Slow Cooking May Be Far Better Than High Heat

[Guest guest]

By Maggie Fox

Health and Science Correspondent

11-12-2

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It may not be what you eat, but how you cook it,

that affects whether food causes heart disease, diabetes and other

conditions, researchers in the United States reported on Monday.

Ê

A new study shows that cooking at high temperatures -- frying, grilling and=

 

even microwaving -- creates compounds that are associated with disease

when they are found in the body.

Ê

Foods cooked by low-temperature methods such as boiling and steaming do

not contain as many of these compounds, the team at the Mount Sinai

School of Medicine in New York found.

Ê

While the findings do not discount the benefits of a healthy diet low in fa=

t and

sugar, they may help explain why some people who stick to such a diet

continue to suffer from heart disease and diabetes, Dr. Helen Vlassara, who=

 

led the study, said in a telephone interview.

Ê

The culprits are called advanced glycation end products or AGEs for short. =

 

They are made by the interactions of sugars, fats, and proteins and form

quickly when food is cooked at high temperatures.

Ê

" These are substances that are forming spontaneously in our body from

glucose reactions, " Vlassara said. " The higher the glucose is, the higher t=

he

products will be. Diabetics have a lot more, and they are highly toxic. "

Ê

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vlassara

and colleagues said AGEs can irritate cells, causing them to produce

proteins that trigger inflammation, such as C-reactive protein.

Ê

" We tend always to cook our food under high heat. And because most foods

consist of proteins, lipids and sugars, when we heat them under high heat

for a long time, those reactions are accelerated. We end up absorbing those=

, "

she said.

Ê

TASTY AND BROWN, BUT NOT HEALTHY?

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This kind of cooking produces tasty foods, Vlassara said. " They make the

food taste good, or make it look good -- by browning it, " she said.

Ê

Animal products rich in fat are the worst culprits, she said.

Ê

Her team studied 24 diabetes patients, giving them identical diets that

differed only in how the food was prepared.

Ê

" The diets that we tested and gave to patients in this report are those tha=

t are

recommended for diabetics, " Vlassara, a specialist in diabetes, said.

Ê

But where one group got grilled tuna, another got poached tuna, for example=

..

The poached tuna would presumably be lower in AGEs as it was cooked at

lower temperatures.

Ê

There were clear differences in the blood of the patients, although it was =

too

soon to tell whether there were health benefits, Vlassara said.

Ê

Those eating the high AGE diet had more AGEs in their blood, and also had

higher levels of inflammatory chemicals such as tumor necrosis factor and

C-reactive protein.

Ê

These inflammatory chemicals are linked with the progression of heart

disease and the damage caused by diabetes -- such as blindness, nerve

damage, and damage to organs such as the kidney.

Ê

In other studies on animals, Vlassara said a low-AGE diet helped prevent th=

e

development of type-I diabetes, caused when the body mistakenly attacks

and destroys the pancreatic cells that make insulin.

Ê

Vlassara said she did not believe her findings related to the discovery thi=

s

year that some fried and baked foods contain high levels of chemicals calle=

d

acrylamides, which can cause cancer in animals.