[HN Gopher] Diets high in advanced glycation end products promot...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Diets high in advanced glycation end products promote insulin
       resistance
        
       Author : Matrixik
       Score  : 34 points
       Date   : 2025-01-11 19:01 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (examine.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (examine.com)
        
       | Matrixik wrote:
       | Original paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39320860/
        
       | selbyk wrote:
       | For others who also don't know what advanced glycation end-
       | products are/are a bit confused by the headline:
       | 
       | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_glycation_end-produ...
       | 
       | Found in humans, they are bio markers for quite a few diseases,
       | including diabetes (type 2 = insulin resistance).
       | 
       | Food sources are animal products.
       | 
       | Wiki says vegetarians have been shown to have more than non-
       | vegetarians, discounting dietary reasons for high levels in
       | humans. This study suggests otherwise.
        
         | dunham wrote:
         | The infographic in the article suggests they occur in aged
         | cheeses, fried foods (including chips and french fries),
         | roasted nuts (including peanut butter), and seared tofu. I
         | believe those are all vegetarian staples.
        
           | swiftcoder wrote:
           | The infographic also blames it on seared meats and fried
           | eggs, so not exclusively an issue for vegetarians. The link
           | to diet in general does seem a little tenuous though?
        
             | numbsafari wrote:
             | My takeaway from this was to consider not only the food
             | product of choice, but the cooking method. It may be the
             | cooking method is more important than the food choices
             | themselves?
             | 
             | Perhaps, if you are a vegetarian that eats lots of fried,
             | sauteed, or roasted vegetables (chasing umami), you might
             | be no better off than a non-vegetarian who is consuming
             | predominantly raw, steamed, or boiled animal products.
             | 
             | Anecdotally, this would correlate with the many obese or
             | poorly nourished vegetarians I have known, despite their
             | "healthy" diet.
             | 
             | In any event, we should all be eating more fiber.
        
             | dunham wrote:
             | Yeah, I just thought "Food sources are animal products"
             | might be an inaccurate characterization.
             | 
             | As far as the link to diet goes, I'm not an expert but look
             | at pretty much every report with suspicion unless there is
             | a lot of independent confirmation.
             | 
             | From the outside "meta-analysis" seems like fishing for
             | signal and then jumping on results as causal. But I
             | honestly don't know if these things proceed via scientific
             | method (I have a theory, I've devised this test, etc) or
             | are digging up possible relations between data and then
             | making a story to match whatever pops up.
        
         | echelon wrote:
         | Don't over-cook your food. AGEs, PAHs, etc. are all bad.
        
           | alliao wrote:
           | but how else will we get that sweet sweet aroma from Maillard
           | reaction....
        
             | numbsafari wrote:
             | Cook it sous vide and then give it a quick sear.
             | 
             | Everything in moderation.
        
         | narrator wrote:
         | What's interesting about them is that if you microwave your
         | food, you get fewer of them[1]. That's because they are
         | primarily produced by the mallard reaction which is caused by
         | food, such as bread, getting toasted[2]. The worst foods for
         | this are barbecued stuff. Also, carmel color is very rich in
         | advanced glycation end products, so avoid Diet Coke!
         | 
         | [1]https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3704564/
         | 
         | [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction
        
       | BJones12 wrote:
       | For the uninitiated in Advanced Glycation Ends (AGEs):
       | 
       | > AGEs can also be ingested from food, especially food cooked at
       | high temperatures and with little moisture, like grilled meats,
       | fried foods, and baked goods.[23] The Maillard reaction is the
       | main nonenzymatic reaction known to form AGEs in cooking and is
       | famously known for the distinct browning color and complex flavor
       | and aroma of roasted coffee, French fries, seared meat, and other
       | favorites.
        
         | eptcyka wrote:
         | In short, if it tastes nice and was man-processed, it probably
         | will be bad for you?
        
           | tjohns wrote:
           | That's a good first-order approximation, but is missing some
           | nuance.
           | 
           | An example they use is eggs: Pan-fried eggs are listed as
           | high in AGEs, whereas scrambled eggs aren't. Admittedly my
           | diet isn't the best, but I wouldn't have expected a
           | meaningful difference between ordering my eggs scrambled vs
           | sunnyside-up.
           | 
           | Or for meat, stewed meat would be healthier than roasted
           | meat.
           | 
           | I'm suddenly curious about coffee, now that they mention
           | it...
        
             | formerly_proven wrote:
             | Scrambled eggs don't have any browning, sunny side up does.
        
             | saurik wrote:
             | I mean, the nuance seemed captured by the "in short" here,
             | as you are just providing examples of things that taste
             | nicer ;P.
        
             | eptcyka wrote:
             | The browning is what makes food taste great for me, and
             | that is what makes sunny side up eggs be less healthy. If
             | you browned an omlette, it'd have a similar effect, I
             | imagine.
        
             | moab wrote:
             | Coffee is very low in AGEs as per Table 2 of https://www.ja
             | ndonline.org/article/S0002-8223(10)00238-5/ful...
        
           | TeMPOraL wrote:
           | Well, it was good for us when we first tamed fire, so
           | -\\_(tsu)_/-.
           | 
           | Ain't greater modern cargo cult than "healthy food".
        
       | jawon wrote:
       | This definition of AGEs is interesting (linked from the article,
       | same site):
       | 
       | "Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) form when proteins and
       | fats (lipids) in the body react with sugar (glucose) and become
       | glycated and oxidized."
       | 
       | So, maybe it's not so much the Maillard reaction but that
       | sweetened brioche bun used in your fancy hamburger.
        
         | HumanOstrich wrote:
         | That's how AGEs are formed in the body. The article is
         | primarily about dietary intake of AGEs that are formed in high
         | temperatures with certain foods.
        
         | chongli wrote:
         | Or that bag of Doritos washed down with a bottle of Mountain
         | Dew!
        
       | swiftcoder wrote:
       | I haven't read the full paper, but do they control for fat
       | intake? Because pretty much everything on the "high AGE" side of
       | the infographic is also high in fats, and we already have studies
       | that show high fat diets have a negative effect where diabetes is
       | concerned
        
       | hetthakkar wrote:
       | Wonder if these negative outcomes still exist if high and low AGE
       | diets were iso-caloric
        
         | HumanOstrich wrote:
         | No, "calories in, calories out" is a popular myth, usually used
         | as a way to insult and degrade people who are overweight.
         | 
         | You could drink your body's caloric needs in gasoline each day,
         | but you'd quickly find out that WHAT you consume affects your
         | body's response too. Biology is surprisingly complex.
        
           | blacksmith_tb wrote:
           | I don't think "drink gas" is a reasonable rebuttal, better to
           | actually provide some kind of a reference[1].
           | 
           | 1: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/health/to-lose-weight-
           | focus...
        
           | FooBarBizBazz wrote:
           | Spreading "cope" hurts other people who read it and believe.
           | Bomb-calorimeter energy is an upper bound on what your body
           | can extract from the food, and limiting an upper bound works.
        
       | alliao wrote:
       | better show the graphics to my kids, it's very well done
        
       | readthenotes1 wrote:
       | If I had to choose between sugar and meat that's been Maillarded,
       | the properly cooked meats win by a landslide.
       | 
       | Stop the war on Maillard. Start the war on sugar.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2025-01-14 23:01 UTC)