Advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) are the result of a chain of chemical reactions after an initial glycation reaction. The intermediate reactions are known, variously, as Amadori, Shiff and Maillard reactions after the researchers who first described them. The literature is imprecise in usages of these terms. For example, Maillard reaction products are sometimes considered an intermediate step and other times as AGEs. Side products generated in the intermediate steps may be oxidizing agents such as hydrogen peroxide, and others, such as beta amyloid proteins (Miyata, 1993). AGEs may be formed external to the body (exogenous) by heating, or cooking, sugars with fats or proteins (Koschinsky,1997); or, inside the body (endogenous). AGEs may be less, or more, reactive than the initial sugars they were formed from. Immunoreativity of AGEs may be 200 times higher when cooked with fructose (Koschinsky 1997). Many critical cells in the body such as lungs, liver, kidney and pancreas have Receptors for Advanced Glycation Endproducts (RAGES) that, when populated with the more reactive AGEs, contribute to age related chronic inflammatory diseases such as atherosclerosis, asthma and arthritis. There may be some chemicals, such as aminoguanidine that limit the formation of AGEs (Wells-Knecht,1995).

References

• Theodore Koschinsky, Ci-Jiang He, Tomoko Mitsuhashi, Richard Bucala, Cecilia Liu, Christina Buenting, Kirsten Heitmann, and Helen Vlassara Orally absorbed reactive glycation products (glycotoxins): An environmental risk factor in diabetic nephropathy Medical Sciences 1997 June 10; 94(12): 6474–6479.

pubmed

• Wells-Knecht KJ, Zyzak DV, Litchfield JE, Thorpe SR, Baynes JW.

Mechanism of autoxidative glycosylation: identification of glyoxal and arabinose as intermediates in the autoxidative modification of proteins by glucose. Biochemistry. 1995 Mar 21;34(11):3702-9 . PMID 7893666.

• T Miyata, O Oda, R Inagi, Y Iida, N Araki, N Yamada, S Horiuchi, N Taniguchi, K Maeda, and T Kinoshita. beta 2-Microglobulin modified with advanced glycation end products is a major component of hemodialysis-associated amyloidosis. J Clin Invest. 1993 September; 92(3): 1243–1252. pubmed.