Recent Studies of Advanced Glycation End-Products in Aging and Age-Related Disease
In this article, the author linked to a few unrelated studies of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) and their role in aging and the pathology of specific age-related diseases. AGEs are both generated in the body as a side-effect of metabolic operation, but can also be found in the diet. There are numerous different classes of AGE, some more common than others. As a general rule the common AGEs are easily broken down and removed in healthy individuals, while the rare ones are persistent and in some cases cannot be broken down at all by our evolved molecular toolkit. The common AGEs play more of a role in metabolic disease: the dysregulated diabetic metabolism suffers from high levels of circulating AGEs, for example.
