The Little Known Secrets of Slowing Aging by Reducing Glycation

One issue that is rarely discussed is the process of glycation , that is , glucose modification of proteins in the body . Glycation is something you have enormous control over and thereby can slow numerous phenomena of aging .

You can reduce the likelihood , for instance , of developing cataracts , reduce the likelihood of thinning skin and age spots , reduce risk for cardiovascular disease , reduce potential for joint deterioration . It's also something you can measure and track .

So in this episode of Defiant Health , let's discuss how you can easily and effectively minimize the process of glycation and thereby take over this important aspect of aging . Later in the podcast let's talk about Defiant Health's sponsors .

That include Paleo Valley , who provides fermented grass-fed beef sticks , bone broth , protein rich in collagen , organic supergreens and low-carb superfood bars , and now 100% grass-fed and finished pastured meats . And Biodiquest , who provides unique probiotics such as sugar shift to support healthy blood sugars . Simple slumber to assist in obtaining healthy sleep .

Antibiotic antidote to help you recover after a course of antibiotics , probiotics crafted with the unique property of combining synergistic microbes . In this relatively brief conversation , I want to share with you some little-known secrets on how to take control over many aspects of aging , by addressing something called endogenous glycation .

And all that means is , first of all , it's endogenous , it's a process that occurs in the body . I did make that distinction because there's also a process called exogenous glycation , that is , ingesting things that lead to this process of glycation . We're not going to talk about that . That's not quite as important . That's a different kind of story .

Today we're going to focus on endogenous glycation , that is , glycation occurs within the body due to the foods you eat . Now glycation refers to glucose modification of proteins , that is , blood glucose , blood sugar reacts with the amine group of proteins , the NH4 group of proteins , and this is an irreversible reaction .

Once you have a glycation reaction the reaction between a sugar glucose and a protein it is irreversible and this is part of the aging process , as it occurs in virtually every organ of the body . Now there's a low level of glycation going on all the time , even when your blood glucose , your blood sugar , is normal , even while you're sleeping .

But every time your blood glucose goes above 100 milligrams per deciliter , the glucose begins to react with the proteins in your body . So , as you can imagine , if you had a bowl of oatmeal which we're told is healthy , of course , right , if your blood glucose in a non-diabetic is about 150 milligrams , you are glycating like crazy .

Or say you have a slice of pizza conventional pizza and your blood glucose is 170 . As a non-diabetic , you are glycating proteins all throughout your body .

Now , if it's worse , if you're a pre-diabetic or type 2 diabetic , in which case a bowl of oatmeal and a pre-diabetic would typically give you a blood glucose above 200 , and a type 2 diabetic well towards 300 .

So those people glycate like crazy and those are instances , those are examples of accelerated aging from this process of glycation , glucose modification of proteins . So blood glucose is something you want to pay a lot of attention to . In fact , one of the rules I have in my programs is the blood glucose no change rule .

If you were doing finger stick blood glucose , for instance , let's say you start at 90 milligrams per deciliter and you eat something 30 to 60 minutes later after the start of that meal , we check another blood glucose , looking for the peak blood glucose , and we look for no change .

So if you start at 90 , you want a blood glucose of about 90 , accepting that these devices are accurate to plus or minus about 10 milligrams . So if we went from 90 to 100 , that's essentially no change .

But if we went from 90 , say , to 180 , as it would say with a donut or a bagel , that means you're glycating proteins at a rapid rate all throughout your body , just like the pre-diabetics and type 2 diabetics do . So let's talk about some of the changes that can occur in the various Proteins throughout the body .

So if your blood glucose goes above 100 milligrams per deciliter and glucose reacts with the proteins in the lenses of your eyes , so called crystalline proteins in the lenses of your eyes , you develop opacities . That adds up over time to lead to cataracts .

If you glycate the Proteins in your retina , it leads to deterioration of vision and can even lead to blindness long term . One of the proteins that's ubiquitous in the body in virtue all organs is collagen . Collagen is the structural protein in your skin and dermal layer of skin , in your joint cartilage , in your brain , in your heart .

Collagen is virtually everywhere in your body and collagen is very glycation prone . So when your blood glucose exceeds 100 , you glycate the collagen in your skin , in the dermal layer of skin , that over time leads to fragmentation and Deterioration of your collagen and it breaks down and your skin becomes thinner and it also develops age spots .

So glycation of collagen in the dermal layer of skin accelerates skin aging .

If you glycate the collagen in your joint cartilage Joint cartilage is about 70% collagen if you glycate that collagen , your joints Cartilage becomes brittle and stiff and it breaks down over time and that leads to bone-on bone arthritis , so that high blood glucose via glycation also erodes your joint cartilage .

The immunoglobulins , the antibodies in your in your blood Stream that protect you from viruses and bacteria and other invaders , is also Glycation prone and therefore in pairs it impairs your immune response . So those antibodies , those immunoglobulins , are prone to glycation and it pairs their ability to protect you from infections . Insulin is also glycation prone .

So insulin , of course , is responsible for allowing blood glucose to enter the body's cells . But when insulin is glycated it's less able to do its job and you're more likely to develop insulin resistance . That is a poor response into insulin and that's a fundamental process that underlies risk for heart disease , dementia , cancers and other health conditions .

So glycating insulin is a very bad thing , and every time your blood glucose goes above a hundred , you are glycating your insulin . Now let's pause for a minute to let me tell you something about Defiant Health's sponsors . The Defiant Health podcast is sponsored by Paleo Valley makers of delicious grass-fed beef sticks , healthy snack bars and other products .

We're very picky around here and insist that any product we consider has no junk ingredients like carrageenan , carboxymethylcellulose , sucralose and , of course , no added sugars . All Paleo Valley products contain no gluten nor grains . In fact , I find Paleo Valley products among the cleanest in their category .

One of the habits I urge everyone to get into is to include at least one , if not several , servings of fermented foods per day in their lifestyles . Unlike nearly all other beef sticks available , paleo Valley grass-fed beef sticks are all naturally fermented , meaning they contain probiotic bacterial species .

And now Paleo Valley is expanding their Wild Pastures program that provides 100% grass-fed , grass-finished pastured beef and pastured chicken and pork raised without herbicides or pesticides , and they just added wild-cut seafood caught from the waters of Bristol Bay , alaska .

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bars . Listeners to the Defiant Health podcast receive a 15% discount by going to paleovalicom .

Backward slash defiant health and I'd like to welcome Defiant Health's newest sponsor , biodicuest . I've had numerous conversations with Biodicuest founders Martha Carlin , an academic microbiologist , dr Raul Cano .

They have formulated unique synergistic probiotic products that incorporate what are called collaborative or guild effects , that is , groups of microbes that collaborate with each other via specific metabolites , potentially providing synergistic benefits . They have designed their sugar shift probiotic to support healthy blood sugars . Simple slumber to support sleep .

Ideal immunity to support a healthy immune response . Heart-centered that supports several aspects of heart health . And antibiotic antidote designed to support recovery of the gastrointestinal microbiome after a course of antibiotics . The Biodicuest probiotics are , I believe , among the most effective of all probiotic choices for specific health effects .

Enter the discount code UNDOC15 , undoc All Caps 15 , for a 15% discount for Defiant Health listeners . Another group of particles that are very glycation prone are LDL particles low density lipoprotein particles . When your doctor gives you an LDL cholesterol , what he's trying to do is very crudely guesstimate how many LDL particles there are .

It's not about the cholesterol . The cholesterol is nothing more than an indirect marker for these particles . But it's very unreliable . It's very inaccurate . We can actually measure LDL particles so let's focus on these LDL particles . Ldl particles are glycation prone , especially if they're abnormally small .

So it's kind of a double whammy in that when you eat something that's made of sugar or the amylopectin A of wheat and grains , so any sugar or the starch of grains is converted to VLDL particles in the liver . That in turn leads to formation of small LDL particles .

So consumption of wheat , grains and sugars leads to formation of small LDL particles , and small LDL particles are eight fold more prone to glycation than large , normal LDL particles . So you can see the double action here . You consume something that has the starch , the amylopectin A starch of grains or sugars , and your liver converts it to VLDL particles .

That in turn creates small LDL particles that are glycation prone . That is how heart disease is caused by consumption of grains and sugars via small LDL particles that are very , very glycation prone , and so it's actually glycoxidized , glycated and oxidized LDL particles that leads to heart disease .

You can see that this idea of LDL cholesterol is outdated , should not even be used anymore . It's glycoxidized LDL particles that are the actual cause for coronary disease , heart attack , sudden cardiac death , but it starts with consumption of wheat grains and sugars and then glycation of small LDL particles .

Another group of proteins that are glycation prone are some of the structures within DNA and the proteins that surround DNA . That can lead to mutations and that can lead to such things as cancers . So that has to be better mapped out , but the research is suggesting that DNA and related proteins are glycation prone and that can be very dangerous .

Now you have access beyond doing finger stick blood glucose to keep your blood glucose from rising . That is my blood glucose , no change rule . You also have access to another test , hemoglobin A1C , that common test that's meant to reflect your blood glucose over the preceding 90 days or so .

Hemoglobin A1C is also glycated hemoglobin , so that measure gives you an idea how much you've been glycating the last 90 days or so . 90 days because that's the turnover rate of hemoglobin , because recall that glycation is irreversible but hemoglobin is constantly being turned over . So , even though it's irreversible , the glycation process is irreversible .

You get new hemoglobin that's then susceptible to glycation . Now what's an ideal level of hemoglobin A1C ? We want to keep glycation right to a minimum . So we try to keep hemoglobin A1C to 5.0% or less . It's very typical in my programs that people have hemoglobin A1C values of about 4.7 to 4.8% very low .

Now the doctor will tell you such things as 5.7% is okay . Is that true ? It absolutely is not true .

If you have a hemoglobin A1C of 5.7% , the doctor says , well , you're in the pre-diabetic range , but we'll just watch it right , and doesn't tell you that the risk for cardiovascular death is 300% higher at that level and that at 5.7% , you've been glycating the proteins and the lenses of your eyes , right Kidney tissue , your LDL particles , your insulin , your

antibodies , your joint cartilage and you've been exposed to accelerated aging . So please do not accept that advice that hemoglobin A1C is of , say , 5.7% or 6.3% are okay . They're not okay . Index of accelerated aging . So we try to get our hemoglobin A1C to 5.0% or lower . How do you do all this ? What's easy Don't eat foods that raise blood glucose , right ?

So what foods are those ? Wheat , grains and sugars . Those are the foods that raise blood glucose to very high levels and you thereby glycate the protein in your body .

We also address common nutrient deficiencies , nutrients that are lacking in most modern lifestyles Vitamin D , magnesium , iodine and omega-3 fatty acids and when you put them all together you get a synergistic effect on minimizing insulin resistance . So when you're sensitive to insulin that is , you don't have insulin resistance your blood glucose tends to be lower .

It doesn't tend to rise to very high levels . If you're insulin resistant that is , the cells of your body , your brain , muscles , other tissues don't respond well to insulin , then your blood glucose tends to be higher and you can have very high blood glucose is eating any kind of carbohydrate .

Another thing we do is we address dysbiosis , disrupted microbial composition of the colon and SIBO small intestine bacterial overgrowth . When you take action to correct your disrupted gastrointestinal microbiome , you reduce the process of endotoxemia , that is , the trillions of microbes living in your colon and small intestine live and die rapidly .

They only survive for a few hours at a time . So there's a rapid turnover of trillions of microbes when they die , especially fecal microbes In the colon and fecal microbes that in so many people have invaded the small intestine , the 24 feet of small intestine .

When those fecal microbes , like E coli and salmonella , die , they release some of their toxic components and one of the toxic components is called endotoxin , a component of their cell wall and endotoxin is able to enter the bloodstream , especially if those microbes have made it into the small intestine , because the small intestine is very permeable .

So you get endotoxemia when endotoxin enters the bloodstream and endotoxemia is a major driver of insulin resistance and thereby higher levels of blood glucose . So when we correct this situation , you have less endotoxemia and lower blood glucose and thereby less glycation . You've slowed the pace of aging . So there you have it Glycation .

Endogenous glycation is the process in which glucose reacts with the proteins of the body and impairs them , impairs their action , whether it's insulin or an LDL particle , and leads to all manner of modern health conditions .

Now , if you'd like more detail on exactly how we managed to correct dysbiosis and SIBO , please see my other episodes of the Defiant Health Podcast , see my blog , which is drdavisinfinitehealthcom .

You can join my inner circle , drdavisinfinitehealthcom inner circle , where we discuss this via live Zoom , as well as discussion forum and a private Facebook page , and we have protocols on how to do all this , including how to make SIBO yogurt what I call SIBO yogurt .

That is a collection of microbes that so far has been very effective in eradicating SIBO , just by making something that looks and smells like yogurt . It's not yogurt . Of course you can't buy this in the store .

We fermented ourselves in a very specific way to get a very high bacterial count of about 300 billion microbes per half cup serving and that has worked incredibly well unexpectedly well in eradicating SIBO

. And , of course , if you want more detail on the diet we follow , that is no wheat , no grains , no sugar . That's all detail . Also in my blog there are episodes of this podcast , as well as my wheat belly book , especially the revised and expanded edition .

Now , if you've learned something by listening to this episode of the Defiant Health podcast , I invite you to subscribe to your favorite podcast directory . Post a review , post a comment , tell your friends . Thanks for listening , you , you .