What Is The Reason Behind Aging: What Makes You Age Faster and How to Prevent It?

I think that if people had the opportunity to choose one “super power”, they could possess, it would be to be healthy and stop aging. They would choose to be 20-30 years old forever and take advantage of  the physical abilities, that a young, strong body provides.

Probably our bodies are genetically programmed ( like a machine), to have particular physical abilities, in a given period of their life cycle. As time goes by, some body functions decrease their work capacity, and some are lost completely.

This is the unpleasant, but the inevitable side of aging. What happens if our biological age, does not correspond our chronological age?

In other words, what might be the reason women and men who are just 25 years old, to have the biological age of 40-50 year old person?

What is it that accelerates the aging process and turns extremely young men, to become victims of the health problems more inherent for elder people?

Often times, the reason hides behind AGE (advanced glycation end products). Calm down and do not abandon me. Keep reading. It just sounds complicated.

In reality glycation is a process, where sugar and protein form a cross-link connection, in the absence of an enzyme that could control the reaction.

This process disturbs the functions of the molecules in our body and damages the collagen of the blood vessels, by opening the doors for hormonal imbalances, cardiovascular diseases and other decaying processes.

AGEs is the name of the end products, responsible for the stiffening of the arteries, the clouds in the lenses of our eyes, higher blood sugar and a domino effect of other diseases.

Diseases, which are usually linked to aging, but nowadays are really common among young people. I’d even go further and say that year after year, the threshold for such diseases, gets lower and some of them are becoming the “normal”, common, inevitable condition of our health.

As a rule, aging is inevitable( or at least until this moment, we don’t know how to avoid it). The more we age, the more AGEs, could be found in our bodies. AGEs lead to tissue decay. They have no functional use- they can’t be used by our bodies, in its strive for survival.

I will divert a little bit and give you an example that you will understand later on.

When you toast bread, oxidative reactions, lead to AGEs formation in the proteins and sugars, available in wheat. These AGEs, change bread, and turn it from soft and pale, into stiff and brown. The reason behind this are proteins and sugars which make a “cross-link”, which stiffens the bread.

That’s exactly what happens in your body, when AGEs for and cross link with proteins. This leads to stiffening of your cells and tissues, which in turn makes them brittle and stiff.

Glycation happens when sugar, dissolves in water and cross links with proteins. That’s how AGEs form.

As I mentioned, aging is inevitable, as well as the formation of AGEs. What matters is the rate, at which the end products are being formed and their quantity.

When blood sugar levels are in reasonable limits, these reactions and the formation of AGEs, appear slowly, at a rate and in a quantity, which could be “cleaned” by the white blood cells ( the defenders of our bodies). Our kidneys in turn, clean these end products from our blood and exert them from the body.

This probably is already making you consider the fact, that too much AGEs, leads to our kidney’s inability to exert this waste products and retain proteins, which lead to stiffening of our arteries, damaging the cartilage in our joints and loss of brain cells’ functionality.

Here is how the whole process of AGE formation happens:

The increased levels of glucose, available for body’s tissues, leads to glucose reacting with proteins, and forming a cross-link or in other words a molecule combining glucose and protein.

The problem comes from the fact that AGEs, accumulate where they sit and form something like a clot from useless debris, which are resistant to our body’s digestive and “cleaning” mechanisms. This means that our body can’t get rid of them.

The higher is our blood sugar level, the more AGEs are being formed and the faster our tissues decay.

A vivid example about all of this is diabetes. Diabetes and diseases which accompany it, are a sign about what happens when you have chronically elevated blood sugar levels and when AGEs formation is accelerated.

If you give it a thought, diseases which “accompany” diabetes, are diseases which are considered normal diversions from our health status, as we age

The problem is that diabetes, is a disease that strikes a lot of young people.

Actually diabetics have 50% higher blood levels of AGEs, compared to people who do not have diabetes.

As I mentioned, the rate at which AGEs are formed, is proportional to the time, blood sugar levels are kept high. This means that chronically elevated blood sugar levels, accelerate AGEs formation, and lead to faster tissue decay, thus accelerating the aging process and welcoming a bunch of other diseases.

There are tests which could establish the rate of AGEs formation. There are some normal limits, which just characterize the normal aging process. Beyond this limits, the faster rate of AGEs formation is an indication that our body doesn’t function properly.

This information is enough for today. Tomorrow you can expect the second part of my post, where I will explain you for the different resources of AGEs; I will tell you which foods contain the most AGEs and I will recommend you how to change your behavior, so you can make sure that your lifestyle is not contributing to your 30 year old body, to function like the body of a 70 year old person.

I think that if people had the opportunity to choose one “super power”, they could possess, it would be to be healthy and stop aging. They would choose to be 20-30 years old forever and take advantage of  the physical abilities, that a young, strong body provides.

Read HERE What Makes You Age Faster and How to Prevent It.

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And here are two pictures from yesterday and a video from my workout: