Why elevated blood sugar shortens your life…and what you can do about it
Your blood is sticky and that will kill you.
Hello internet friends, and welcome to today’s chat on blood glucose, inspired by my recent purchase of the Levels continuous glucose monitor and enrollment in their beta program. I’m not sponsored by them, I just think it’s a great tool to get deeper information about how my body is working. It’ll be here tomorrow so expect a full report soon.
So: sticky blood, what it means, and why should you care?
Glucose comes from foods that contain carbohydrates, so, sugars and starches. You need a tiny bit of it in your bloodstream to maintain certain parts of cellular metabolism. It’s managed by the hormone insulin. When there isn’t enough insulin, or cells stop responding to it, boom, diabetes.
But that’s not the only problem.
Excess glucose in the blood binds to other molecules in circulation, like proteins, fats, and DNA packets through a chemical process known as glycation. This produces something appropriately called AGEs, Advanced Glycation End-products. When these AGEs bind to receptor sites on cell membranes, the result is inflammation and increased oxidative stress, which goes on to damage tissues, often permanently. AGEs are stable in the body and accumulate over time, continuing the cycle of damage.
What does this mean on a practical level?
For one, neurological damage and cognitive impairment. AGEs are considered one of the potential toxins leading to the development of Alzheimer’s disease, which makes sense since some very smart scientists are calling Alzheimer’s Type III diabetes due to the impaired glucose control seen in these patients.
Next up: wrinkles. Is it superficial and vain? Absolutely not. Your skin is your largest organ and is metabolically active. It performs vital functions all day every day. And what are wrinkles? Organ damage. If it’s happening on your skin, it’s happening to the rest of your organs as well.
Including your intestines and microbiome, which get less good at processing your food, and can cause a great deal of discomfort. This can also lead to nutritional deficiencies, since you might not be absorbing the valuable nutrients from the foods you’re eating.
Finally, and this is far from an exhaustive list, is cardiovascular mitochondrial dysfunction. We’re talking about inflammation of the heart and the membrane that envelops it, as well as a decrease in the amount of energy that cardiac cells are able to produce, leading to less efficient pumping. If it sounds like this would wear out your heart faster and lead to heart failure, you get a gold star.
This leads to three questions:
How can we stop producing AGEs, how can we clear the AGEs that have already accumulated, and how can we heal the damage that has already been caused?
There is actually good news here. The easiest way to tank your production of AGEs is to…you guessed it…tank the amount of glucose in circulation. How, you may ask? Quit eating carbs!! Decreasing your carb load is your best bet. A ketogenic diet is best, not only because it will significantly reduce the rate of AGE production, but also because the ketones you’ll be producing in your liver and using for fuel have an anti-inflammatory effect.
As far as removing accumulated AGEs, we don’t have definitive answers right now, but it is being worked on. Both quercetin and fenugreek show potential, but I haven’t seen anything groundbreaking. I’d love to see more studies on this, so if you find any, link them in the comments!
Moving on to healing damage, that’s virtually the same as healing from most other insults to our health, Supply the nutrients needed, and remove the things that are causing a problem. Healing happens slowly over time, since cell turnover is slow…and it’s supposed to be! The sooner you shift to a lower carb way of eating, the sooner you’ll be decreasing production of AGEs. Seriously, the day you change your ways is the day you start to get healthier.
We’ll talk about more targeted healing strategies in a follow-up video, and we’ll look at how collagen works, overall protein intake, micronutrient balance, and supplements that can help most people see faster improvements in their health.
That’s all for now!
References:
Abeysekera, W. (2018). Anti-glycation and glycation reversing potential of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) seed extract. Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research, 3(1), 001–005. https://biomedres.us/fulltexts/BJSTR.MS.ID.000875.php
Lin, K.-H., Ng, S.-C., Paul, C. R., Chen, H.-C., Zeng, R.-Y., Liu, J.-S., Padma, V. V., Huang, C.-Y., & Kuo, W.-W. (2021). MicroRNA-210 repression facilitates advanced glycation end-product (Age)-induced cardiac mitochondrial dysfunction and apoptosis via JNK activation. Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, 122(12), 1873–1885. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcb.30146
Nogueira Silva Lima, M. T., Howsam, M., Anton, P. M., Delayre-Orthez, C., & Tessier, F. J. (2021). Effect of advanced glycation end-products and excessive calorie intake on diet-induced chronic low-grade inflammation biomarkers in murine models. Nutrients, 13(9), 3091. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13093091
Reversal of two advanced glycation end products achieved | lifespan. Io. (n.d.). Retrieved January 9, 2022, from https://www.lifespan.io/news/reversal-of-two-advanced-glycation-end-products-achieved/
van Dongen, K. C. W., Linkens, A. M. A., Wetzels, S. M. W., Wouters, K., Vanmierlo, T., van de Waarenburg, M. P. H., Scheijen, J. L. J. M., de Vos, W. M., Belzer, C., & Schalkwijk, C. G. (2021). Dietary advanced glycation endproducts (Ages) increase their concentration in plasma and tissues, result in inflammation and modulate gut microbial composition in mice; evidence for reversibility. Food Research International, 147, 110547. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2021.110547
Yang, S., Zhou, H., Wang, G., Zhong, X.-H., Shen, Q.-L., Zhang, X.-J., Li, R.-Y., Chen, L.-H., Zhang, Y.-H., & Wan, Z. (2020). Quercetin is protective against short-term dietary advanced glycation end products intake induced cognitive dysfunction in aged ICR mice. Journal of Food Biochemistry, 44(4), e13164. https://doi.org/10.1111/jfbc.13164