AGEs slowly build up in body as we age
Q. What are AGEs and how do they affect cancer risk?
A. AGEs, or Advanced Glycation Endproducts, are sugar-derived compounds that have been linked to inflammation, heart disease and diabetes. Within the body, researchers say that AGEs form at a slow rate as a result of normal body processes as we age. Outside the body, AGEs can form in tobacco smoke or in certain foods due to high temperature cooking like broiling and frying (AGEs are produced at the same time as heterocyclic amines (HCAs) when grilling or frying meat and poultry).
While endogenous AGE production is a natural process, high blood sugars in people with diabetes can lead to a chain reaction that dramatically increases AGE levels in the body.
Research suggests these high levels of AGEs may be partly to blame for the blood vessel damage that leads to the kidney and eye impairment frequently seen in patients with diabetes.
AGEs also seem to promote inflammation throughout the body, which theoretically could mean they increase cancer risk. But research is still scarce in this area.
Meanwhile, concern about AGEs shouldn't lead you to do anything different than you already would for good health: Continue to practice good blood sugar control if you are diabetic. And be cautious about charring meats while grilling or frying,
Q. Are the "trans-free" snacks that used to contain trans fats healthy options now?
A. Not necessarily. In reformulating these products, food companies had to substitute the trans-laden oils with something else. Some manufacturers replaced partially hydrogenated oils in their products with a tropical oil such as palm or coconut oil. Unfortunately, these substitutions are high in cholesterol-raising saturated fat -- a fat that most Americans consume in far greater excess than trans fat.
Other product reformulations have separated palm oil into two parts, with the softer palm olein used for cooking and salad oils and harder palm steam used for deep frying and shortening. These may have different effects, with the palm olein containing more healthful monounsaturated fat and less cholesterol-raising fat than whole palm oil, but we need more research before we can be sure.
Some foods are now made with "interesterified oils," blends of a highly saturated fat (usually palm oil, palm steam or a fully hydrogenated oil) and a liquid oil. In the end, many of the "zero trans" pastries, cookies, margarines and other products that you see on grocery shelves have simply switched out one "bad fat" for another.