Nutrition is critical for health. I advocate balanced nutrition with minimal caloric intake combined with intermittent fasting. It gives you the best of most aspects of health. Keeping your body in an alkaline state enhances it even more.
Anytime we eat anything with sugar (carbohydrates) our bodies produce advanced glycation end products (AGEs). It is a normal reaction between blood sugar and proteins. It happens to most of us daily. However, over time, this can become a major problem. Excessive amounts of AGEs cause low level inflammation in our bodies. Low level inflammation is the genesis of around 90% of all disease.
AGEs affect nearly every cell in your body. AGES accelerate many diseases – diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, Alzheimer’s disease, allergies, autoimmune diseases, cancers, cataracts, retinal degeneration, gastrointestinal diseases. Additionally, AGEs make you look older and accelerates the aging processes.
What can you do? Avoid or limit your intake of AGEs. However, it is more difficult than that. You can eliminate or remove most carbohydrates – think Paleo type diets. However, AGEs are also formed when food is heated, especially meats. That char most of us like on BBQ is a cause of AGEs. Low-temperature, slow cooked meats yield far less AGEs than searing and roasting.
It is amazing how some of the foods we really like cause more harm than we know – think bacon, for example. That BLT on toast with potato chips produces a triple effect with the carbohydrates from the toast (bread being a carbohydrate and toasted), frying of the bacon to crisp it and frying of the potatoes (carbohydrates and fried). Does it matter whether it is regular bacon or turkey bacon – NO!
Awareness is key to making the right decisions for your health, especially as you age.