I want you to imagine that there's sugar flowing through your bloodstream because that's the way that it is. And you do have sugar flowing through your bloodstream. Okay? And then that sugar reacts with things. That sugar reacts with protein or it reacts with a lipid of fat. Okay? And when it does this, it forms this thing. And this thing ends up being very inflammatory and can cause all kinds of potential problems and make you feel really cruddy. At first, that makes it sound like you should never eat protein or you should never eat fat because it's going to combine with sugar and do this. The thing is is it needs a catalyst for that to happen. Like consuming protein and consuming carbohydrates or sugar is not necessarily inherently bad, but how come when they're combined in the body, they do this thing that's problematic called glycation? Right? Think about an onion caramelizing. That's essentially what happens inside your body. and it's very problematic and very very real. The good news is carnosine, which is a very inexpensive supplement, has huge effects at stopping this in its tracks. And yeah, I straight up told you what it is so you can turn off the video and go find it, right? The reality is I want to teach you how to use it, when to take it, and also please just stick with me through this video so you can learn about it. Also, drop a comment down below because it helps the algorithm and hit that subscribe button as well. So, we'll talk about the basics of carnosine. We'll talk about how it actually impacts advanced glycation in products here. I put a link down below for 30% off your entire first order with Thrive Market. Thrive Market focuses on the ingredient quality. That's why getting 30% off your first order with them is awesome. If you go to the grocery store, the reality is you have to spend a lot of time and you need a practical PhD to really read the ingredients, to really understand and cross reference it. Thrive Market does that already. They do not have garbage ingredients coming into the food that they have on their digital shelves, so to speak. So, the reason that I trust Thrive Market is because I know that even if I'm getting something that's like a sweet treat or something that I want to enjoy that's even a snack, at least I don't have to worry about having lowquality ingredients and you can sort by different diet type. I spent a lot of time in Europe recently and I was just almost in love with the food quality there. And the thing that I like about Thrive is they do a good job of emulating the kind of food quality that's coming into the foods that they have. So that link down below gets you 30% off. It gets delivered right to your doorstep and you get a free $60 gift with any purchase. So go ahead and check them out. It's in the top line of the description underneath this video. So what do advanced glycation in products do? What do AES do in our body? Well, they can build in our joints. They can build in our tissue and they damage DNA. So there's kind of the oldage of, okay, someone that has really leathery skin, they look a lot older than they are, there's maybe a chance that they have higher degrees of advanced glycation in products because it can actually build in our skin, too. It just causes us to oxidize faster for DNA to be damaged, and it's just overall not good. it can actually trigger a cascade of inflammatory cytoines and oxidative stress that makes it literally hard for us to even manufacture energy properly. So that leads to insulin resistance and all kinds of other things. So how does carnosine help and where should you use it and when should you use it? Well, let's first look at a study that was published in applied and environmental microbiology and this found that carnosine has the ability to neutralize what is called methyl glyioxil. Okay, so remember in the beginning of this video I said sugar and protein combined like aren't always problematic. Like you could have a chicken breast and a banana, but would it glycate? Would you have a problem because you're combining sugar and protein? Not necessarily. You need sort of a catalyst. These catalysts are called carbonal reactive species and methylioxol is sort of the main one. And this actually starts the process of glycation. So when you have again high blood sugar and maybe some protein or lipids or nucleic acid or uh something like that, what's going to happen is it's going to start but it needs this methylioxil. Carnosine completely stops some of these reactive species like methylioxil. So, it stops them in their tracks and it stops the reactive system at the very get-go. When you can neutralize this before it starts, your body can clear some of these other metabolites and other pieces much easier because once it is an A, it's really hard to clear, right? Like, you can't uncarlize an onion. I always go back to that because it's it's a pretty good illustration, right? like you have sugar and when you cook it at a high heat it glycates and it turns into this caramelized onion. So I'm not saying that you have like caramelized cells but in a way they kind of are like they become useless cesspools of garbage just leaking inflammation and oxidative stress. How does this impact insulin resistance? Well, inflammation is a major cause of insulin resistance. As a matter of fact, it's probably the cause. the high blood sugar and the insulin issues kind of come as a secondary effect since it's an inflammatory condition. Now, where we first saw that the advanced glycation in products can be somewhat mitigated by carnosine was actually with some of the brain research because AES build in the brain and one of the reasons why we start to lose cognitive function as we get older as these things build and damage DNA. So there was a study that was published in neurotherrapeutics that was pretty fascinating that found that there was increased cognitive function with carnosine like at a high level. So okay, what's going on? That's kind of how they investigated this. Let's get into dosing and things like that for a minute because I think this is what you're after. And carnosine is safe. Okay, the thing is is like we get it in meat. You can get it from meat and it's going to have an impact, but it doesn't seem to increase tissue levels within our body a ton. Okay, this means that we need to get a little bit more of it. Now, carnosine is already known in the fitness community because there's this thing called beta alanine. And beta alanine is actually half of carnosine. But beta alanine is typically used like for pre-workouts and to delay some of the fatigue, right? But the reason that people take beta alanine is because in the body we have histadine and beta alanine combines with histadine to create carnosine. So the short answer is you can even take beta alanine and have some of this effect. But now we're seeing more evidence that straight up carnosine might be a great way to go. Like go with utilizing three, four, even up to six grams per day of carnosine to get those tissue levels high. What about timing? When would you want to take it? Well, most people take beta alanine or something before a workout because it has a short-term effect on buffering the hydrogen, allowing you to push it a little bit harder before fatiguing. And you can definitely do that with pure carnosine, too, but there's going to be a little bit more of a breakdown. Carnosine has a short-term and long-term effect. As carnosine builds up in the system, it's going to be stronger from an advanced glycation in product side of things. Okay? But in the short term, if you were to take it prior to say having a sugary meal or prior to having like a dessert or something that could literally glycate, you could take it about 30 to 60 minutes prior to that and actually have an impact, a positive impact on reducing the risk of glycation. Now, I'm going to jump out on a limb. I'm not a clinician, so I can't say this with certainty, but a lot of times people say, "Hey, I have joint pain after I have sugar or I have stiffness or brain fog after sugar." Sometimes it could be an advanced glycation in product issue. It could be quick glycation and it could be an inflammatory cascade that's just coming from the sugar in the first place for some people. But the real answer comes like when you have that diet for a longer period of time. Is it cumulative inflammation or is it advanced glycation in products that are actually just continuing to cause inflammation as a result of that diet? Right? It could be both. It could be one or the other. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Nice news is that carnosine seems to buffer this and we can at least stop it in its tracks. And then of course a good lifestyle is going to help reverse some of the damage, right? So we can stop it by using it maybe when we're going to have a cheat meal or when we're having a higher carbohydrate diet that could lead to more glycation or when we're under stress which could potentially lead to more glycation. And again, if you're going to do that, you're looking at like a two gram dose, right? Two grams or so kind of used multiple times throughout the day. And if you're looking at beta alanine, again, we're looking at four to six grams to really get that heightened effect. Again, something that's safe and you arguably could probably take much more, but when we're looking at the literature, this is where most of it stands. We'll see you tomorrow.