Aaron Hartman, MDFunctional Medicine Specialist | Clinical Researcher

Why Sugar Burns Your Cells

19 Aug 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:38

Short excerpt from a YouTube video by Aaron Hartman, MD, explaining that sugar causes oxidative damage to proteins (an oxidative process) and that hemoglobin A1c is an advanced glycation end product used as a marker in diabetes. The speaker links cellular oxidation from sugar to diabetic cellular damage and notes A1c reflects oxidation in red blood cells.

Chapters

So when, when the actual sugar molecules burn together in, in, in bread or in meat, the protein molecules do this. And so it's an oxidative process. And so to take, to bring this home, your, your hemoglobin A1c, which is a marker for diabetics, is a oxidative thing. It's an advanced glycation end product. Yes. And so, so we use this in diabetics to say how bad your diabetes. We look at oxidation in your red blood cells from sugar, and that's what the hemoglobin is. A1C is. Yes. Yes. It's interesting that this is actually blocking oxidation, because ultimately, oxidation is at the root cause for the damage in cells from diabetes.