Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 5/23/07.  You should consult your doctor if you are taking any medications.

Pine extract prevents heart failure damage in mice - Reuters, 5/22/07 - "The effectiveness of Pycnogenol supplementation is a great option for many people who want an alternative to prescription medications such as beta-blockers or ACE inhibitors" - See Pycnogenol products at Amazon.com.

Life Long Vegetarian Diet Reduces The Risk Of Colorectal Cancer - Science Daily, 5/22/07 - "a vegetarian diet is associated with reduced risk of CRC if started very early in life"

Inhaling Pure Oxygen Can Damage Brain - Doctor's Guide, 5/22/07 - "Several brain areas responded to 100% oxygen by kicking the hypothalamus into overdrive ... The hypothalamus overreacted by dumping a massive flood of hormones and neurotransmitters into the bloodstream. These chemicals interfere with the heart's ability to pump blood and deliver oxygen -- the opposite effect you want when you're trying to resuscitate someone"

Valsartan Cuts C-Reactive Protein Levels in Prediabetics - Doctor's Guide, 5/22/07 - "In diabetic patients with abdominal obesity, after 16 weeks of hydrochlorothiazide therapy, median hsCRP values were increased 16% (4.9 vs 3.7 mg/L at baseline, P <.05) but decreased 9% in patients on valsartan (3.7 vs 4.1 mg/L at baseline, P <.05) and 5% in patients on combination therapy" - Note: Valsartan is an ARB and hydrochlorothiazide is a diuretic.

Diabetes drug called potential death risk - USA Today, 5/21/07 - "Avandia appears to raise the risk of heart attack by 43% and cardiovascular death by 64% ... Taken together 86 patients suffered heart attacks, and 39 died of cardiovascular disease, a number small enough to raise the possibility that the increased risk occurred by chance" - Note:  I am taking this along with metformin for anti-aging.  See Insulin and Aging and Advanced Glycation End Products.  I might switch back to Actos (pioglitazone).  The trouble is that Avandia (rosiglitazone) significantly lowers cortisol in some people.  It has also been shown to reduce the chances of diabetes by 62% and reduce the chances of Alzheimer's.  I haven't seen any studies on Actos (pioglitazone) in these areas.  Avandia did reduce my HDL from 57 to 47 as opposed to Actos.  A ten point drop for most people might be the reason for the results of this study by I still have plenty of HDL.

• Effect of Rosiglitazone on the Risk of Myocardial Infarction and Death from Cardiovascular Causes - NEJM, 5/21/07 - "the rosiglitazone group, as compared with the control group, the odds ratio for myocardial infarction was 1.43 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03 to 1.98; P=0.03), and the odds ratio for death from cardiovascular causes was 1.64"
• GlaxoSmithKline Responds to NEJM Article on Avandia - Doctor's Guide, 5/21/07 - "GSK strongly disagrees with the conclusions reached in the NEJM article, which are based on incomplete evidence and a methodology that the author admits has significant limitations"

Testosterone and Ageing - Medscape, 5/21/07 - "Recent studies have confirmed the long-held belief that adequate testosterone concentrations are important for sexual function and decreased testosterone concentrations are associated with impaired sexual health.[7,69,70] Testosterone replacement monotherapy has been shown to improve sexual desire and function in hypogonadal men,[7,46,69,71] with effects persisting for up to 3 years"

Early Treatment With ACE Inhibitors Urged To Reduce Long-Term Dialysis Risk - Science Daily, 5/21/07 - "For young patients with the kidney disease IgA nephropathy (IgAN), early treatment with angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors can reduce the long-term risk of irreversible kidney damage"

Moderate Alcohol Use May Slow Progression to Dementia - Medscape, 5/21/07 - "Moderate drinkers with MCI who consumed 1 or fewer drink per day of wine had a significantly lower rate of progression to dementia than did abstainers (HR, 0.15"

Vitamin A Helps Reduce Wrinkles Associated With Natural Skin Aging - Science Daily, 5/21/07 - "Applying vitamin A to the skin appears to improve the wrinkles associated with natural aging and may help to promote the production of skin-building compounds ... Researchers applied a lotion containing 0.4 percent retinol" - See retinol products at drugstore.com.

• Wrinkle creams: Your guide to younger looking skin - CNN - "Retinol is less potent than the vitamin A derivative tretinoin" - Note:  Tretinoin is Retin A.

Green Tea May Protect Bladder From Becoming Inflamed - Science Daily, 5/20/07 - "catechins found in green tea protected both normal and cancerous bladder cells from inflammation when we exposed the cells to hydrogen peroxide ... these results indicate herbal supplements from green tea could be a treatment option for various bladder conditions that are caused by injury or inflammation" - See Green tea products at iHerb.  My favorite is Jarrow green tea.

Hotter Is Better For Removing Allergens In Laundry - Science Daily, 5/20/07 - "140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 ºC) or higher--kills all house dust mites, compared with just 6.5% of dust mites in laundry washed at 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 ºC), or warm water"

Statin Use Linked With Decreased Prostate Cancer Mortality Rates; Lower PSA Levels - Science Daily, 5/20/07 - "PSA levels declined by 1.1 percent for every 10 mg/dl decrease in LDL ... Reviewing PSA levels among statin users screened in the Finnish Prostate Cancer Screening Trial, researchers from Helsinki found a decrease in prostate cancer incidence in this group ... A significant decrease was found in the incidence of T3 cancers ... Non-statin, lipid-lowering drugs were not associated with incidence, stage or grade"

Vitamin D needs more calcium to lower hip fracture - Reuters, 6/18/07 - "Current evidence indicates that you need at least 800 IU of vitamin D to reduce fracture risk (and that you need additional calcium supplements), but what we don't know is whether 800 IU of vitamin D is the optimal dose for musculoskeletal health"

Lipoic Acid Explored As Anti-aging Compound - Science Daily, 5/17/07 - "mice supplemented with lipoic acid have a cognitive ability, behavior, and genetic expression of almost 100 detoxification and antioxidant genes that are comparable to that of young animals" - See alpha lipoic acid at Amazon.com.

Eat Your Broccoli: Study Finds Strong Anti-Cancer Properties In Cruciferous Veggies - Science Daily, 5/17/07 - "if you’re at all worried about cancer or at high risk of cancer, especially of prostate or colon cancer, then increasing your dietary intake of broccoli and other vegetables could be a good idea"

Alpha-Lipoic Acid Supplements review - ConsumerLab.com, 5/16/07 - "two alpha lipoic acid supplements contained significantly less of this ingredient than promised on their labels"

Alcohol May Help Prevent Kidney Cancer - WebMD, 5/15/07 - "people who reported moderate alcohol consumption were 28% less likely to be diagnosed with kidney cancer ... Moderate drinkers consumed at least 15 grams of alcohol per day. That's a little more than one daily drink"

Biology Dictates Diet Success - WebMD, 5/15/07 - "The low-glycemic-load diet was effective for a lot of the individuals who were high-insulin secretors and who previously had challenges losing weight and keeping it off"

ARBs for the Treatment of Heart Failure: A Class Effect? - Medscape, 5/15/07 - "Our results suggest that all ARBs are not equivalent. Valsartan, irbesartan, and candesartan were all associated with better survival rates when compared with losartan. The comparison for telmisartan was not statistically significant, possibly because this group included the smallest number of patients. In addition, there are no data from randomized trials on the effect of telmisartan on mortality in patients with heart failure"

LDL Below 100 mg/dL Deemed Not Low Enough - Clinical Psychiatry News, 5/07 - "Unfortunately, getting LDL down to a target of 100 mg/dL simply isn't enough to guarantee cardiovascular protection, because one-half of patients with an ACS had an LDL below that value"

Abstracts from this week's Doctor's Guide Nutrition/Dietetics:

Conjugated linoleic Acid alters matrix metalloproteinases of metastatic mouse mammary tumor cells - J Nutr. 2007 Jun;137(6):1423-9 - "Suppression of MMP activity, therefore, may be 1 pathway through which CLA reduces tumor invasion and spread"

Consumption of sweetened beverages and intakes of fructose and glucose predict type 2 diabetes occurrence - J Nutr. 2007 Jun;137(6):1447-54 - "Combined intake of fructose and glucose was associated with the risk of type 2 diabetes but no significant association was observed for intakes of sucrose, lactose, or maltose. The relative risk between the highest and lowest quartiles of combined fructose and glucose intake was 1.87"

Advanced glycation endproducts: what is their relevance to diabetic complications? - Diabetes Obes Metab. 2007 May;9(3):233-45 - "AGEs may potentiate the development of diabetic complications by activation of cell responses by AGE-modified proteins interacting with specific cell surface receptors, activation of cell responses by AGE free adducts, impairment of protein-protein and enzyme-substrate interactions by AGE residue formation, and increasing resistance to proteolysis of extracellular matrix proteins. The formation of AGEs is suppressed by intensive glycaemic control, and may in future be suppressed by thiamine and pyridoxamine supplementation, and several other pharmacological agents"

Adiponectin in health and disease - Diabetes Obes Metab. 2007 May;9(3):282-9 - "Adiponectin is an important adipokine because of its beneficial effects on glucose and lipid metabolism. Low levels of adiponectin are associated with disease states such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease ... Adiponectin levels in humans can be increased through indirect methods such as weight loss or treatment with thiazolidinediones"

Do low levels of circulating adiponectin represent a biomarker or just another risk factor for the metabolic syndrome? - Diabetes Obes Metab. 2007 May;9(3):246-58 - "The metabolic syndrome is currently defined by various combinations of insulin resistance, obesity, dyslipidaemia and hypertension. The tendency for these risk factors to appear simultaneously suggests a single aetiologic basis. A low level of circulating adiponectin is associated with the appearance of each metabolic syndrome risk factor ... An association between the metabolic syndrome and low adiponectin supports the view that the development of the metabolic syndrome may be triggered by a single underlying mechanism. Clinical studies in the future may show that a low level of circulating adiponectin is a primary biomarker for a specific cluster of metabolic syndrome risk factors rather than all the possible combinations of risk factors currently used to identify the metabolic syndrome"

Raised alanine transaminase and decreased adiponectin are features of the metabolic syndrome in patients with type 2 diabetes - Diabetes Obes Metab. 2007 May;9(3):438-40 - "Mean ALT was significantly higher in patients with the MS and higher ALT was associated with lower adiponectin levels. As the number of features of MS increased, ALT increased and adiponectin decreased independent of glycaemic control"

Association Between Vitamin D and Age-Related Macular Degeneration in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988 Through 1994 - Arch Ophthalmol. 2007 May;125(5):661-669 - "The odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for early AMD among participants in the highest vs lowest quintile of serum vitamin D was 0.64 ... This study provides evidence that vitamin D may protect against AMD" - See vitamin D products at iHerb.

Coenzyme Q10 in the treatment of hypertension: a meta-analysis of the clinical trials - J Hum Hypertens. 2007 Apr;21(4):297-306 - "coenzyme Q10 has the potential in hypertensive patients to lower systolic blood pressure by up to 17 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure by up to 10 mm Hg without significant side effects" - See coenzyme Q10 at Amazon.com.

Effect of coenzyme q10 on myopathic symptoms in patients treated with statins - Am J Cardiol. 2007 May 15;99(10):1409-12 - "coenzyme Q10 supplementation may decrease muscle pain associated with statin treatment. Thus, coenzyme Q10 supplementation may offer an alternative to stopping treatment with these vital drugs" - See coenzyme Q10 at Amazon.com.

Effects of Atorvastatin on vitamin D levels in patients with acute ischemic heart disease - Am J Cardiol. 2007 Apr 1;99(7):903-5 - "atorvastatin increases vitamin D levels. This increase could explain some of the beneficial effects of atorvastatin at the cardiovascular level that are unrelated to cholesterol levels"

Effects of Two Years of Testosterone Replacement on Insulin Secretion, Insulin Action, Glucose Effectiveness, Hepatic Insulin Clearance and Postprandial Glucose Turnover in Elderly Men - Diabetes Care. 2007 May 11 - "two years of treatment of elderly men with testosterone does not improve carbohydrate tolerance nor does it alter insulin secretion, insulin action, glucose effectiveness, hepatic insulin clearance or the pattern of postprandial glucose metabolism. Thus testosterone deficiency is unlikely to be the cause of the age associated deterioration in glucose tolerance commonly observed in elderly men"

Relations of serum phosphorus and calcium levels to the incidence of cardiovascular disease in the community - Arch Intern Med. 2007 May 14;167(9):879-85 - "Individuals in the highest serum phosphorus quartile experienced a multivariable-adjusted 1.55-fold CVD risk (95% confidence interval, 1.16%-2.07%; P = .004) compared with those in the lowest quartile ... Higher serum phosphorus levels are associated with an increased CVD risk in individuals free of CKD and CVD in the community"

Fiber and Magnesium Intake and Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes: A Prospective Study and Meta-analysis - Arch Intern Med. 2007 May 14;167(9):956-65 - "Higher cereal fiber and magnesium intakes may decrease diabetes risk"

Calcium plus vitamin d supplementation and the risk of postmenopausal weight gain - Arch Intern Med. 2007 May 14;167(9):893-902 - "Calcium plus cholecalciferol supplementation has a small effect on the prevention of weight gain, which was observed primarily in women who reported inadequate calcium intakes"

Expert opinion: omega-3 fatty acids and bleeding-cause for concern? - Am J Cardiol. 2007 Mar 19;99(6A):44C-46C - "the benefits of triglyceride lowering with omega-3 fatty acids more than outweigh any theoretical risks for increased bleeding"

Plasma n-3 fatty acids and the risk of cognitive decline in older adults: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study - Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Apr;85(4):1103-11 - "Promoting higher intakes of n-3 HUFAs in the diet of hypertensive and dyslipidemic persons may have substantial benefits in reducing their risk of cognitive decline in the area of verbal fluency"

Aspirin reduces cutaneous flushing after administration of an optimized extended-release niacin formulation - Int J Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2007 Feb;45(2):78-88 - "Aspirin significantly reduced the incidence, intensity and duration of flushing associated with reformulated niacin ER"

Supplement Spotlight (metformin):

1. Metformin: The Most Effective Life Extension Drug is Also a Safe, Effective Weight Loss Drug - IAS Bulletin - "Metformin is also one of the most promising anti-aging, life extending drugs available"
2. Cross-link Breakers and Inhibitors - International Anti-Aging Systems - "metformin has a dual effect. It lowers blood glucose, (a well-known and established activity) plus, as new research is revealing, it is an effective inhibitor of cross-linking"
3. Drug 'Avandia' May Prevent Diabetes - WebMD, 9/15/06 - "People at high risk for diabetes who took the drug Avandia reduced their risk of developing the disease by 60% in the three-year trial ... taking the drug metformin (Glucophage), which is already widely used for diabetes prevention, was associated with a 31% reduction in disease risk -- about half that seen in the Avandia study"
4. New EASD/ADA Consensus Recommends Metformin at Diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes - Doctor's Guide, 9/13/06 - "metformin significantly reduced the risk of fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular events in patients with type 2 diabetes(3). The study showed a 36% reduction in all-cause mortality, a 42% reduction in diabetes-related mortality and a 32% reduction in diabetes-related endpoints"
5. Depression Drugs May Up Diabetes Risk - WebMD, 6/12/06 - "taking antidepressants was associated with a two- to threefold increase in risk ... The increase was not seen, however, in people at high risk for diabetes who were taking both antidepressants and the blood-sugar-regulating drug glucophage (metformin)"
6. Metformin and Lifestyle Intervention May Help Prevent Metabolic Syndrome - Medscape, 4/18/06 - "Participants were randomly assigned to standard treatment with placebo pill; metformin, 850 mg, twice daily; or intensive lifestyle management with placebo pill and followed up for a mean of 3.2 years ... Intensive lifestyle consisted of reduction of at least 7% of body weight, low-calorie and low-fat diet, and moderate physical activity at least 150 minutes weekly ... In those with prevalent MS at baseline ... At 3 years 18% of the placebo, 23% of the metformin, and 38% of the lifestyle intervention group no longer had the MS, with lifestyle intervention only showing a significant effect vs placebo"
7. The Multiple Benefits of Metformin - Life Extension Magazine, 9/01 - "An ideal anti-diabetic drug would enhance cellular insulin sensitivity, inhibit excess intestinal absorption of sugar, reduce excess liver production of glucose, promote weight loss and reduce cardiovascular risk factors. Metformin (Glucophage) is the one drug that does all of this and more"
8. Metformin improves endothelial vascular reactivity in first-degree relatives of type 2 diabetic patients with metabolic syndrome and normal glucose tolerance - Diabetes Care. 2006 May;29(5):1083-9 - "The metformin group had decreased weight, BMI, systolic blood pressure, and FPG and improved lipid profile. Endothelium-dependent FBF responses were also improved, without any effect on endothelium-independent responses"
9. Metformin decelerates aging and development of mammary tumors in HER-2/neu transgenic mice - Bull Exp Biol Med. 2005 Jun;139(6):721-3 - "Mean life span of mice increased by 8% (p<0.05), in 10% long-living mice it was prolonged by 13.1%, and the maximum life span was prolonged by 1 month under the effect of metformin in comparison with the control. The rate of populational aging decreased by 2.26 times ... Hence, we first demonstrated a geroprotective effect of metformin and its suppressive effect towards the development of mammary tumors"
10. The impact of antidiabetic therapies on cardiovascular disease - Curr Atheroscler Rep. 2005 Feb;7(1):50-7 - "Metformin is the only oral antidiabetic medication shown to decrease cardiovascular events independent of glycemic control."
11. Effects of metformin on the body composition in subjects with risk factors for type 2 diabetes - Diabetes Obes Metab. 2005 Mar;7(2):189-92 - "In the metformin group, there was a decrease in fat weight from 25.9 +/- 9.4 to 20.8 +/- 9.2 kg, p < 0.01, an increase in lean weight from 57.05 +/- 13.6 to 61.9 +/- 16.5 kg, p < 0.01, an increase in basal metabolism from 1735 +/- 413 to 1878 +/- 505 calories/day, p < 0.05 and an increase in body water" - Note:  That's a 19.7% decrease in fat (25.9-20.8)/25.9 = 19.7%, a 8.5% increase in lean weight (61.9-57.05)/57.05 = 8.5% and a 8.2% increase in basal metabolism (1878-1735)/1735 = 8.2%. - Ben
12. See metformin at IAS or OffshoreRx1.combut check with a doctor first.
13. Also see my page on Insulin and Aging and Advance Glycation End Products.

Affiliates (I could sure use some sales.  You can drag the links onto your desktop and use them so that I get credit for the sale.  Click here for more stores):