Last updated: October 23, 2026 · Every study below was read from its PubMed abstract. PMIDs are listed at the end so you can check them.
Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) form when sugar sticks to protein or fat. Your body makes some every day. Food cooked with high, dry heat adds a lot more. Women with PCOS have more AGEs in their blood than other women, even when they are lean. In one small PCOS study, a low-AGE diet cut insulin and testosterone. Weight stayed the same. The easy fix is to cook with water and low heat more often.
The short version
- Chicken breast broiled at 450°F for 15 minutes held 5,828 kU of AGEs per 100 g, while the same cut poached for 15 minutes held 1,076.
- Beef marinated for an hour in lemon juice or vinegar formed less than half the AGEs during cooking, according to the same 2010 laboratory analysis.
- In 23 women with PCOS, insulin, HOMA-IR and testosterone rose on a high-AGE diet and fell again on a low-AGE diet.
- The PCOS evidence is limited and comes mostly from one research team in Athens, so treat it as a good reason to cook gently, not as a cure.
What are advanced glycation end products?
Advanced glycation end products, or AGEs, are damaged molecules that form when a sugar latches onto a protein or a fat and the pair slowly changes shape. Chemists call the first step of that reaction glycation, and the AGE is the stiff, stable product at the end of the chain. Doctors already measure one early glycation product every day: HbA1c, which reflects average blood glucose over roughly three months.
AGEs reach your tissues from two directions. Your body makes them all the time, and it makes more of them when blood sugar stays high for long stretches. Food is the second source, because high, dry heat in a pan or under a grill runs the same reaction at speed. The brown crust on a steak is the visible part of it. Food scientists call that browning the Maillard reaction, after the French chemist Louis-Camille Maillard, who described it in 1912.
AGEs act on cells through a receptor called RAGE, short for "receptor for advanced glycation end products". When an AGE binds to RAGE, the cell activates a signal called NF-kB that drives inflammation. That link to inflammation and insulin is the reason AGEs matter for PMOS, the name PCOS has carried since the May 2026 rename.
What did the Athens team find about AGEs in PCOS?
Women with PCOS carry more AGEs in their blood, and the gap appears in lean women too. Most of this work comes from Evanthia Diamanti-Kandarakis and her team at the University of Athens.
Their first paper, published in Clinical Endocrinology in 2005, compared 29 young women with PCOS against 22 healthy women. Serum AGE levels averaged 9.81 units in the PCOS group and 5.11 in the control group. The women with PCOS also showed more RAGE on their circulating white blood cells. AGE levels tracked testosterone closely (r = 0.73). That link held even after the team allowed for BMI, insulin and glucose.
Was the gap simply a side effect of insulin resistance? A 2008 follow-up tested exactly that. The team studied 193 lean women of similar age and BMI, none of them insulin resistant. The 100 women with PCOS averaged 7.96 U/ml. Healthy women averaged 5.86, and women with only one PCOS feature, such as high androgens alone, sat between 5.26 and 5.61.
A 2007 study looked inside the ovary itself. In archived tissue from six women with PCOS and six without, AGE and RAGE staining was stronger in the granulosa cells of the PCOS ovaries. Granulosa cells are the cells that surround and feed each developing egg. With twelve samples, this study shows where AGEs gather, not what they do there.
The same team also tested medication. In a 2007 study, six months of metformin lowered plasma AGEs in 22 women with PCOS, but only slightly, from 9.98 to 9.86 U/mL. Taken together, these papers suggest that higher AGEs are part of PCOS itself, not only a consequence of weight or blood sugar.
Can a low-AGE diet help PCOS?
A low-AGE diet lowered insulin and testosterone in one small PCOS study, and a newer randomised trial points in the same direction. Neither is large enough to settle the question.
The Athens diet study (Tantalaki, 2014)
This study, published in Hormones (Athens) in 2014, followed 23 women with PCOS whose mean age was 23 and mean BMI was 26. Each woman ate three diets in a row for two months each. First came a lower-calorie diet with no AGE limit, then a high-AGE diet, then a low-AGE diet, with calories held steady across the last two.
On the high-AGE diet, serum AGEs, testosterone, insulin, HOMA-IR and a marker of oxidative stress all went up. On the low-AGE diet, every one of those markers came back down. BMI did not change across the two periods, so weight change cannot explain the shift. The abstract reports these results as statistically significant (p<0.05) but gives no percentages, so we do not quote any here.
The Turkish trial (Ozdemir, 2025)
A team at Hacettepe University in Ankara ran a randomised trial in women with phenotype A PCOS, the form that combines high androgens, irregular cycles and polycystic ovaries. Reproductive Sciences published the results in 2025. All 44 women followed a lower-calorie diet for 12 weeks, half of them were also asked to cut AGEs, and 30 women finished.
Both groups lost a similar amount of weight, yet fasting glucose fell further in the low-AGE group. Only the low-AGE group saw total testosterone, the free androgen index, AMH and the inflammatory marker TNF-alpha fall, while SHBG rose. This trial matters because it comes from an independent team, in a different country, using random allocation.
Outside PCOS
A 2014 trial in Diabetes Care randomised 74 overweight women without a PCOS diagnosis to a high-AGE or low-AGE diet for four weeks. The two diets differed mainly in how the food was cooked. After adjusting for changes in body measurements, the low-AGE diet lowered fasting insulin and HOMA-IR compared with the high-AGE diet.
You do not need another plan. You need a system. A low-AGE week means more stews, soups and poached meals, and fewer nights of seared meat. PCOS Meal Planner builds a week around the foods you like and rebuilds it when your week changes. Build your free plan.
How does cooking method change the AGEs in food?
Dry heat creates far more AGEs than moist heat, even when the food on the plate is the identical piece of chicken. Methods that brown the surface, like broiling and frying, generate the most, while methods that keep food moist, like poaching and stewing, generate the least.
The best food data comes from a 2010 paper in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association by Jaime Uribarri and colleagues at Mount Sinai in New York. The team measured AGEs in 549 foods and found that dry heat raised AGE content by 10 to 100 times above the uncooked state. The values are reported in kilounits (kU), a laboratory unit, so the numbers are only meaningful when compared with each other.
The same pattern holds across other protein foods, as these matched pairs from the 2010 database demonstrate, all measured per 100 g:
| Food | Gentler method | Harsher method |
|---|---|---|
| Chicken breast | Poached 15 min: 1,076 | Broiled 15 min: 5,828 |
| Beef | Stewed: 2,657 | Steak, pan fried in olive oil: 10,058 |
| Salmon | Poached fillet: 2,292 | Broiled fillet: 3,347 |
| Egg | Poached, below simmer: 90 | Fried: 2,749 |
| Tofu | Raw: 788 | Sauteed: 4,723 |
Meat, cheese and other animal foods rich in fat and protein start high and climb fastest during cooking. The 2010 paper found that vegetables, fruit, whole grains and milk stay relatively low in AGEs even after cooking, unless they are prepared with added fat. So the change that matters most is the cooking method you choose for protein, not whether you eat protein at all.
How to cut AGEs in your meals
You can lower your AGE intake considerably without giving up meat or flavor, and each step below comes directly from the cooking tests in the 2010 Uribarri paper.
- Cook your protein in liquid on three or four evenings a week. Poach chicken in stock, simmer fish in a tomato or curry sauce, or prepare a lentil and spinach stew.
- Marinate meat in lemon juice or vinegar before cooking it. In the Mount Sinai tests, beef that sat in an acidic marinade for one hour formed less than half the AGEs of untreated beef.
- Lower the temperature and reduce the cooking time. Scrambled eggs cooked on medium-low heat with olive oil held 97 kU per 100 g, compared with 243 for the same eggs on high heat.
- Poach eggs instead of frying them, since a gently poached egg held 90 kU per 100 g while a fried egg held 2,749.
- Use a slow cooker for tougher, less expensive cuts of meat. A spinach and beef stew keeps the meat moist for the entire cooking time.
- Save grilling for the weekend rather than every weeknight, and when you do grill, marinate first and remove the most heavily charred edges.
Fill the rest of the plate with vegetables, beans and whole grains. These foods are naturally low in AGEs, and they also form the foundation of an anti-inflammatory diet for PCOS.
What the AGE research cannot tell you yet
The evidence on AGEs and PCOS is promising but thin, and it helps to know its gaps before you change how you cook.
Most of the PCOS data comes from one research group in Athens. The 2014 diet study enrolled 23 women and had no separate control group. Every woman ate the diets in the same order, so the passage of time could explain part of the change. The 2025 Turkish trial was randomised, but only 30 women completed it.
No study has yet shown that a low-AGE diet changes periods, acne or hair growth in a lasting way, because the trials measured blood markers such as insulin and testosterone over 8 to 12 weeks. Nor do we know whether dietary AGEs matter more for some PCOS types than others. Women with the inflammatory phenotype of PMOS would be the obvious group to study next.
The 2010 food values also track mainly one AGE, called CML, measured with one laboratory test. The authors note that their foods came from one urban area of the US and that they measured only two of many AGEs. Use the values to compare cooking methods, not to count AGEs the way you might count calories.
So here is the honest summary on advanced glycation end products and PCOS. Gentler cooking costs you nothing, and it improved insulin or glucose markers in three small trials. That makes it a sensible habit, not a treatment.
Myths about AGEs and PCOS
Myth: You must never grill again.
Reality: The PCOS trials reduced dietary AGE intake rather than eliminating it. Marinate in lemon or vinegar before you grill, grill less frequently, and stew or poach on most other evenings.
Myth: AGEs only matter if you have diabetes.
Reality: In a 2008 study of 193 lean women without insulin resistance, the women with PCOS still had higher serum AGE levels, at 7.96 U/ml against 5.86 in healthy women.
Myth: Sugar is the main dietary source of AGEs.
Reality: Sugar helps form AGEs inside your body, but the richest food sources are meat and fat cooked with dry heat. In the 2010 database, fruit and whole grains stayed relatively low even after cooking.
Myth: A low-AGE diet only works because you lose weight.
Reality: In the 2014 PCOS study, BMI stayed the same between the high-AGE and low-AGE diets, yet insulin and testosterone still moved in parallel with dietary AGE intake.
Myth: Microwaving is the most damaging way to cook.
Reality: In the 2010 database, chicken breast microwaved for 5 minutes contained 1,524 kU per 100 g, while the same cut broiled at 450°F for 15 minutes held 5,828.
PCOS Meal Planner does not score recipes for AGEs, and we would rather say so than pretend. What it does is plan a full week around your tastes. You can pick the stews, curries and poached dishes and still reach your protein target. Start your free PCOS meal plan.
Frequently asked questions
What are AGEs in simple terms?
AGEs are sugar stuck to protein or fat. The full name is advanced glycation end products. Your body makes some every day, and it makes more when your blood sugar stays high. You also eat them. Food cooked with high, dry heat has the most, like grilled steak or fried chicken. AGEs attach to a receptor on cells called RAGE, and that switches on inflammation inside the cell. Women with PCOS tend to have more AGEs in their blood, even when they are lean.
Do women with PCOS have higher AGEs?
Yes, in the studies so far. In a 2005 study, 29 women with PCOS had blood AGEs of 9.81 units, while 22 healthy women had 5.11. A 2008 study looked at 100 lean women with PCOS who did not have insulin resistance, and they still had higher AGEs than healthy women. Most of this work comes from one team in Athens. The result is steady, but other teams still need to check it.
Is grilled food bad for PCOS?
Grilled food is not off limits, but it is high in AGEs. In the 2010 Mount Sinai database, chicken breast broiled for 15 minutes held 5,828 kU per 100 g. Poached for 15 minutes, the same cut held 1,076, roughly a fifth as much. You do not have to stop grilling, though. Grill less often, marinate in lemon juice or vinegar first, and cut off the darkest charred bits. Then cook in liquid on most other nights of the week.
What is a low-AGE diet?
A low-AGE diet is more about how you cook than what you eat. You cook with moist heat more often, such as poaching and stewing, and you grill, roast and fry less. You eat more vegetables, beans and whole grains, since they stay low even when cooked. You soak meat in lemon juice or vinegar before you cook it. In the PCOS trials, the women still ate meat, but they cooked it with water and lower temperatures.
Can a low-AGE diet lower testosterone in PCOS?
It did in two small trials. In a 2014 Greek study of 23 women with PCOS, testosterone rose on a high-AGE diet and fell again on a low-AGE diet. Weight did not change between those two diets. In a 2025 Turkish trial, only the low-AGE group saw total testosterone fall after 12 weeks. Both trials were small, and neither tracked hair growth or acne, so treat this as a hint and not as proof.
Does a low-AGE diet help insulin resistance?
Probably, but the trials are small. In the 2014 PCOS study, insulin went up on high-AGE food and came down on low-AGE food. So did HOMA-IR, a common score for insulin resistance. A 2014 trial in 74 overweight women found the same thing in four weeks. The main change between the two diets was how the food was cooked. To learn your own numbers, read about insulin resistance tests beyond glucose.
Does marinating meat really lower AGEs?
Yes, and the acid is the ingredient that does the work. In the 2010 Mount Sinai tests, beef soaked in lemon juice or vinegar for one hour formed less than half the AGEs of plain beef. The authors say a low, acidic pH stops AGEs from forming. A simple marinade is lemon juice with garlic and herbs. Give it at least an hour in the fridge, and then you can still grill or roast the meat.
Is there a blood test for AGEs?
Not one your doctor will usually order, because the PCOS studies used research tests that most labs do not run. HbA1c is a close cousin. It measures sugar stuck to hemoglobin in your red blood cells, but it is not the same thing. For PCOS, your doctor can order fasting insulin, fasting glucose and testosterone. See our guide to PCOS blood markers.
How this article was made
We searched PubMed for every study that pairs advanced glycation end products with PCOS, then read each abstract in full. The food values come directly from Table 1 of the 2010 Uribarri paper, without rounding, and we did not estimate any that were missing. Where a paper gave no percentage, we did not calculate one. We left out animal experiments and conference abstracts, and we checked every figure against its original publication. The chart uses chicken breast because it is the food with the largest number of cooking methods tested side by side.
Sources
- Diamanti-Kandarakis E, Piperi C, Kalofoutis A, Creatsas G. Increased levels of serum advanced glycation end-products in women with polycystic ovary syndrome. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 2005;62(1):37-43. PMID 15638868
- Diamanti-Kandarakis E, et al. Immunohistochemical localization of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) and their receptor (RAGE) in polycystic and normal ovaries. Histochem Cell Biol. 2007;127(6):581-9. PMID 17205306
- Diamanti-Kandarakis E, et al. Increased serum advanced glycation end-products is a distinct finding in lean women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 2008;69(4):634-41. PMID 18363886
- Tantalaki E, et al. Impact of dietary modification of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) on the hormonal and metabolic profile of women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Hormones (Athens). 2014;13(1):65-73. PMID 24722128
- Ozdemir M, Mumusoglu S, Bilgic P. Comparison of metabolic and hormonal profiles between low-AGEs and standard AGEs-containing weight-loss diets in overweight phenotype-A PCOS patients: a randomized clinical trial. Reprod Sci. 2025;32(4):1190-1201. PMID 39953370
- Mark AB, et al. Consumption of a diet low in advanced glycation end products for 4 weeks improves insulin sensitivity in overweight women. Diabetes Care. 2014;37(1):88-95. PMID 23959566
- Uribarri J, et al. Advanced glycation end products in foods and a practical guide to their reduction in the diet. J Am Diet Assoc. 2010;110(6):911-916. PMID 20497781 (full text)
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