20 replies to this topic

[Karomesis]

I searched and searched, but could find nothing on whey protein and AGE's.

I am not an expert in protein metabolism or glycation, I know a few basic things concerning the research into AGE/ALE inhibitors and early/late phase reactions, but that's it.

My question is: does the nature of the protein consumed have a direct correlation to the amount of AGE's produced? or is it largely irrelevant?

my guess is that it does matter, but only to a degree. [glasses] since there are some "experts" here (Zoo) on whey I figured we could get somewhere with this.

[health_nutty]

Interesting question. I'm certainly no expert, but AGE's are typically related to how high a temperature it is processed. Undenatured whey is heated at a low temp, so it would make sense that it is low AGE as well.

[Karomesis]

Undenatured whey is heated at a low temp, so it would make sense that it is low AGE as well.

I forgot all about that. what brand do you use Health_nutty?
I usually go with gold standard cause it's the most convenient. But I've considered switching to AOR or Jarrow.

[ajnast4r]

I forgot all about that. what brand do you use Health_nutty?
I usually go with gold standard cause it's the most convenient. But I've considered switching to AOR or Jarrow.

go w/ jarrow imo. solid brand, solid product.

ON is lower quality, and AOR is too expensive

[health_nutty]

I forgot all about that. what brand do you use Health_nutty?
I usually go with gold standard cause it's the most convenient. But I've considered switching to AOR or Jarrow.

I actually don't use whey protein.

[scuzzy1]

I would think about L-carnosine instead there are studies involving L-carnosine and reduction of glycation and AGE's. I get mine from source naturals. I have also seen some evidence that aspirin reduces glycation but I would not take a large amount if your on resveratrol because aspirin is a blood thinner and so is resveratrol hence too many will lead to free bleeding. Especially since aspirin can cause stomach bleeding anyway. L-carnosine for this reason is far better.

[scuzzy1]

Also as to your question about proteins. It isn't the quantity but the quality. You could eat all the protein you want as long as it doesn't contain any AGE's in it and you don't oxidate the proteins etc. I know that doesn't necessarily help but look at it this way your body will create the same amount of AGE's either way. It's whether or not you ingest any new ones so eating protein isn't the problem, it's whether or not your eating AGE's (burnt protein, oxidized protein, etc.) I have to add though that this is based upon what I have read.

[tintinet]

Also as to your question about proteins. It isn't the quantity but the quality. You could eat all the protein you want as long as it doesn't contain any AGE's in it and you don't oxidate the proteins etc. I know that doesn't necessarily help but look at it this way your body will create the same amount of AGE's either way. It's whether or not you ingest any new ones so eating protein isn't the problem, it's whether or not your eating AGE's (burnt protein, oxidized protein, etc.) I have to add though that this is based upon what I have read.

IIRC, the amount of AGEs in one's tissues is affected by the AGEs consumed (i.e., what one eats does matter WRT AGE formation).

I agree carnosine is beneficial. Aspirin may also reduce one's risk of developing a host of malignancies (colon cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, pancreatic, etc.)

[Karomesis]

some interesting replies guys, thanks.

[niner]

IIRC, the amount of AGEs in one's tissues is affected by the AGEs consumed (i.e., what one eats does matter WRT AGE formation).

I don't see how that can be. If a protein that we eat is glyco-oxidized in some way, it might act as a local irritant in the gut, but in order to get incorporated in new protein, it would need to be broken down into amino acids, then they would have to be reassembled into new protein. The reassembly mechanisms have to recognize individual amino acids, which is accomplished by steric and electronic recognition. The sterics are the dominant force, in that if an amino acid has a sugar on the end of the sidechain, it is unlikely to fit in the recognition site. I've looked around on medline, and didn't see any evidence that glycated dietary proteins are incorporated into new "pre-glycated" protein. There are some papers (that seem a bit speculative, from the abstracts) suggesting that AGEd dietary protein can contribute to inflammation. Below is a paper that suggest dietary AGEs are OK, on the basis of in vivo work.

I don't consider browned protein to be "good" for me, so I kind of steer clear of it, but not to the point of impacting my enjoyment of food. I take two AOR AGE Amadori and two 500mg carnosine per day, one before breakfast and one before dinner to ward off internal glycation.

Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2005 Jun;1043:467-73.
Are food advanced glycation end products toxic in biological systems?
Chuyen NV, Arai H, Nakanishi T, Utsunomiya N.
Japan Women's University, Department of Food and Nutrition, 2-8-1 Mejiro-dai, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 8681, Japan. nvc@fc.jwu.ac.jp

Model food advanced glycation end products (AGEs) were prepared as glycated casein (GC) and glycated soy protein (GS) by the reaction of casein or soy protein with glucose at 50 degrees C, relative humidity 75% for seven days in a powder state. These browned proteins were used as materials for animal experiments. A mixture of 20% glycated proteins (GC:GS = 1:1) diet was fed to streptozotocin (STZ)-diabetic rats for 11 weeks. The results showed that: (1) fructoselysine was observed in the hepatic portal veins, arteries, and femoral veins of rats fed with glycated proteins after 2 h of feeding; (2) blood sugar of glycated protein-fed rats was lower than that of diabetic rats fed with intact protein, while HbA1C in blood and glucose in urine of both groups were similar; (3) lipid peroxidation status in serum, liver, and kidney of both groups was similar; (4) superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione-S-transferase (GST) enzymatic activity in serum and liver of both groups were also similar; (5) there were no differences in degree of cataract formation and concentration of glucose, fructose, sorbitol, and lipid peroxide in the lenses of both groups. From the above results, it can be estimated that food AGEs are not toxic in biological systems, and reactive oxygen species increase in diabetic rats is not caused by glycated proteins but by other pathways.
PMID: 16037268

[tintinet]

1: Am J Kidney Dis. 2003 Sep;42(3):532-8.Click here to read Links
Dietary glycotoxins correlate with circulating advanced glycation end product levels in renal failure patients.
Uribarri J, Peppa M, Cai W, Goldberg T, Lu M, Baliga S, Vassalotti JA, Vlassara H.

Department of Medicine, Division of Nephrology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY 10029, USA. jaime.uribarri@mssm.edu

BACKGROUND: Levels of advanced glycation end products (AGEs), well-known proinflammatory compounds, are markedly elevated in patients with renal failure, raising the speculation that they have a role as cardiovascular risk factors in this population. Although elevated AGE levels in patients with renal failure have been attributed to impaired renal clearance and increased endogenous AGE formation, recent data suggest an important role for diet as a source of AGEs. METHODS: To determine the relationship between dietary AGE content and serum AGE levels, a cross-sectional study was performed in our long-term dialysis patients. Dietary AGE intake was estimated by means of dietary records and questionnaires, and sera were obtained for measurement of 2 well-characterized AGEs, carboxymethyl-lysine (CML) and methylglyoxal (MG) derivatives. RESULTS: The study population included 189 patients; 139 hemodialysis and 50 peritoneal dialysis patients. Serum CML level correlated significantly with dietary AGE intake, based on either 3-day food records (r = 0.5; P = 0.003) or dietary questionnaires (r = 0.22; P = 0.03). Although no correlation was observed with nutrient intake (protein, fat, saturated fat, or carbohydrate), both serum CML and MG levels correlated with blood urea nitrogen (r = 0.2; P = 0.03 and r = 0.2; P = 0.02, respectively) and serum albumin levels (r = 0.16; P = 0.04 and r = 0.18; P = 0.02, respectively). CONCLUSION: Data indicate that dietary AGE content, independently of other diet constituents, is an important contributor to excess serum AGE levels in patients with renal failure. Moreover, the lack of correlation between serum AGE levels and dietary protein, fat, and carbohydrate intake indicates that a reduction in dietary AGE content can be obtained safely without compromising the content of obligatory nutrients.

Well, there's quite a bit of study attesting to the detrimental effect of ingesting AGEs, whether or not one believes they are directly absorbed from dietary sources.

[Brainbox]

"Data indicate that dietary AGE content, independently of other diet constituents, is an important contributor to excess serum AGE levels in patients with renal failure"

Would that mean that these AGE'd proteins / amino acids are also used in building new protein structures?

[niner]

Would that mean that these AGE'd proteins / amino acids are also used in building new protein structures?

I still don't think there is evidence of incorporation of glycated amino acids into new proteins, although I can believe that dietary AGEs are proinflammatory. So while dietary AGEs are probably bad for you, they are bad in a different way than endogenous AGEs. They might be a cardiovascular risk factor (of unknown severity), but they probably won't wreck your collagen or crystallins.

[tintinet]

Experimental evidence suggests a small amount of Amadori end products is absorbed, true:

1: Nahrung. 2001 Jun;45(3):177-81.Links
Metabolic transit of Amadori products.
Erbersdobler HF, Faist V.

University of Kiel, Institute of Human Nutrition and Food Science, Duesternbrooker Weg 17, D-24105 Kiel, Germany. erbersdobler@nutrfoodsc.uni-kiel.de

In several studies, the absorption and urinary excretion of free and protein bound Amadori products were measured in rats and humans. Both, in vitro tests with everted intestinal sac preparations and in vivo experiments, showed that there is no active intestinal transport of these compounds but an absorption by diffusion. Trials with tissue slices have shown that there was an uptake into the cells of the liver, kidneys and muscles. Metabolism of Amadori products, if it exists in animals, tends to be very low. Micoorganisms in the large intestines decompose the Amadori products almost completely. The profile of urinary excretion of Amadori products after the ingestion of test meals showed a rapid elimination of the absorbed part, while the fecal output, although low because of the hind gut fermentation, persisted up to 3 days. Only 1-3% of the ingested amounts of protein bound Amadori products were recovered in the urine, which suggests a low absorption rate.

PMID: 11455784 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

But intake does increase inflammation and oxidative stress, and therefore results in formation of endogenous AGEs.

Whatever the mechanism, it's not good to eat AGEs, ISTM.

[niner]

But "absorbed" here means that a small percentage of Amadori products make their way into the blood, not that they are incorporated into proteins. The fact that they are not actively transported suggests that they are not being recognized as amino acids by the gut transport systems that are specific to amino acids. That in turn would suggest that in protein synthesis, where sidechain specificity is paramount (unlike in the gut, where it's not as critical), the modified amino acids that do make it past the gut wall will essentially be ignored and excreted in urine.

The only way I can see dietary AGEs doing long term damage would go something like this: Of the small fraction of glycated residues that are absorbed, some small fraction of those would be in a reactive state such that they could bond to a macromolecule. The vast majority of those should hit circulating proteins that are present in large amount, like albumin. A few could indeed tag long lived proteins such as collagens, and therein would lie the problem. I suspect that this effect is dwarfed by endogenous AGE generation, but I don't have data to back up that hunch.

At any rate, we seem to be in agreement that eating lots of AGEs is not a great idea.

[wwxx]

Am I understanding correctly that perhaps a cold filtered whey protein supplement might be a better choice over the standard?
I usually buy from trueprotein.com and design my own protein combo so that I can have at least a little control over what type I consume.

[tintinet]

"Whey Protein Isolates (WPIs) generally contain as much as 90-96% protein. Research has found that only whey proteins in their natural undenatured state (i.e. native conformational state) have biological activity. Processing whey protein to remove the lactose, fats, etc. without losing its biological activity takes special care by the manufacturer. Maintaining the natural undenatured state of the protein is essential to its anti-cancer and immune-modulating activity. The protein must be processed under low temperature and/or low acid conditions as not to "denature" the protein. WPIs contain >90% protein content with minimal lactose and virtually no fat. "

From Will Brink's Whey info...

[mike250]

so WPC is what we're after or how about a blend from different sources.

Edited by mike250, 03 August 2007 - 02:43 AM.

[niner]

"Whey Protein Isolates (WPIs) generally contain as much as 90-96% protein. Research has found that only whey proteins in their natural undenatured state (i.e. native conformational state) have biological activity. Processing whey protein to remove the lactose, fats, etc. without losing its biological activity takes special care by the manufacturer. Maintaining the natural undenatured state of the protein is essential to its anti-cancer and immune-modulating activity. The protein must be processed under low temperature and/or low acid conditions as not to "denature" the protein. WPIs contain >90% protein content with minimal lactose and virtually no fat. "

From Will Brink's Whey info...

What keeps the whey proteins from being denatured (not to mention cleaved) in the stomach? The question of biologically active proteins being orally active comes up from time to time. I've never heard a good explanation for how a protein both evades degradation in the stomach and gets into systemic circulation. I think there are some pathological conditions where the gut is "leaky" and proteins can slip through. Anyone have any ideas on how a healthy person absorbs intact proteins?

[tintinet]

Well, apparently, the peptides and proteins of whey are not entirely "degraded" before absorption by the GI tract, whatever the various mechanisms. Complex issue though.

Some clarifications here.

[tintinet]

I'd go with a high quality, undenatured isolate, cost permitting....