By Dr. Mercola

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) are a complex group of compounds formed when sugar reacts with amino acids.

This can occur both in the food you eat, and inside your body.

It's is a fitting acronym because – along with oxidation – it's one of the major molecular mechanisms whereby damage accrues in your body, which leads to disease, aging, and eventually, death.

For example, there is mounting evidence that AGEs may be implicated in the development of the chronic degenerative diseases associated with aging, including but not limited to:

• Cardiovascular disease
• Alzheimer's disease, and
• Diabetes

Several studies have shown that restricting the consumption of AGEs can lead to an increased lifespan in animal models.

According to a paper that summarizes recent research on AGEsⁱ:

"... [T]he data are supportive that endogenous AGEs are associated with declining organ functioning. It appears that dietary AGEs may also be related.

... As of today, restriction of dietary intake of AGEs and exercise has been shown to safely reduce circulating AGEs, with further reduction in oxidative stress and inflammatory markers."

Why Limiting Sugar is Key for Longevity

Limiting sugar in your diet is a well-known key to longevity, because of all the molecules capable of inflicting damage in your body, sugar molecules are probably the most damaging of all. Fructose in particular is an extremely potent pro-inflammatory agent that creates AGEs and speeds up the aging process. It also promotes the kind of dangerous growth of fat cells around your vital organs that are the hallmark of diabetes and heart disease. In one study on fructose, 16 volunteers on a controlled diet including high levels of fructose produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and other digestive organs in just 10 weeks!

Sugar/fructose also increases your insulin and leptin levels and decreases receptor sensitivity for both of these vital hormones, and this is another major factor of premature aging and age-related chronic degenerative diseases such as heart disease. Keep in mind that while it's perfectly normal for your blood sugar levels to rise slightly after every meal, it is not natural or healthy when your blood sugar levels become excessively elevated and stay that way.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what will happen if you're eating like the stereotypical American, who consumes a staggering 2.5 pounds of sugar a week on average!

And when you add in other low-quality carb foods such as white bread, sugar, pasta, pastries, cookies, and candy, which also break down to sugar in your body, it's not so difficult to see why so many Americans are in such poor health.

This type of high-sugar (high-carb) diet is also what's driving the obesity epidemic—not diets high in fat. An infographic created by Column Five for Massive Health, based on Why We Get Fat by science writer Gary Taubes, explains why. In short, carbs, like fructose and other sugars, destroy your insulin and leptin sensitivity, which in turn causes your cells to accumulate more fat, and makes it more difficult to get rid of the extra weight as well. So, the bottom line is this: If you want to look and feel younger longer, avoid all forms of sugar (including grains) as much as possible!

IMAGE COURTESY OF MASSIVE HEALTH. READ ABOUT THIS INFOGRAPHIC

Glycation 101

Fructose adversely affects your body in a number of ways, but one of the mechanisms that causes significant damage is glycation. As already mentioned, glycation is the process in which sugar bonds with protein to form advanced glycation end products, or AGEs.

This process creates inflammation, which can activate your immune system.

Macrophages are scavenger cells that are part of your immune defense system, and as such they have special receptors for AGEs, aptly called RAGEs (think: raging inflammation). These RAGEs bind to the AGEs in your body and get rid of them. Unfortunately, this defensive process can also cause its fair share of damage. Inside your arteries, for example, the scar tissue created from this process is called plaque.

You really want to limit the AGEs in your body as much as possible, so your immune system won't have to work so hard to defend against them. As a standard recommendation to limit glycation, I strongly advise keeping your TOTAL fructose consumption below 25 grams per day.

However, most people would be wise to limit their fructose to 15 grams or less, particularly if you have elevated uric acid levels, which can be used as a predictor for fructose toxicity. (For more information on this, please see this previous article.) This includes keeping track of your fructose intake from whole fruits. For additional information about the fructose content of common fruits, please see this helpful fructose chart. I recommend this lower level simply because if you consume processed foods or sweet beverages at all, you're virtually guaranteed to consume "hidden" sources of fructose.

Fructose Metabolism Basics

Anyone who still insists that "sugar is sugar" is way behind the times... There are in fact major differences in how your body processes different sugars, and it's important to understand that when you consume fructose, your body packs on pounds at a much higher rate than it does when you consume glucose. The following summary details the main metabolic differences between fructose and glucose to help you understand how fructose can wreak such havoc with your health, and why it's considerably worse for you than glucose:

• After eating fructose, nearly all of the metabolic burden rests on your liver. But with glucose, your liver has to break down only 20 percent.
• Every cell in your body, including your brain, utilizes glucose. Therefore, much of it is "burned up" immediately after you consume it. By contrast, fructose is primarily converted into free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL (the damaging form of cholesterol), and triglycerides, which get stored as fat.
• The fatty acids created during fructose metabolism accumulate as fat droplets in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Insulin resistance progresses to metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes.
• Fructose is the most lipophilic carbohydrate. In other words, fructose converts to activated glycerol (g-3-p), which is directly used to turn FFAs into triglycerides. The more g-3-p you have, the more fat you store. Glucose does not do this.
• When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose results in 40 calories being stored as fat. Fructose is essentially largely converted into fat!
• The metabolism of fructose by your liver creates a long list of waste products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid, which triggers your "fat switch," causing you to gain more weight.
• Glucose does not do this, as it suppresses the hunger hormone ghrelin and stimulates leptin, which suppresses your appetite. Fructose has no effect on ghrelin and interferes with your brain's communication with leptin, resulting in overeating.

How to Tame Your Sugar Cravings

As mentioned earlier, I recommend that you avoid as much sugar as possible. Do your best to keep your fructose consumption below 15-25 grams a day. This is especially important if you are overweight or have diabetes, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure.

Sugar is highly addictive, so cutting down can be a real challenge for some, especially if you're consuming very high amounts. If you're struggling with sugar addiction, I highly recommend trying an energy psychology technique called Turbo Tapping, which has helped many "soda addicts" kick their sweet habit. If you still want to use a sweetener occasionally, here's what I recommend in lieu of sugar:

1. Use the sweet herb stevia.
2. Use organic cane sugar in moderation.
3. Use organic raw honey in moderation.
4. Avoid ALL artificial sweeteners, which can damage your health even more quickly than fructose.
5. Avoid agave syrup since it is a highly processed sap that is almost all fructose. Your blood sugar will spike just as it would if you were consuming regular sugar or HFCS. Agave's meteoric rise in popularity is due to a great marketing campaign, but any health benefits present in the original agave plant are processed out.

The Anti-Aging Lifestyle

Of all the healthy lifestyle strategies I know of that can have a significant impact on your longevity, normalizing your insulin and leptin levels is probably the most important. Cutting out sugar and grains and increasing exercise are two effective ways to accomplish that.

But to truly optimize your longevity and slow down the clock, your entire lifestyle needs to be taken into account. So, here are the rest of my top "anti-aging" recommendations. Incorporating these healthy lifestyle guidelines will help set you squarely on the path to optimal health and give you the best shot at living a much longer life:

• Learn how to effectively cope with stress – Stress has a direct impact on inflammation, which in turn underlies many of the chronic diseases that kill people prematurely every day, so developing effective coping mechanisms is a major longevity-promoting factor.

  Meditation, prayer, physical activity and exercise are all viable options that can help you maintain emotional and mental equilibrium. I also strongly believe in using energy psychology tools such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to address deeper, oftentimes hidden emotional problems.

• Eat a healthy diet focused on whole, ideally organic, foods – My nutrition plan, based on natural whole foods, is your first step toward increasing your chances of living a longer, healthier life.
• Optimize Your Vitamin D Levels. This is another very powerful and inexpensive intervention that can have profound benefits on your health. In the summer you can do this for free by careful and safe sun exposure. In the winter a therapeutic level of oral vitamin D can be achieved with an oral supplement (around 8,000 units of vitamin D3 a day for most adults)
• Animal based omega-3 fats – Correcting the ratio of omega-3 to healthful omega-6 fats is a strong factor in helping you live longer. This typically means increasing your intake of animal based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil, while decreasing your intake of damaged omega-6 fats (think trans fats).

  I do not, however, recommend the new prescription strength fish oil medication, sold under the name Lovaza. Don't be fooled by their "all-natural" PR campaign. This is actually a drug to treat very high triglyceride levels. However, as with most other drugs, Lovaza comes with potentially dangerous side effects that you would not experience with a natural fish oil or krill oil supplement. Side effects include flu-like symptoms, infections, back pain, skin rashes, upset stomach, taste changes, digestive issues, chest pain, migraines and respiratory problems!

  Additionally, new research strongly suggests that 500 mg of krill oil is more potent and far less expensive.

• Get your antioxidants from foods –Good sources include blueberries, cranberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries, beans, and artichokes.
• Use coconut oil – Another excellent anti-aging food is coconut oil, known to reduce your risk of heart disease and lower your cholesterol, among other things. In fact, it's doubly beneficial because it can be both eaten and applied directly to your skin. Coconut oil can be used in place of other oils, margarine, butter, or shortening, and can be used for all your cooking needs.
• Get your resveratrol naturally – Resveratrol is one of the forerunners in the anti-aging pill race, but more than likely, by the time they've manipulated it into a synthetic pill (like the fish oil discussed above), it won't be healthy for you.

  Although resveratrol is the antioxidant found in red wine, I can't recommend drinking wine in the hopes of extending your life because alcohol is a neurotoxin that can poison your brain and harm your body's delicate hormonal balance. Instead, get your resveratrol from natural sources, such as whole grape skins and seeds, raspberries, mulberries, and peanuts.

• Exercise regularly and smartly -- Studies repeatedly show that regular, moderate-to-vigorous exercise can help prevent or delay your onset of hypertension, obesity, heart disease, osteoporosis, and the falls that lead to hip fracture. Although a lifetime of regular exercise is ideal, it's never too late to start. It's been shown that even individuals in their 70's can substantially increase both strength and endurance with exercise.

  High-intensity, interval training can also increase longevity as this specific style of training promotes human growth hormone production – yet another aspect of the longevity puzzle.

• Avoid as many chemicals, toxins, and pollutants as possible – This includes tossing out your toxic household cleaners, soaps, personal hygiene products, air fresheners, bug sprays, lawn pesticides, and insecticides, just to name a few, and replacing them with non-toxic alternatives.
• Avoid pharmaceutical drugs – Pharmaceutical drugs kill thousands of people prematurely every year – as an expected side effect of the action of the drug. And, if you adhere to a healthy lifestyle, you most likely will never need any of them in the first place.

Reference:

• ⁱ Dietary Advanced Glycation End Products and Aging,Nutrients. 2010 December; 2(12): 1247–1265

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Article by Autism Expert

Autism Facts

Autism is a kind of psychotic state of affairs overly disturbs perceptions and relationships. It is an interruption of the psychological development of an individual in which the use of language is limited, reaction to stimuli is inhibited, interpretation of the planet is impaired, and the formation of relationships is never completely established, following unique patterns. Autism Facts

In simple terms, autism is a condition that a lot people - medical professionals included - do not know a whole lot about. As a consequence, although they are better able to diagnose the condition now than they could some twenty, fifty years ago, they are as yet unable to cure autism. This has resulted in a lot of ongoing research on the matter with results popping up all the time that only serve to raise more questions. Autism Facts

The symptoms of autism often start at an early age, but many parentsare unable to observe the trends either because they really are ignorant of what to lookout for, or they are too desirous of a healthy child that they live in denial of the warning signs as they appear. A good psychologist or psychiatrist can diagnose an infant with autism from the indications that they showcase very early into their lives. The absence of the archetypal social smile that infants have when people make gestures or advances at them is a dead giveaway.

A layperson is often a bit slower on the uptake in this arena; the inability of the child to make friends, mix with other people, and communicate, as well as their general disinterest in their environments is what can help a proletarian with the diagnosis of an autistic child when they turn three years old. Don't let your child suffer anymore! Lead your child out of his world through Autism Facts program now!

Article by Trialless

The earliest signs or symptoms of Alzheimer's condition you could possibly observe tend to be enhancing forgetfulness plus moderate misunderstanding. Eventually, the ailment carries a escalating affect ones own reminiscence, your current capacity to converse and even craft coherently, your wisdom and also challenge eliminating. When you've got Alzheimer's, you most likely are the 1st to note that you'll be owning out of the ordinary issues talking about stuff and additionally preparing your opinions. And you will possibly not notice that nearly anything is without a doubt improper, regardless of whether variations can be detectable for a loved ones, acquaintances and co-workers.

Mental faculties variations involving Alzheimer's problems bring about escalating problem using:

ReminiscenceAbsolutely everyone features unexpected reminiscence lapses. You'll find it ordinary to give up an eye on when anyone use ones own tips and your investment company name connected with an friend. Although the recollection great loss linked to Alzheimer's problems is still there and also becomes uglier. People who Alzheimer's may possibly:

Do it again phrases and even requests as often as neededFail to remember interactions, prearranged visits and situations, without don't forget these people eventuallyRepeatedly lose assets, normally adding these people around not logical regionsSooner or later your investment companies of loved ones and additionally daily subjectsDisorientation and also misinterpreting spatial human relationshipsPeople who Alzheimer's ailment could burn its sensation of whatever day time it can be, the holiday, wherever they can be or maybe its up-to-date everyday living scenarios. Alzheimer's may disturb ones own brain's power to understand what we find, defining it as tough to be aware of a person's settings. Finally, these kind of troubles may result in finding forfeited around well known spots.

Engaging and additionally producingPeople that have Alzheimer's could possibly have a tough time choosing the right thoughts to distinguish stuff, show views and / or get involved in talks. Eventually, enable you to go through and also publish moreover is reduced.

Believing and additionally thinkingAlzheimer's disorder will cause issues paying attention and even believing, primarily with regards to subjective basics enjoy statistics. Most people still find it tricky to deal with ones own financial circumstances, steadiness his or her checkbooks, and also manage debts and even pay back these folks by the due date. These kind of challenges can develop so that you can incapability to understand plus take care of details.

Building choice and also conclusionsReplying properly for you to on a daily basis conditions, just like foodstuff losing for the cooker and / or surprising operating problems, results in being significantly demanding.

Considering and additionally undertaking well known thingsOnce-routine pursuits that need sequential measures, just like considering and even baking dinner and participating in a well liked gameplay, be a wrestle because disorder on. Finally, people who leading-edge Alzheimer's can fail to remember tips on how to complete standard steps including dress up and additionally showering.

Variations throughout individuality and even habitMental differences this appear throughout Alzheimer's problem make a difference profession operate and additionally how we come to feel. People who Alzheimer's may possibly expertise:

MelancholyPanicPublic revulsionAmbiance ups and downsDoubt throughout peopleHigher stubbornnessBeing easily annoyed and additionally aggressivenessVariations throughout asleep patternsWalking around.

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Article by Wain Roy

The key to ideal health resides in the sea! It might sound crazy but did you ever know that fishes carry nutrients to offer resistance against some of the most prevalent disorders and diseases. Omega 3 fatty acids are the healthiest fats required by the body. Since the human body cannot manufacture these acids on their own, it becomes increasingly important to consume them through other sources. Omega 3 fatty acids can be found in such fishes as salmon, tuna, halibut including other marine life forms as algae and krill. Omega 3 fatty acid is widely consumed across the world either in the form of omega oil tablets or omega softgels so as to meet the nutritional requirement of the body.

The advantages of Omega 3 fatty acids have also been recognized by the American Heart Association, which recommends consuming fishes like mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna, and salmon at least twice a week. Also known as essential fatty acids or polyunsaturated fatty acids, Omega 3 fatty acids play a crucial role in regulating brain function and ensuring normal growth and development of the body.

The role of these fatty acids is not just limited to the above-mentioned functions. Omega oil tablets or softgels are also prescribed for depression, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, arthritis, osteoporosis, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, hyperactivity disorder, inflammatory bowel diseases, asthma, macular degeneration, colon cancer, breast cancer, and prostrate cancer.

Besides, these essential fatty acids are also recommended for treating anorexia (eating disorder), burns and such skin disorders as photo dermatitis (caused by the harmful UV rays of the sun). Though further research is demanded, preliminary research suggests that Omega 3 fatty acids are also effective for treating certain infections and a variety of conditions as autism, ulcers, migraine headaches, preterm labor, emphysema, psoriasis, glaucoma, Lyme disease, systemic lupus erythmatosus (lupus), irregular heart beats (arrhythmias), multiple sclerosis, and panic attacks.

These innumerable health benefits can be easily availed by including fish in your diet on a regular basis. For vegetarians or fish-allergic, omega oil tablets or omega softgels should be consumed daily so as to prevent a significant deficiency of the essential fatty acids. The ingredients and the amount of fish/omega oil tablets should be noted as an excess (more than 400 mg) of Omega 3 fats might lead to adverse conditions. Just make sure to balance your diet with Omega power boosters to lead a risk-free healthy life.

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LONDON (Reuters) - More people in developed countries are overweight or obese than ever before, dooming them to years of ill health, pushing up healthcare costs and piling more pressure on health systems, a report by the OECD found on Tuesday.

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Article by Seema Gupta

A lot of teens experience acne. Not just this, lots of people continue to suffer with it even in adultness. It is basically a result of excessive secretion from the oil glands. Nevertheless you can dispose of acne quick and fast if you follow certain straightforward tricks.

It's hard to provide accurate baby acne treatment information, but we have gone thru the demand of putting together as much baby acne treatment related data as practical. Whether or not you're trying to find other info somehow related to home acne treatment,zit, blackheads or overnight treatment for acne free home cure this document should help a fair deal.

Drinking plenty of water is simply excellent for your skin. It can often help flush out dangerous toxins from your system and also calm down redness. This turns out to be a good way to reduce spots. It is highly unlucky that many of us choose not to drink enough water although we known how well it is for out body.

Under normal conditions, the sebum produced by the sebaceous glands acts as a shield against bacteria and parasites in general. In those willing to acne nonetheless the sebaceous glands show an increased activity that will cause the appearance of this skin disease.

AT THIS JUNCTURE -- As can clearly be seen from this little information already given that this article is in some way or demeanour related to baby acne treatment. It's not only related but may also be very helpful when looking for info regarding acne medicine, heat rash, over the counter acne medications formulas get a free, skin care.

A Consistent Exercise Routine It is terribly challenging for many of us to start and keep a consistent exercise routine. Without one Nonetheless, you are missing out on a strong acne fighter. Why? Negative self-esteem and depression likely make a contribution to worsen acne.

Even though expert medics have always said that a person should ingest from six-eight cups of drinking water daily, many of us only enjoy some of this. Standard water serves as being a natural flushing allow for your body. The water lets you control human hormones by simply watering down each one of them, although it equally functions as the all natural solution in order to get rid of contaminants within the body.

Many of us searching for <u>baby acne treatment</u> also searched online for treatment for acne scarring, intense pulsed light treatment, and even get rid of acne free best acne washes,facial skin care product.

Trying a topical gel or taking an anti-acne supplement that contains these forceful ingredients at high concentrations can help you cure this condition quicker. But you want to be aware of that so as to get shot of this condition once and for all you're going to need to achieve hormonal balance.A number of folks have experienced excellent results by putting tomato and cucumber slices on acne scars. Tomatoes have acids, which toughens the skin and cucumber helps to cools and ease the skin.

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