AGEs (Advanced Glycation End-Products)

Aajonus described AGEs using the analogy of exhaust. Just as burning fuel in a car engine produces carbon monoxide as a byproduct, burning carbohydrates as glycogen in the human body produces advanced glycation end products as a byproduct. The comparison was meant to convey that these are not incidental concerns but unavoidable chemical consequences of using a particular fuel source.

The process works as follows. The body takes dietary carbohydrate, whether from fruit, grains, potatoes, vegetables, juice, or any other source, and converts it into glycogen. The pancreas produces insulin to facilitate this conversion. The glycogen is then used as blood sugar to run the nervous system and brain. The waste product of that utilization is the advanced glycation end product. According to Aajonus, this happens regardless of whether the carbohydrate is raw or cooked. Even fresh, ripe, raw fruit creates AGEs when metabolized this way.

Cooked carbohydrates create an additional and more severe problem. Aajonus explained that when carbohydrates are cooked, the body often reads them as already having been burned, as though the glycogen production step has already occurred. Rather than converting the cooked starch into glycogen first, the body skips that step and converts it directly into an advanced glycation end product, which he also called a glycotoxin. This means cooked carbohydrates can produce AGEs at the same 70 to 90% rate but bypass even the partial energy benefit that raw carbohydrates provide before producing their waste. The body simply stores the glycotoxin immediately and directly.

Aajonus described AGEs as sticky substances, thick like syrup or molasses, and this viscosity was central to his explanation of how they damage the body. When AGEs get into the blood, they make the blood sticky, causing cells to clump together. When they enter the neurological fluids, those fluids become thick and difficult to move through, causing synapses to misfire and axons to send signals in wrong directions. When they accumulate in the lymphatic system, lymph becomes sluggish, slowing the body's ability to detoxify and circulate immune materials.

He described the neurological consequences in particular detail. The synapse misfires. Ganglions become sluggish. The axons slow. Thinking becomes unclear, spacey, and unfocused. People lose their train of thought. Mental clarity deteriorates. Aajonus often pointed to the common experience of children eating cereals, donuts, and pancakes before school and then being unable to focus or learn as a direct consequence of the sticky neurological environment created by AGE accumulation from those high-carbohydrate breakfasts.

He also described AGEs as having a particular affinity for skin, organs, and glands, but not primarily for bones, muscles, connective tissue, or tendons. When stored in the skin, AGEs cause dryness, wrinkling, sagging, and a loss of elasticity. He noted that this is why the body dries out and skins sags with age, pointing out that these effects are not inevitable consequences of time but consequences of a lifetime of carbohydrate-based eating. The tissue becomes highly sugarish and acidic, melting and damaging cells progressively.

Beyond dryness and cognitive impairment, Aajonus connected AGE accumulation to a broad range of degenerative conditions. He said AGEs contribute to the development of cancer, noting that cancer thrives in a high-sugar environment and that AGEs create exactly those conditions wherever they concentrate in the body. He said they contribute to yeast infections, fungal overgrowth including candida, athlete's foot, herpes, and various skin conditions. He said they lead to gangrene, glandular breakdown, and the deterioration of bones, causing osteoporosis. He connected them to irritability, depression, nausea, anorexia, and slow mental function as symptoms of the sticky, toxic neurological state they create. He also said AGEs have a relationship to acrylamides, the other major toxic byproduct of cooked carbohydrate eating, and that together these compounds create an environment of stored disease and degenerative tissue throughout the body.

The cancer connection deserves specific elaboration in Aajonus's framework. He described how high concentrations of AGE-related sugar compounds in the body break down the mineral balance, make tissue fragile, and cause cells to die and mummify. Accumulated mummified cells form tumors. He said cancer loves to grow in a high-carbohydrate environment precisely because of this chain of events. Columbia University's research, as he cited it, explicitly characterized AGEs as cancer-feeding byproducts.

Aajonus attributed the primary AGE storage rate findings to Columbia University's Department of Medicine, sometimes also describing the institution as Columbia University at New York State or Columbia University at New York University, and sometimes referring to New York City Medical University. He cited these institutions as having established the 70% storage rate in healthy bodies and the 90% storage rate in unhealthy bodies. He also mentioned that a scientist in the mid-1960s, whose name he could not recall, had published material showing that the human body could function optimally as an athlete and mentally when the diet was 80% fat, 15% protein, and 5% carbohydrate, and that this material was circulated into the early 1970s. In the citric acid cycle framework that scientist described, carbohydrates occupied only 5% of the dietary ratio needed for proper function. Aajonus referenced this work as corroborating his view that the human body is not designed for high-carbohydrate eating.

The solution Aajonus proposed was to force the body to make its glycogen from pyruvate rather than from dietary carbohydrate. Pyruvate is a protein sugar, synthesized by the body from protein sources, particularly meat and eggs. He noted that egg white is especially rich in the precursors for pyruvate production. When the body uses pyruvate, in conjunction with glucagon rather than insulin, to manufacture glycogen, the AGE byproduct produced is only 7 to 8%. Since the body can handle up to approximately 12% per day without storing any of it, this means that eating primarily meat, eggs, and other animal proteins results in zero accumulation of advanced glycation end products. Not one molecule stores. The body remains fluid, clear, and unfoggy.

He described the experience of eating this way in contrast to eating carbohydrates. On protein-based glycogen, the neurological system remains fluid, synapses fire accurately, thinking is direct and solid, and the blood and lymph flow without stickiness. People are focused and stable throughout the day. On carbohydrate-based glycogen, the opposite occurs: stickiness, misfiring, slowness, confusion, depression, and irritability. He said that if you want to be clear-headed and focused, you avoid carbohydrates entirely for the first six to seven hours of waking, allowing the body to establish its glycogen production from protein during that critical window.

Aajonus placed enormous emphasis on what happens in the first six to seven hours after waking. He said the body makes most of its glycogen for the day during this window, and that the substrate it uses during this period determines whether glycogen will be protein-derived or carbohydrate-derived for the rest of the day. If you eat high-carbohydrate food, including fruit, carrot juice, beet juice, cereal, or any sweet food during those first six to seven hours, the body commits to making glycogen from carbohydrate. The result is a day full of AGE accumulation, stickiness, and impaired neurological function.

If, instead, you begin the day with vegetable juice (particularly celery-based juice, since celery has a negative carbohydrate value and neutralizes small amounts of higher-sugar vegetables like carrot), wait 45 minutes to an hour, and then eat a meat meal, the body commits to making glycogen from pyruvate. This pattern, maintained through the first six to seven hours, sets the body's metabolic pattern for the day. He said this is why the first meat meal of the day is so important, and why he structured the eating schedule on the Primal Diet the way he did.

He was explicit that celery's negative carbohydrate value is significant here. When you make juice from celery with a small amount of carrot and parsley, the carbohydrate in the carrot and parsley is neutralized by the celery, keeping total carbohydrate below the threshold that would trigger carbohydrate-based glycogen production. This allows the vegetable juice to alkalize the blood and supply vitamins, minerals, and enzymes without causing AGE accumulation.

Aajonus was clear that AGEs form from both raw and cooked carbohydrates. The fundamental problem is the use of carbohydrate as fuel, not the cooking of it. Even fresh, raw fruit produces AGEs when metabolized as glycogen. However, cooking creates additional layers of toxicity. Cooked carbohydrates add AGEs on top of acrylamides and other toxic compounds produced by heat. When starches are cooked, they sometimes skip the glycogen step entirely and convert directly into glycotoxins. The storage rate remains 70 to 90%, but the pathway is more direct and the accompanying toxic load is greater because of the acrylamides produced simultaneously.

He described acrylamides and AGEs as compounding problems. They are both products of cooked carbohydrate eating and both create storages of disease and degenerative tissue in the body. He noted that Swedish scientists had documented acrylamide production in cooked starches and had been demoted and treated badly professionally for publishing this work, and that acrylamides are being recognized as highly carcinogenic. The combination of acrylamides and AGEs in cooked carbohydrate foods made him describe such foods as inappropriate for human consumption under virtually all circumstances.

Aajonus treated honey as a special case among sweet foods. He explained that when bees collect nectar and process it, they transform the sugars in a way that makes honey primarily enzymatic rather than a simple carbohydrate. He said 90% of what the body uses honey for is the enzymes it contains, which support digestion. This means honey does not convert into glycogen in the same way that fruit sugars, grain sugars, or other carbohydrates do, and therefore does not generate AGEs at the same 70 to 90% storage rate.

However, he qualified this position. Honey is acceptable and does not contribute significantly to AGE production as long as it does not exceed approximately 10% of carbohydrate intake or is consumed in small quantities. If honey is consumed in abundance, the carbohydrate load becomes sufficient to trigger carbohydrate-based glycogen production and the associated AGE byproduct rises accordingly. He also specified that honey must not exceed 104 degrees Fahrenheit; above that temperature it becomes what he called a radical sugar and loses its enzymatic character. Raw honey below that threshold, in moderate quantities, does not cause the same AGE problems as other carbohydrates.

He also addressed comb honey, saying it is acceptable as long as it is not from the top of the hive and is not from desert conditions where it may have become too concentrated.

Even when AGEs are produced, Aajonus said that consuming adequate fats with carbohydrate-containing foods significantly reduces the harm. Fat binds with AGEs while they are still circulating in the blood and neurological fluids, before they can find a storage site in the body's tissues. When fat is present, the AGE can be removed from the system rather than stored. This is why he recommended always eating fruit with fat, specifically with coconut cream, butter, cream, or other raw animal fat. The fat does not eliminate AGE production but prevents the freshly produced AGEs from embedding in tissue.

He extended this principle to the scheduling of fruit consumption. He said fruit should not be eaten before 2 o'clock in the afternoon and not after 6 o'clock, and should always be accompanied by substantial fat. By the afternoon, the body has already established its glycogen production pattern from the morning's protein meals, making it less likely that the fruit will trigger full carbohydrate-based glycogen production. The fat consumed alongside the fruit then binds whatever AGEs do form and carries them out of circulation before they can store.

He also noted that when people accumulate AGEs over years of high-carbohydrate eating, honey can actually help draw those stored AGEs out of the tissues, making them fluid again so they can be eliminated. He gave an example of a woman whose symptoms after eating honey were not an allergy but a detoxification of stored AGEs. The honey was pulling the long-stored glycotoxins out of her muscles and tendons, making them sore in the same way that exercise produces lactic acid soreness. This was a beneficial process even though it was temporarily uncomfortable.

Aajonus consistently said that carbohydrates should constitute no more than 5% of the total diet, with protein at approximately 15% and fat at approximately 80%, drawing on the mid-1960s research he referenced. He occasionally expanded this range to 5 to 10% for people newly beginning the Primal Diet who had not yet adapted to protein-based glycogen production. In practice, 5% carbohydrate translates to something like one cup to one and a half cups of fruit per day at most, always eaten with fat.

For diabetics or people with kidney problems, who store AGEs at 90% rather than 70%, he was stricter, suggesting that carbohydrate foods should be limited to once every two to three days rather than once daily. The logic is straightforward: these individuals have impaired clearance mechanisms and a higher storage rate, meaning that even the same amount of carbohydrate intake produces proportionally more damage.

He said the body can handle the small amount of carbohydrate naturally present in a piece of whole raw fruit, as long as the diet is not predominantly fruit-based. The problem emerges when carbohydrates dominate the diet, as they do in conventional eating patterns built around grains, cereals, juices, fruit, bread, pasta, and starchy vegetables. At those levels, AGE production overwhelms the body's capacity to handle the byproduct, and the 70 to 90% storage rate means most of what is produced becomes a permanent resident in the tissues.

Aajonus placed seeds, nuts, and grains in the same problematic carbohydrate category as fruit and starchy vegetables. He said that despite working well for birds and squirrels, these foods are not appropriate for human beings because of their high carbohydrate content and the AGEs they generate. He had experimented extensively with these foods and concluded that they create AGE accumulation in the same way as other carbohydrates, compounded by the fact that nuts and seeds contain enzyme inhibitors and protein inhibitors that interfere with digestion and absorption.

He described eating wheat berries, rye berries, and rice as part of his own earlier eating history, and connecting his consumption of these foods to significant AGE accumulation. He also mentioned that he had experimented with moldy grains as a way to get yeasts and molds into the body to help break down stored AGEs, though he ultimately noted that eating the whole moldy grain rather than just the molds may not have been the most targeted approach.

He made a specific mention of the situation where his son was on his deathbed, causing him to eat half a baked potato for the first time in thirteen years. To mitigate the AGE impact, he consumed a whole stick of raw unsalted butter with it, specifically so that the fat would bind with the AGEs and prevent them from embedding in his tissues. This anecdote illustrates his practical application of the fat-binding principle in emergency situations where cooked carbohydrate was consumed.

Aajonus connected AGE accumulation directly to yeast infections and candida. He explained that yeasts feed on sugars, and that the body is not equipped to handle high-sugar environments. When AGEs accumulate in the tissues, they create exactly the sugar-rich environment that yeast organisms thrive in. Rather than treating candida as a pathological infection, he viewed yeast activity as the body's attempt to consume and break down the stored glycotoxins. The yeast is doing the cleanup work that the body itself cannot perform efficiently.

He said that the stored AGEs lead to candida, herpes, all kinds of skin problems, glandular breakdown, and in severe cases conditions like gangrene. The AGE accumulation from cooked starches in particular leads directly into these yeast-proliferation conditions because cooked carbohydrates, by bypassing the glycogen step and converting directly to glycotoxins, create an immediate and concentrated sugar burden in the tissues.

Within Aajonus's broader framework, AGEs represent the foundational biochemical argument against the conventional high-carbohydrate diet and against the sports nutrition approach of carbohydrate loading. He specifically mentioned athletes like John McEnroe as examples of people who burned out physically and could no longer perform after years of high-carbohydrate, high-performance athletic eating. The AGEs dried out their systems. The acrylamides from cooking those carbohydrates added additional layers of toxic accumulation. The result was early physical deterioration despite what appeared to be athletic peak performance in the short term.

He also connected AGEs to arterial sclerosis, describing how AGEs, when the body cannot find proper fats to bind with them, instead bind with bile and hormones like adrenaline, causing plaquing throughout the vascular system. He said cholesterol is not the actual cause of arterial plaquing; rather, AGEs and their binding with bile and stress hormones create the plaques, while cholesterol is involved in chelation and other beneficial processes that are being misattributed as causes of disease.

The emotional and psychological consequences of AGE accumulation were also part of Aajonus's framework. He said that high AGE levels in the neurological system produce slow mentality, impaired focus, depression, nausea, anorexia, and irritability. He described these as direct symptoms of neurological stickiness caused by AGE-laden fluids interfering with synaptic firing and axonal transmission. Eating carbohydrates early in the day, before the body has established pyruvate-based glycogen production, sets up this neurologically impaired state for the entire day.

He also addressed the social and cognitive consequences of widespread high-carbohydrate eating in children. Children fed cereals, donuts, pancakes, and other high-carbohydrate foods before school go to school with sticky, AGE-laden neurological fluids, unable to focus, learn accurately, or think clearly. He contrasted this with children fed a milkshake with eggs or a meat meal in the morning, who remain focused and clear-headed throughout the day as long as they avoid sugar and sugar products until at least noon.

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