The intake of advanced glycation end products and inflammation in aging.

Introduction. With aging, the levels of circulating inflammatory mediators tend to increase. As Advanced Glycation End products (AGE's) are known to have pro-inflammatory effects, we hypothesized that the dietary intake of AGE's might contribute to the inflammatory status in old age.
Methods. We examined 155 older persons (63 community-dwelling and 92 nursing-home residents) with a mean age of 83±6 years. The AGE intake after the age of 65 y was calculated using a food frequency questionnaire, based on a published database of food products with known AGE content. For each participant, venous blood obtained after overnight fasting was frozen at -20°C for later determination of Interleukin-6 (IL-6) by ELISA.
Results. After correcting for the age of the participants, we found a significant correlation between AGE intake and the serum IL-6 levels (Partial correlation coefficient r = 0,230; p = 0.004).
Conclusions. Intake of AGE's in food is related to the inflammatory status in elderly persons. Further studies are needed to evaluate the benefit of a reduced consumption of these products for the prevention of age-related disorders that are influenced by inflammation, such as sarcopenia.