Advanced glycation end-products, AGEs, are a wide variety of inconvenient biochemical waste products produced by the operation of your metabolism (and, to a much lesser degree, eaten as a part of your diet). AGEs gum up important biomolecular machinery and disable essential macromolecules by glueing them together. Some AGEs can be broken down by your cells, but accumulate faster than they can be removed. Others cannot be broken down at all, and the slow accumulation renders vital functions in your cells ever more hampered and faulty.

So far, there's nothing radical that can be done about this process - no working, sort-the-problem-out AGE-breaker therapies for humans. The best advice is to try and avoid metabolic disease - exercise, keep fit, eat a calorie restriction diet and don't pack on the fat, in other words - because that condition and the diabetes that follows ramps up the rate of AGE accumulation.

Here's a closer look at some of the details.

Cross-link breakers as a new therapeutic approach to cardiovascular disease:

Fibrillar proteins, such as collagens type I and III, and elastin are components of the extracellular matrix. They form an intricate widespread network that provides a basis for maintaining the physical structure of the heart and vessels and also play an important role in determining cardiovascular function.

Physiologically, collagen and elastin fibres are enzymatically cross-linked to form [the] matrix. In addition to these enzymatically formed cross-links, collagen fibres may be linked non-enzymatically, most notably by formation of AGEs (advanced glycation end-products). AGEs are formed by a reaction between reducing sugars and body proteins; they are formed increasingly in diabetes mellitus and hypertension and they accumulate with aging.

There are several mechanisms whereby AGEs may affect cardiovascular structure and function. These include increased myocardial and vascular stiffness and (upon reaction with their receptors) inflammatory reactions, release of growth factors and cytokines, and increased oxidative stress. Therefore breaking AGEs appears as a promising tool in the therapy of cardiovascular injury related to diabetes, hypertension and aging.

Nothing radical to be done at present: that's a pretty grim picture, considering the widespread suffering caused by AGE buildup. Work is presently underway on AGE-breaker and AGE inhibitor drugs, but it's a small, slow-moving field in comparison to regenerative medicine or other well-funded initiatives.

Posted by Reason at October 26, 2007 7:21 PM | TrackBack (0)