squats, resting, and repeating.

    See also: How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)

    Supplements

    First I’ll mention, I do have HRT, of which the hormones I have are bioidentical estradiol gel in the morning, and a progesterone pessary in the evening. They may not be for everybody, but they’ve made a world of difference to me.

    See also: HRT: A Tale Of Two Approaches

    In terms of what one usually means when one says supplements, many I use intermittently (which is good in some cases, as otherwise the body may stop using them so well, or other problems can arise), but regular features include:

    Why weekends only for Fisetin? See: The Drug & Supplement Combo That Reverses Aging ← the supplement is fisetin, which outperforms quercetin in this role, and/but it only needs be taken for two days every two weeks, as a sort of “clearing out” of senescent cells. There is no need to take it every day, because if you just cleared out your senescent cells, then guess what, they’re not there now. Also, while sensescent cells are a major cause of aging, on a lower level they do have some anti-tumor effects, so it can be good to let some live a least for a while now and again. In short, cellular sensescence can help prevent tumors on a daily level, but it doesn’t hurt that capacity to have a clearing-out every couple of weeks; so says the science (linked above). Note my imperfection: I take it at weekends instead of for two days every two weeks (as is standard in studies, like those linked above), because it is simpler than remembering to count the weeks.

    Cognitive exercise

    Lest we forget, exercising our mind is also important! In my case:

    • I’m blessed to have work that’s quite cognitively stimulating; our topics here at 10almonds are interesting. If it weren’t for that, I’d still be reading and writing a lot.
    • I play chess, though these days I don’t play competitively anymore, and play rather for the social aspect, but this too is important in avoiding cognitive decline.
    • I am one of those people who compulsively learns languages, and uses them a lot. This is very beneficial, as language ability is maintained in a few small areas of the brain, and it’s very much “use it or lose it”. Now, while I may not need my French or Russian or Arabic to keep the lights on in this part of the brain or that, the fact that I am pushing my limits every day is the important part. It’s not about how much I know—it’s about how much I engage those parts of my brain on a daily basis. Thus, even if you speak only one language right now, learning even just one more, and learning even only a little bit, you will gain the brain benefits—because you’re engaging it regularly in a new way, and that forces the brain to wire new synapses and also to maintain volume in those parts.

    See also: How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

    And about language-learning specifically: An Underrated Tool Against Alzheimer’s ←this also shows how you don’t have to be extreme about language learning like I admittedly am.

    How’s all this working out for me?

    I can say: it works! My general health is better now than it was decades ago. I’ve personally focused a lot on reducing inflammation, and that really pays dividends when it comes to the rest of health. I didn’t talk about it above, but focusing on my sleep regularity and quality has helped a lot too.

    In terms of measurable results, I recently had a general wellness checkup done by means of a comprehensive panel of 14 blood tests, and various physical metrics (BMI, body fat %, blood pressure, etc), and per those, I could not be in better health; it was as though I had cheated and written in all the best answers. I say this not to brag (you don’t know me, after all), but rather to say: it can be done!

    Even without extreme resources, and without an abundance of free time, etc, it can be done!

    Caveat: if you have some currently incurable chronic disease, there may be some limits. For example, if you have Type 1 Diabetes, probably your HbA1c* is going to be a little off even if you do everything right.

    *HbA1c = glycated hemoglobin, a very accurate measure of what your blood glucose has been on average for the past 2–3 months—why 2–3 months? Because that’s the approximate lifespan of a red blood cell, and we’re measuring how much hemoglobin (in the red blood cells) has been glycated (because of blood glucose).

    In summary

    The stuff we write about at 10almonds can be implemented, on a modest budget and while juggling responsibilities (work, family, classes, etc).

    I’m not saying that my lifestyle should be everyone’s template, but it’s at least an example of one that can work.

    • Maybe you hate walking and love swimming.
    • Maybe you have no wish to give up fish and eggs, say (both of which are fine/good in moderation healthwise).
    • Maybe you have different priorities with supplements.
    • Maybe you find language-learning uninteresting but take singing lessons.
    • And so on.

    In the absolute fewest words, the real template is:

    1. Decide your health priorities (what matters most for you)
    2. Look them up on 10almonds
    3. Put the things into action in a way that works for you!

    Take care!

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  • Life Extension Multivitamins vs Centrum Multivitamins – Which is Healthier

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing Life Extension Multivitamins to Centrum Multivitamins, we picked the Life Extension.

    Why?

    The clue here was on the label: “two per day”. It’s not so that they can sell extra filler! It’s because they couldn’t fit it all into one.

    While the Centrum Multivitamins is a (respectably) run-of-the-mill multivitamin (and multimineral) containing reasonable quantities of most vitamins and minerals that people supplement, the Life Extension product has the same plus more:

    • More of the vitamins and minerals; i.e. more of them are hitting 100%+ of the RDA
    • More beneficial supplements, including:
      • Inositol, Alpha lipoic acid, Bio-Quercetin phytosome, phosphatidylcholine complex, Marigold extract, Apigenin, Lycopene, and more that we won’t list here because it starts to get complicated if we do.

    We’ll have to write some main features on some of those that we haven’t written about before, but suffice it to say, they’re all good things.

    Main take-away for today: sometimes more is better; it just necessitates then reading the label to check.

    Want to get some Life Extension Multivitamins (and/or perhaps just read the label on the back)? Here they are on Amazon

    PS: it bears mentioning, since we are sometimes running brands against each other head-to-head in this section: nothing you see here is an advertisement/sponsor unless it’s clearly marked as such. We haven’t, for example, been paid by Life Extension or any agent of theirs, to write the above. It’s just our own research and conclusion.

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • The Calorie Myth – by Jonathan Bailor

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    First we’ll mention: the author is not a doctor, but the book is endorsed by assorted well-known doctors in the field, and the science described is consistent with current scientific consensus (and, for that matter, consistent with what we wrote in our mythbusting feature: Are You A Calorie-Burning Machine?).

    It’s often (correctly) said that “not all calories are created equal”, but how should we quantify them? He proposes his “SANE solution”, which is based around the ideas of:

    • Satiety: how quickly calories fill us up
    • Aggression: how likely calories are to be stored as fat
    • Nutrition: how many micronutrients calories bring with them, and how much
    • Efficiency: how easily calories are converted

    To this end, he recommends a diet high in foods that score well on his “SANE” factors, and provides such things as recipes, meal plans etc to help, as well principles for exercising more usefully in the context of metabolic base rate, and moving (rather than fighting) one’s “set point”, which is usually associated with one’s weight but it really has more to do with metabolic base rate. In fact, Bailor recommends throwing out the bathroom scale and focusing on pursuing good health itself, rather than obsessing over changing one’s relationship with the Earth’s gravitational field.

    Yes, it says “lose weight” in the subtitle, but the idea is that this will be a by-product rather than the thing actively pursued. After all, we can control our actions, so that input variable is where we should put our focus, not the output variable of the numbers on the scale which can often be misleading (muscle weighing more than fat, tendency to water weight fluctuations, etc).

    The style is a little flashy and salesy for this reviewer’s personal taste (a lot of references to his own businesses and neologisms associated with such), but it doesn’t take away from the quality of the content, and in terms of science, study references come at a rate of about one per page on average.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to rethink your relationship with calories, then this book can help give you a much more practical angle.

    Click here to check out The Calorie Myth, and take control of your metabolic base rate!

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  • Resveratrol & Healthy Aging

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Resveratrol & Healthy Aging

    Resveratrol is the compound found in red grapes, and thus in red wine, that have resulted in red wine being sometimes touted as a heart-healthy drink.

    However, at the levels contained in red wine, you’d need to drink 100–1000 glasses of wine per day (depending on the wine) to get the dose of resveratrol that was associated with heart health benefits in mouse studies.

    Which also means: if you are not a mouse, you might need to drink even more than that!

    Further reading: can we drink to good health?

    Resveratrol supplementation

    Happily, resveratrol supplements exist. But what does resveratrol do?

    It lowers blood pressure:

    Effect of resveratrol on blood pressure: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

    It improves blood lipid levels:

    Consumption of resveratrol decreases oxidized LDL and ApoB in patients undergoing primary prevention of cardiovascular disease: a triple-blind, 6-month follow-up, placebo-controlled, randomized trial

    It improves insulin sensitivity:

    Resveratrol retards progression of diabetic nephropathy through modulations of oxidative stress, proinflammatory cytokines, and AMP-activated protein kinase

    It has neuroprotective effects too:

    Resveratrol promotes clearance of Alzheimer’s disease amyloid-beta peptides

    Is it safe?

    For most people, it is generally recognized as safe. However, if you are on blood-thinners or otherwise have a bleeding disorder, you might want to skip it:

    Antiplatelet activity of synthetic and natural resveratrol in red wine

    You also might want to check with your pharmacist/doctor, if you’re on blood pressure meds, anxiety meds, or immunosuppressants, as it can increase the amount of these drugs that will then stay in your system:

    Resveratrol modulates drug- and carcinogen-metabolizing enzymes in a healthy volunteer study

    And as ever, of course, if unsure just check with your pharmacist/doctor, to be on the safe side.

    Where to get it?

    We don’t sell it, but here’s an example product on Amazon for your convenience

    Enjoy!

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: