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Recent Longevity News:
New Hope For Cancer - Time Magazine cover story, 5/28/01
Asthma drug should not be used by itself - USA Today, 5/23/01 - "Two new studies have found that using a long-acting, airway-dilating asthma drug by itself can worsen the condition ... while salmeterol, sold as Serevent, eases symptoms of asthma, it does not alleviate the underlying inflammation that exacerbates the disease. Inhaled steroids reduce inflammation"
Dirty Money, Dollar Bills Carry Potentially Harmful Bacteria - ABC News, 5/23/01 - "Five of the bills contained bacteria that can cause an infection in perfectly healthy people, and 59 of them (that’s 87 percent) were contaminated with bacteria that could cause an infection in anyone with a compromised immune system, such as people with HIV or cancer."
Cholesterol Guideline Changes Call For Treatment Changes - Intelihealth, 5/23/01
Millions more Americans should be taking cholesterol drugs, says a U.S. panel. Should you? - Time Magazine, 5/28/01 - "Triglycerides, free-floating molecules that circulate in our blood transporting fats for storage and metabolism, were given short shrift eight years ago. But recent studies show that elevated triglyceride levels significantly increase risk of heart disease"
Tea: A Healthy Brew, Beverage Fights Cavity-Causing Bacteria, Even Viruses - WebMD, 5/22/01 - "Tea can inhibit growth of cavity-causing bacteria and even some viruses ... Tea contains helpful chemicals called polyphenols which prevent bacterial growth ... tea not only seems to protect against heart disease and cancer, it may also fight infection and even cavities"
You'll Never Guess What's Sleeping in Your Bed, Dust Mites -- and They're Known to Trigger Asthma, Allergies - WebMD, 5/22/01 - "some 86% of American homes have detectable levels of dust mite allergen, but more importantly, around 23% of homes have enough of the irritant to trigger respiratory problems" - See my dust mite page.
Botulinum Toxin A Injections Seem Effective for Chronic Low Back Pain - Medscape, 5/22/01, user=benhess, pwd=asdfgh - "After 3 weeks, roughly 73% of the botulinum-treated patients had a greater than 50% reduction in pain compared with 25% of saline-treated subjects. By 8 weeks, 60% of the Botox group and 12.5% of the saline group continued to report significant reductions in back pain"
Researcher says jet lag causes brain shrinkage - CNN, 5/21/01 - "Cortisol, measured in saliva samples, is a hormone produced by the adrenal glands. The hormone rises in the morning and drops in the evening, in accordance with normal sleep patterns. It also rises in times of stress, such as an argument ... Cho and his colleagues found evidence that people who had been subjected to repeat jet lag had higher levels of cortisol and impaired cognitive abilities ... Higher cortisol levers were correlated with a greater reduction in temporal lobe volume ... The results are consistent with previous studies showing that high cortisol levels, such as those associated with severe depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome, are correlated with a smaller temporal lobe and memory impairment" - Cortisol also increases as people age. It is also associated with depression. See my cortisol page page for ways to reduce it. Personally, I take 800 mg of procaine per day. - Ben
Frequent Flyer Beware: Jet Lag Is Bad for the Memory, Brain Cell and Memory Loss Related to Increased Stress Hormone - WebMD, 5/22/01 - "Over the long haul, Cho believes that elevated cortisol due to shifting time zones is responsible for both the loss of brain cells and the memory impairment. The higher the elevations in cortisol levels, the smaller the temporal lobe volumes on MRI"
Washboard abs don't have to cost an arm and a leg - CNN, 5/21/01 - "The study found that the bicycle maneuver created almost 250 percent more muscle activity in the rectus abdominus muscles -- the six-pack set -- than a crunch did"
An Apple a Day May Really Keep the Doctor Away, Apples, Tomatoes, and Other Fruits Offer Lung Protection - WebMD, 5/21/01 - "those who ate more apples and tomatoes had lungs that were, in effect, three years younger on average than those who ate less fruits and vegetables"
Treatment of Hypertension Urged in Very Elderly Patients - Medscape, 5/21/01, user=benhess, pwd=asdfgh - "A reduction of as little as 15 mmHg in systolic blood pressure can have striking results," Dr. Moser stressed. A reduction of this magnitude reduces heart failure by almost 50%, and reduces stroke by about 25% to 30%"
Diabetics Get Kidney Protection From ARBs, High Blood Pressure Drugs Reduce Need for Dialysis, Transplant - WebMD, 5/20/01 - "results from three landmark studies of almost 4,000 diabetic patients suggest that a specific class of blood pressure drugs called angiotensin receptor blockers, or ARBs, can protect kidneys and reduce the need for kidney dialysis or transplant"
Human Growth Hormone, Serostim (Somatropin for Injection) Lot Counterfeit - Doctor's Guide, 5/18/01
Smoking, Hypertension a Recipe for Erectile Dysfunction, Says Study - ABC News, 5/19/01 - "men who smoke and have high blood pressure are 27 times more likely to be impotent than non-smokers"
Lowering High Blood Pressure Can Reverse Some Dementia in the Elderly, Improves Memory and Thinking Limited by Vascular Dementia - WebMD, 5/18/01 - "At 12 weeks, both thinking and memory improved by 15% to 40%, and there were similar improvements in gait and other movements, says Jacobson. These improvements were still present at six months" See Memory and Hypertension
America gets a red alert on cholesterol level - USA Today, 5/16/01 - "Pay particular attention to LDL cholesterol, the artery-clogging "bad" cholesterol. An LDL value below 100 milligrams per deciliter is considered optimal"
Too Many Elderly Lacking in Vitamin D, Study: Defiency All Too Common, Could Be Cause of Muscle Weakness - WebMD, 5/16/01 - "many elderly patients who are bedridden or in wheelchairs may actually be suffering from muscle weakness caused by severe, but easily treatable, vitamin D deficiencies ... The researcher suggests that even twice that amount may not be enough in chronically ill and even healthy older patients, because absorption of the vitamin tends to be impaired with age"
Cholesterol 101, What You Need to Know About Managing Cholesterol - WebMD, 5/16/01
Under-Treatment of Hypertension Contributing to Chronic KidneyDisease in United States - Doctor's Guide, 5/15/01 - "Hypertension is a leading factor in developing kidney disease. While the majority of people in the study were treated for hypertension, only 11 percent reduced their blood pressure to recommended levels"
New Cholesterol Guidelines Expected to Triple Number of Americans Taking Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs - Doctor's Guide, 5/15/01 - "Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the number one killer of Americans, claiming about 500,000 lives yearly. Studies have consistently shown that by lowering LDL levels, risk for coronary heart disease is reduced by as much as 40 percent"
Consider Undertreatment in Resistant Depression - Clinical Psychiatry News, 4/01, user=benhess, pwd=asdfgh - "Dosage should be pushed to the maximal tolerated level—something many psychiatrists are not prepared to do—and then maintained there for at least 6 weeks before an agent is concluded to be ineffective"
New findings on I3C - Life Extension Magazine, 5/01 - "These findings are the latest in a growing list of what I3C does to modulate estrogen. One of its most important actions is to change the way estrogen is metabolized. Instead of transforming into 16-a-hydroxyestrone, estrogen is converted to 2-hydroxyestrone when I3C is present. 2-hydroxyestrone is a weaker form of estrogen. Women with more 2-hydroxyestrone than 16-a-hydroxyestrone are at less risk for breast cancer than those with higher levels of the 16 metabolite. Another feat of I3C is to block carcinogens from causing cancer. In addition, I3C can prevent cervical cancer caused by human papilloma virus-16 in mice. I3C also causes apoptosis (cell death) in certain types of cancer cells"
Further thoughts on I3C and DIM:
I think the biggest concern of women is breast cancer and of men, it's prostate cancer. If there were only one pill that I could take for either of these, it would be di-indolylmethane. Nature's Way Dim-plus (see below) contains the patented Bio-Response DIM supported by Michael A. Zeligs, M.D., who has done many of the studies on DIM. I believe he is the one who owns the patent.
DIM FAQ - "DIM helps to eliminate active estrogen from the male body by promoting its conversion into the "good" metabolites. These metabolites then free up testosterone by bumping it off the testosterone-binding proteins. The end result is a healthier balance of testosterone to estrogen and more free testosterone circulating in the body. In scientific studies, high levels of testosterone and low levels of estrogen have been linked to lean body mass, an efficient fat-burning metabolism, and low abdominal obesity. Other benefits from testosterone are improved mood, more interest in sex, and better physical conditioning. In this chapter, we'll explore these issues in more detail."
Safer Estrogen with Phytonutrition - rrpwebsite.org, Michael A. Zeligs, M.D. - "In men, there is a new appreciation of the effects of changing estrogen metabolism with aging, now identified as “andropause”. German researchers have clearly documented a dramatic, aging-related accumulation of estrogen in human prostate glands. This work correlated age, estrogen accumulation, and the presence of benign prostatic hypertrophy. This underscores the role of estrogen as a growth promoting hormone in men as well as women. Tissue accumulation of estrogen is a unique hallmark of andropause, distinct from estrogen deficiency which characterizes menopause. Recent work shows that estradiol, the active form of estrogen, provokes increases in prostate specific antigen (PSA) production in human prostate tissue. This increase in PSA is as great as that seen with testosterone. Increased PSA production was specifically inhibited by 2-methoxyestradiol, the beneficial estrogen metabolite whose production is promoted by DIM ... Accumulation of estrogen during andropause is amplified by obesity since fat tissue is the site of conversion of both testosterone and DHEA into estrogen. In case control studies, higher levels of circulating estrogen predict the degree of prostate enlargement. More importantly, increased estrogen levels have been repeatedly noted as a risk factor for early atherosclerosis and heart attack. The risks of elevated estrogen in men further correlate to decreased ability to dissolve blood clots. The specific deficiency in men of an active, beneficial metabolism of estrogen leading to 2-methoxy estrogens would explain many, if not all, of these observations ... Recent experimental work supports this connection between healthy estrogen metabolism and men’s health. In studies culturing human vascular endothelial cells (HUVEC), it has been shown that 2-methoxy estradiol is a primary regulator of cell growth and apoptosis. Active and regulated apoptosis may contribute to the prevention of atherosclerotic plaque formation. At the basic level of lipoprotein status, 2-hydroxy and 2-methoxy estrogens are powerful antioxidants. In recent experiments, these metabolites, whose production is promoted by DIM, have been shown to prevent the oxidation of human lipoproteins. Lipoprotein oxidation is now accepted as an early, initiating event in atherosclerosis ... While it remains to be demonstrated through intervention studies that DIM supplementation can slow the progression of prostate disease and atherosclerosis, it is clear that DIM supplementation in men can beneficially shift estrogen metabolism. The supplemental use of DHEA has been advocated in men to replace dramatically decreased DHEA production with aging. A primary concern regarding this use of DHEA has been its partial conversion into estrogen. By promoting a healthy estrogen metabolism, use of DIM by men will increase the safety and benefits of long term supplementation with DHEA"
Reducing the Hormone Related Cancer Risk (Or cabbages, sex hormones and their metabolites) - Jonathan Wright M.D., International Anti-aging Systems - "Among other things, estradiol is metabolized into estrone, which in turn can be metabolized into either 2-hydroxyestrone or 16 alpha-hydroxyestrone. Importantly, there's an “inverse” relationship here: if more 2-hydroxyestrone is made, less 16 alpha-hydroxyestrone is usually made, and vice-versa. In at least one of his publications, Dr. Bradlow has termed 2-hydroxyestrone “good estrogen”, and has given us evidence that 16 alpha hydroxyestrone is “bad estrogen”. He writes: “Evidence from a long series of studies has demonstrated a specific role for 16a-hydroxyestrone as a transforming estrogen, which is more potent than estradiol itself.” (“Transforming” refers to the tendency of 16a-hydroxyestrone to increase cellular growth and proliferation, and even cancerous transformation in estrogen-responsive tissues). He goes on to note that the preponderance of evidence shows that, by contrast, 2-hydroxyestrone is non-carcinogenic or even anti-carcinogenic. He also notes that treatment which reduces the 2/16a hydroxyestrone ratio has been shown to reverse the growth of human larygneal papillomas, caused by the same family of viruses (HPV) implicated in cervical cancers. Other researchers hypothesize that cancer in other tissues, including uterus, prostate, liver and kidney, may be affected by the 2/16a hydroxyestrone ratio as well as other estrogen metabolites"
