High-Temperature Cooking Allegedly Linked to Alzheimer’s Disease

A study has allegedly linked the advanced glycation end products (AGEs) formed when “food is cooked at high temperatures or aged for a long time” to increased Alzheimer’s disease (AD) risk. Lorena Perrone and William B. Grant, “Observational and Ecological Studies of Dietary Advanced Glycation End Products in National Diets and Alzheimer’s Disease Incidence and Prevalence,” Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, February 2015. According to a February 3 IOS Press news release, AGEs not only “increase the risk of various chronic diseases through several mechanisms including increased inflammation and oxidative stress,” but can bind to a receptor that “transports beta amyloid proteins across the blood-brain barrier and contributes to the development of Alzheimer’s disease.”

Using a Mount Sinai School of Medicine study and dietary data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization to estimate the AGE content of national diets, the study’s authors evidently reported that “reduced dietary AGE significantly correlates with reduced AD incidence,” while “estimates of dietary AGEs in the national diets corresponded well with AD prevalence data.”

“In typical national diets, we found that meat made the highest contribution of AGEs, followed by vegetable oils, cheese, and fish,” state the authors in the news release. “Foods such as cereals/grains, eggs, fruit, legumes, milk, nuts, starchy roots, and vegetables generally make low contributions to the total amount of AGEs in a diet, either because they are generally prepared at low temperatures or since they comprise smaller portions of diets.”

Issue 554