Foods like cakes, chips, cookies, crackers, fried foods, mayonnaise, margarine, and ultra-processed foods, infamous for their rich content in advanced glycation end products (AGEs), are a significant contributing factor to India’s daunting title of being the world’s diabetes capital, according to a groundbreaking clinical trial.
AGEs form a group of potentially harmful compounds that originate when proteins or lipids undergo glycation or modification by aldose sugars. These carbohydrates bear an aldehyde group (CHO). The results of a government-funded trial jointly conducted by several research institutions, including the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF) based in Chennai, highlighted that consuming AGE-rich foods leads to inflammation, a primary cause of diabetes.
The aforementioned glycation results from a non-enzymatic chemical procedure where a sugar molecule attaches itself to a protein or lipid molecule, which can spur damaging reactions within the body. The findings, sponsored by the Department of Biology and published in the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, are enlightening. The study reflects that adhering to a low-AGE diet, constituting foods with low AGE levels like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat milk, individuals who are obese and overweight can mitigate oxidative stress in their bodies. This refers to the imbalance between free radicals and antioxidants leading to inflammation and cellular damage.
The researchers stated in their paper, “This dietary intervention has the potential to mitigate the burden of obesity-linked type 2 diabetes.” Grasping the aspects of AGE-rich foods and comprehending the factors that lead to their high AGE amounts remain critical to India’s approach to combating diabetes, as explained by Dr. V. Mohan, Chairman, MDRF.
Previous studies from Western countries have highlighted the heightened risk for chronic diseases resulting from consuming highly processed foods abundant in fat, sugar, salt, and AGEs. The swift transition in the nutritional landscape in developing nations like India has ushered in increased intake of refined carbohydrates, fats, and animal products. Researchers emphasize that such dietary habits, combined with a sedentary lifestyle, augment the prevalence of obesity, diabetes, and related disorders.
The newly conducted study focused on probing the effects of low- and high-AGE diets on glucose and lipid metabolism, oxidative stress, and inflammation in overweight and obese Indian adults. The trial involved 38 adults, either overweight or obese but non-diabetic, divided into two groups. One group was put on a low-AGE diet for 12 weeks, while the other was given a high-AGE diet over the same period. The high-AGE foods included those cooked by roasting, deep-frying, and shallow-frying, while low-AGE foods incorporated those prepared by boiling and steaming.
At the trial’s conclusion, the researchers found that insulin sensitivity, gauged by the insulin oral disposition index—a measure of insulin sensitivity and functionality of insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells, was noticeably increased in the low-AGE diet group compared to the high-AGE diet group.
The research incorporated culture-specific, frequently consumed Indian foods in the participants’ diets, which were measured for dietary AGE composition before planning the dietary intervention. Dr. Mohan explained the findings establish that healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, green leafy vegetables, whole grains and items that are not processed boast low AGE levels. He added, “Also, if you boil the food and don’t fry, grill, or roast it, or add a lot of oil, ghee or other lipids to it, you can keep the dietary AGE low.”
In general, fried, grilled and baked foods have the highest AGE levels. Other foods with high-AGE levels include dry nuts, roasted walnuts, sunflower seeds, fried chicken, bacon, and beef. Furthermore, both animal proteins and processed plant foods contain molecules rendering them prone to glycation, the researchers noted.
