Glycation

When a person eats carbohydrates, the body converts them into glycogen through the action of insulin produced by the pancreas. As that glycogen is metabolized by the nervous system, brain, blood, and lymphatic system, the leftover chemical residue of that process is AGEs, technically called Advanced Glycation End-products. Aajonus described them as glycotoxins, sticky, heavy, sugar-based compounds that have no further useful role in the body but cannot be expelled through the urinary tract, the bowels, or the mucous membranes at any meaningful rate.

With cooked carbohydrates, the process is worse. Aajonus explained that the body often reads cooked or spoiled starch as though it has already been burned, meaning instead of converting it into glycogen first and then producing AGEs as a secondary byproduct, the body converts the cooked carbohydrate directly into AGEs without the intermediate glycogen step. This means cooked starches bypass even the partial utilization that raw carbohydrates receive, going straight into storage as glycotoxin. Cooked carbohydrates also carry additional toxic compounds, particularly acrylamides and heterocyclic amines, which compound the damage alongside the AGEs.

Even raw carbohydrates produce AGEs. Aajonus was explicit that raw fruit, raw juice, raw grains, raw nuts, and all other raw high-carbohydrate foods still generate AGEs when metabolized. The enzymatic and vitamin content of raw food does not prevent AGE formation; it only means that no additional carcinogenic cooking byproducts accompany them. The AGE storage rate of 70% in a healthy person applies whether the carbohydrate is eaten raw or cooked.

The Columbia University research Aajonus cited established two primary storage categories. In a healthy person, even an athlete in top physical condition, 70% of every AGE produced stores in the body for a lifetime. In persons with compromised health, particularly those with kidney problems, diabetes, or hypoglycemia, the storage rate rises to 90%. Aajonus sometimes cited the range as 70 to 90% in a healthy body and 80 to 90% or even a flat 90% in those with metabolic or renal dysfunction, with the understanding that truly healthy individuals never store below 60 to 70%.

The practical implication Aajonus drew from this is that no matter how athletic, disciplined, or otherwise healthy a person eating a high-carbohydrate diet may appear, they are accumulating AGEs throughout their entire life with no effective mechanism for elimination. He used the image of Coca-Cola to illustrate what happens over decades: the AGEs, being acidic and highly sugarish, concentrate in the body until they begin dissolving tissue the way an acid dissolves material. He identified this as the mechanism behind skin that begins sagging in a person's thirties, forties, and fifties, and behind the kidney deterioration, liver decline, and bladder damage commonly seen in the elderly.

He contrasted this with indigenous peoples who ate no or negligible carbohydrates, specifically naming the Maasai and the Eskimo, and noting that neither population exhibited sagging flesh even in old age, because their bodies were not accumulating AGEs at any meaningful rate.

Aajonus described AGEs as sticky and thick, like syrup or molasses. When they enter the blood, the neurological fluid, and the lymphatic system, they cause those fluids to become viscous and tacky. He described the consequences in detailed physiological terms across many workshops.

In the bloodstream, cells begin sticking together. When oxygen concentration in the blood rises, the AGE-coated cells clump like magnets. This produces sluggish, congested circulation. The bloodstream carries toxins through the body more slowly and delivers nutrients to tissues less efficiently.

In the neurological fluid, the consequences are even more immediate and cognitively obvious. The synapse, the junction across which nerve impulses fire, requires a fluid medium that allows rapid, clean transmission. When neurological fluid is loaded with AGEs, the synapse fires and then skids, sticking to the axon or ganglia walls rather than completing a clean transmission. Aajonus described this as the neurological equivalent of dancers coated in honey or molasses, stumbling and fumbling rather than moving fluidly. The practical result is impaired concentration, loss of train of thought, slow mental processing, unclear thinking, spaciness, and depression. He noted that most schoolchildren eating cereals, donuts, pancakes, and fruit juice are operating with sticky neurological fluids all day, which is why they cannot focus.

In the lymphatic system, which is already the slowest-moving of the three fluid systems, additional stickiness from AGEs further impairs the flow of immune and detoxification activity, though Aajonus noted that fats already present in the lymph provide some buffering against the worst effects there.

He also identified AGEs as a contributing factor to cancer development, explaining that cancer thrives in a high-sugar environment. AGEs create concentrations of acidic sugar throughout body tissue, disrupting mineral balance, making tissue fragile, causing cell death, and producing mummified cells that accumulate into tumors. He stated directly that wherever high sugars are concentrated in the body, the body becomes predisposed to cancer, and that AGEs, being glycotoxins with a relationship to acrylamides, are a factor in the development of cancerous conditions.

Additionally, AGEs create an environment favorable to yeast, candida, herpes, fungal infections, and other mold-based conditions. Aajonus explained that the body calls on yeasts and candida to help consume and reduce these sugar-based glycotoxins, which is why people eating high-carbohydrate diets are chronically prone to yeast infections. Yeast feeding on AGEs is actually an attempt by the body to remediate the excess glycotoxin, though the symptoms are uncomfortable and conventionally misunderstood.

AGEs also cause specific structural damage to the skin, organs, and glands. Aajonus noted that AGEs have an affinity for storing in the skin, organs, and glands specifically, rather than in the bones, muscles, connective tissue, tendons, or other harder tissues. In the skin, this produces dehydration, dryness, wrinkling, and eventual sagging as the acidic accumulation melts the tissue from within. He described the overall effect as the body aging from the inside out, with the external signs of old age being a direct reflection of a lifetime's AGE accumulation.

Aajonus stated that the human body can handle approximately 12% of advanced glycation end product production per day without accumulation or lasting harm. Some passages give the range as 12 to 15%. This 12% threshold is a critical reference point in his framework because it defines the boundary between carbohydrate metabolism that the body can manage and carbohydrate metabolism that produces unavoidable long-term damage.

When carbohydrates are the source of glycogen, AGE production runs at 70 to 90% of the glycogen produced, which is vastly beyond the 12% the body can discard. When protein is the source of glycogen, through the pyruvate pathway described below, AGE production is only 7 to 8%, well under the 12% threshold, meaning the body discards all of it without any accumulation.

The central practical solution Aajonus offered to the AGE problem is the substitution of pyruvate for carbohydrate as the raw material from which the body makes glycogen. Pyruvate is a protein sugar synthesized from dietary protein, particularly from animal proteins such as meat, eggs, and milk. The body uses glucagon, a pancreatic hormone, to convert pyruvate into glycogen, which then runs the brain and nervous system exactly as carbohydrate-derived glycogen does, but without producing significant AGEs.

Aajonus described the pyruvate pathway as the ideal, cleanest, and most efficient way for the human body to produce neurological fuel. He stated that when pyruvate is the glycogen source, the byproduct is only 7 to 8% advanced glycation end product, with a ceiling in some individuals of about 12%. Because the body can handle up to 12% in a day, there is effectively zero net accumulation. Not one molecule of AGE stores in the body when pyruvate is the glycogen source. He repeated this claim in multiple workshops using nearly identical phrasing: "Not one percent do you hold in the body."

He also noted that when the glycogen is made from carbohydrate by contrast, 70 to 80% of the byproduct is AGEs that cannot be discarded, which is roughly ten times the body's daily handling capacity, meaning the overflow accumulates continuously throughout a person's lifetime.

The foods that produce pyruvate most efficiently are egg whites, meat, and to a lesser extent milk. Eggs were specifically called out as a major pyruvate source. Raw honey was given an exemption because approximately 90% of its content consists of enzymes that the body uses for digestion rather than for fuel, so the carbohydrate contribution to glycogen is negligible and does not produce a significant AGE burden.

One of the most specific and practically actionable aspects of Aajonus's teaching on AGEs involves the timing of glycogen production relative to waking hours. He stated that the body builds its entire daily reserve of storable glycogen during the first six to seven hours after waking. Whatever is eaten during that window determines the substrate from which glycogen is made. If high-carbohydrate foods are consumed in those first six to seven hours, the body will build its entire glycogen reserve from carbohydrate, producing massive AGE byproduct that will burden the system for the rest of the day and store in the body for a lifetime. If protein and fat are consumed instead, the body will build all of its glycogen from pyruvate, with minimal AGE production.

This is why Aajonus was insistent that the first meal of the day should not be fruit, juice including carrot juice or beet juice, cereal, grain, or any other high-sugar or high-starch food. He described a protocol in which the day begins with vegetable juice, specifically a juice low in carbohydrate content, such as celery-based juice, followed approximately 45 minutes to an hour later by a meat meal with fat. Celery was specifically noted as carrying a negative carbohydrate, meaning the body expends more carbohydrate to digest celery than the celery provides, so it does not trigger glycogen production from carbohydrate. Small additions of carrot or parsley to a primarily celery juice are neutralized by the celery's negative carbohydrate effect.

Aajonus used a specific child as a case study. A 14-and-a-half-year-old girl who was a B-minus to B-plus student and an average ballet dancer was placed on a protocol where she ate meat and fat in the morning and avoided carbohydrates. Her academic and dance performance improved dramatically. He reported a separate controlled observation with children on the diet: those fed fruit with fat and some cheese in the morning showed 20% less clarity, precision, and directness in their responses compared to those fed meat and fat.

He also specified that if massive carbohydrate consumption occurs later in the day, after the six-hour window, the body will still shift into high-carbohydrate glycogen production, creating a large AGE burden even though the morning protocol was followed correctly. The six-hour protein-and-fat window establishes the glycogen pattern for the day, but it does not immunize against a carbohydrate binge at any time.

Aajonus held that carbohydrate should constitute no more than 5 to 10% of the diet, with 5% being the ideal for most people and 10% a reasonable maximum for someone newly transitioning to the diet. In practical terms, he translated this as roughly one cup to one and a half cups of fruit per day, always eaten with fat. He stated that the human body is built for a diet of approximately 80% fat, 15% protein, and 5% carbohydrate, citing an unidentified scientist from the mid-1960s whose work he read, who showed that the human animal could function optimally as an athlete, mentally and physically, on those proportions. At 5% carbohydrate, the citric acid cycle can use the small carbohydrate contribution to power the conversion of fat into energy rather than using carbohydrate itself as the primary glycogen source.

For diabetics specifically, Aajonus recommended reducing carbohydrate to one serving every two to three days rather than daily, given the 90% AGE storage rate in that population.

He addressed the question of what happens in the nervous system when carbohydrate consumption exceeds 5%: the body starts making glycogen from the carbohydrate, the AGE byproduct floods the neurological fluid, the blood becomes sticky, the lymph slows further, and all three systems begin malfunctioning simultaneously. He described this as producing slow mentality, slow focus, depression, nausea, anorexia, and irritability, all of which are symptoms of high carbohydrate waste in those three systems.

Aajonus identified dietary fat as the most practical tool for reducing the damage of unavoidable carbohydrate consumption. He recommended that any carbohydrate food, whether fruit, bread, sweet fruit like apricots or peaches, or other sugary food, always be eaten together with substantial fat, such as butter, cream, cream cheese, or avocado. The fat slows digestion, causing the carbohydrates to be released more gradually rather than flooding the blood and nervous system all at once. This piecemeal release allows the carbohydrates to be used as fuel in the citric acid cycle for muscle energy rather than being dumped wholesale into the nervous system and blood as high-carbohydrate glycogen.

Beyond slowing digestion, Aajonus explained that when some AGEs do form, circulating fat in the blood and lymph can bind to them. He described eating fruit in the afternoon with lots of fat so that "when the advanced glycation end product does form, you will have the fats to bind with it and remove it from the system so it doesn't store easily." This binding action prevents the AGEs from persisting as active irritants in the blood and nervous system while they are still in circulation.

He gave specific timing guidance for fruit: fruit should not be consumed before 2 o'clock in the afternoon and not after 6 o'clock in the evening, and should always be accompanied by substantial fat. This window allows the morning glycogen production to be completed from protein before carbohydrate is introduced, and keeps carbohydrate consumption away from the evening hours when the body is preparing for rest.

Bread, which he acknowledged some people want to eat, should be consumed with lots of butter for the same reason, to slow digestion and reduce AGE formation and storage.

Aajonus mentioned celery in the context of its ability to help remove AGEs from the body. He stated that celery, because of its negative carbohydrate effect, pulls AGEs out of tissues rather than contributing to their accumulation. He described celery as part of the vegetable juice protocol that precedes the morning meat meal, specifically because it begins extracting the stored AGE burden from the system before any food has been eaten that would add to it. He noted that carrot juice alone would create more AGE accumulation than it helps remove, but in small proportions within a predominantly celery-based juice, the carrot's carbohydrate contribution is neutralized by the celery.

Aajonus used the AGE research as his strongest scientific argument that human beings are not biologically designed to eat high-carbohydrate foods, grains, fruits, or starches as dietary staples. He stated that the fact that a healthy human body stores 70% of a natural metabolic byproduct for a lifetime is itself proof that the food producing that byproduct is wrong for the species. He said: "Aren't we eating the wrong thing if we're eating high carbohydrate diets then? Absolutely."

He pointed to the historical record, noting that when Native Americans hunted less and began gathering and cultivating more nuts, grains, and fruit, they developed osteoporosis and dental decay. He also cited gorillas, who kill and eat large amounts of meat periodically and otherwise eat only unripe, hard, green fruit, never ripe sweet fruit, as another illustration that even our closest animal relatives are not designed for sweet ripe carbohydrate consumption.

He noted that in parts of Asia, elderly people over 25 traditionally ate only unripe fruit: hard green mangoes, green papaya, green citrus, all of which are low in sugar. He observed that in those same areas, younger generations adopting sugar-rich diets from Western influence were developing dental problems and other degenerative conditions. His own observations in hospitals from Bangkok to Vietnam included seeing 127 teenage girls, ages 16 to 20, with gastric problems he attributed to high sugar consumption.

He used the Maasai and the Eskimo as the counterexamples: people eating diets almost entirely free of carbohydrate who never exhibited sagging flesh even in very old age, and who were known for their longevity and physical vitality.

Aajonus placed AGEs in a broader toxic context when cooked carbohydrates were involved. He stated that cooked carbohydrates, whether fruit, grain, potato, or any starch, produce AGEs plus acrylamides and other toxic sugar-based compounds simultaneously, and that all of these store at similar rates. The acrylamides compound the carcinogenic risk beyond what raw-food AGEs alone create. He noted that cooked meats produce their own category of toxins, heterocyclic amines and lipid peroxides, but that at least those are carcinogenic compounds separate from the AGE problem. Cooked carbohydrates produce both AGEs and acrylamides together, making them more dangerous than either cooked meat or raw carbohydrates by his analysis.

He described the body's treatment of cooked starch as reading it as pre-burned material, converting it directly into glycotoxin without the intermediate glycogen step, which means cooked carbohydrate produces maximum AGE storage immediately, bypassing whatever partial mitigation occurs when the body at least uses the carbohydrate for energy before discarding the AGE byproduct.

Aajonus connected AGE accumulation directly to cancer development through multiple mechanisms. He stated that cancer grows preferentially in a high-carbohydrate, high-sugar environment. AGEs represent acidic, concentrated sugar residues stored throughout the body's tissues, creating precisely the conditions cancer favors. He described the sequence as: high carbohydrate eating produces AGEs, AGEs concentrate in tissues and organs, the acidic AGE accumulation disrupts mineral balance, the disrupted mineral balance makes tissue fragile, the fragile tissue begins dying, dead cells become mummified cells, and collections of mummified cells form tumors. He stated this is why cancer "seems to thrive in a sugar environment."

The newsletter passages he wrote also named AGEs as "cancer feeding byproducts" and identified them as contributing to arterial sclerosis through their tendency to attach to venous and arterial walls, where the body attempts to manage them through bile and cholesterol-mediated chelation processes that get misread as arterial plaque.

Aajonus specifically addressed the common experience of feeling better after eating carbohydrates, particularly common in people coming from alternative health diets high in raw fruits and plant foods. He explained that this improved feeling is not a sign of health but a sign of raised blood and nerve sugar levels causing hyperactivity. He wrote that raised blood and nerve sugar levels from carbohydrate eating "are not indications of health. In fact, they are indications of bodily harm," because the AGE production accompanying the elevated glycogen is accumulating in the body with every episode of this apparent energy boost.

He also observed that eating sugar or sugar products early in the day will cause the body to become progressively more alkaline in chemistry, which creates a biochemical repulsion toward meat. The person then avoids meat all day because it becomes unappealing, and ends up consuming only carbohydrates, which perpetuates and compounds the AGE problem without any protein to shift the body toward pyruvate-based glycogen production. This is why he was insistent about the sequence: meat and fat first, carbohydrate later if at all.

Aajonus acknowledged that a lifetime of AGE accumulation can be reduced over time on the Primal Diet, though he was clear this is a slow process. He stated that a diet constructed around protein and fat, with minimal carbohydrate, can help the body gradually clear out stored AGEs. He mentioned celery specifically as an agent that assists this removal. He also indicated that fat plays a role in binding AGEs for eventual removal when they do circulate in active form.

The implication throughout his teachings is that complete reversal of a lifetime's AGE accumulation is possible but requires sustained dietary discipline over many years, consistent with his broader framework that full cellular regeneration and toxic clearance takes decades.

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