Plant-Based Diets Are Much Better for Helping to Reduce Harmful AGEs

According to a study, inflammatory dietary advanced glycation end-products are decreased by 79% when consuming a plant-based diet in comparison to only a 15% decrease for a dairy product and meat-based diet.¹

The dietary advanced glycation end-product (AGE) reduction was linked to an improvement in insulin sensitivity and 14 pounds of body weight lost on average.

Just replacing dairy products and fatty meat with a low-fat plant-based diet resulted in a substantial reduction in AGEs, which are inflammatory compounds found to a greater degree in animal products compared to plants.

AGEs are inflammatory compounds that are produced in the blood when fats or proteins are combined with glucose. AGEs result in oxidative stress and inflammation, which eventually cause chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

AGEs can be ingested via the diet, and animal products typically contain more AGEs compared to plant foods. AGEs are also produced during normal metabolism but are produced at a greater rate when an individual has metabolic syndrome which consists of insulin resistance, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar.

The researchers recruited 244 overweight individuals who were randomly allocated to a control group that made no dietary changes, or a treatment group that consumed a low-fat plant-based diet for 16 weeks.

Insulin sensitivity was assessed and body composition was measured at the start and end of the study.

Self-reported dietary intake information was used for calculating dietary AGEs and dietary intake of AGEs was estimated by making use of a dietary AGEs database.

The plant-based group reduced dietary AGEs by 79% in comparison to a reduction of 15% for the control group. Approximately 55% of the dietary AGE decrease in the group consuming the plant-based diet was due to the meat intake decrease, 26% to reduced dairy intake, and 15% to reduced added fat consumption.

The decrease in consumption of white meat made the most significant dietary AGE difference.

Body weight was reduced by approximately 14 pounds in the group consuming the plant-based diet, in comparison to approximately 1 pound in the control group, mostly as a result of a decrease in fat mass, particularly visceral fat. An improvement in insulin sensitivity was seen in the treatment group.