Ethanol as an accelerator for the formation of advanced glycation end products in glucose-lysine solution

Abstract In this study, a glucose-lysine (G-L) model was selected to simulate the dietary system (cooking of alcohol-cured steak) to study the effect of alcohol concentration on the formation of advanced glycosylation products (AGEs) in Maillard reaction. It was first reported that higher alcohol concentrations accelerated the formation of AGEs as well as their intermediates glyoxal (GO) and methylglyoxal (MGO). The contents of GO and MGO increased from 11.74 ± 2.55 to 50.18 ± 0.16 μg/mL and 19.04 ± 1.25 to 58.51 ± 2.56 μg/mL with increasing ethanol concentration, respectively. High-alcohol samples produced higher levels of Ne-(carboxymethyl) lysine (CML) and Nɛ-carboxyethyl lysine (CEL) detected by U-HPLC-MS/MS. The capacity of catechin to inhibit the formation of AGEs and intermediates were significantly related to the concentration of ethanol, which may be due to ethanol accelerated catechin degradation and weakened the ability of catechin to trap GO and MGO. Our study strongly suggests that although we cannot completely avoid the AGEs produced by the Maillard reaction, in daily life, we try to avoid adding alcohol, especially high-concentration alcohol, when cooking and processing ingredients.