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I'm constantly updating my karaoke page.  There is so much you need to know that I'm surprised most people don't give up plus tech supports don't even know the answers.  See my new section on burning your own super CD+G.  You can get 1400 karaoke songs on one DVD DL.  If anyone wanted to make a buck, you could probably write a book with the information on that page.  Someone told me they wrote a book using a lot of the information on my vitamin D page.

Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 2/6/08.  You should consult your doctor if you are taking any medications.

Folate Deficiency Associated With Tripling Of Dementia Risk, Study Shows - Science Daily, 2/5/08 - "Folate deficiency is associated with a tripling in the risk of developing dementia among elderly people" - See folic acid at Amazon.com.

Astaxanthin may boost muscle endurance and fat loss - Nutra USA, 2/5/08 - "astaxanthin supplementation "accelerated the decrease of body fat accumulation with exercise training" - [Abstract] - Note:  Astaxanthin is just one of over 600 carotenoids.  The problem with taking large doses of just one carotenoid is that it may cause a deficiency of the others.  I had a study on that but the link went dead.  I tried to find it via http://www.archive.org/web/web.php but it was a .asp web page and it appears that it doesn't work with those extensions. (Click here and see the OnHealth.com, 5/2/00 article).  I take Jarrow Formulas, CarotenALL, Mixed Carotenoid Complex at Amazon.com.

Baby Shampoo Awash in Chemicals? - WebMD, 2/4/08 - "the strong association between use of the baby products and higher phthalate levels suggests that the products may be an important source of exposure ... We don't know the long-term health effects of (phthalate) exposure, but if parents are concerned they need to decrease their exposure to these products" - I worry about stuff like that so much that I use vodka instead of deodorant on my arm pits after showering to kill the bacteria.  It might sound weird but it seems to work.  I can get a full day out of a shirt instead of half a day. There was a segment on CNN where they tested one of the anchormen and found a huge about of chemicals in his blood.  They claimed it was probably from the studio makeup.  He even joked that it might be grounds for a lawsuit against CNN. - Ben

HPV-Related Oral Cancers on the Rise in Men - oncologystat.com, 2/2/08 - "The virus usually associated with cervical cancer has been linked to oral cancer in men, and is responsible for as many cases of the disease as tobacco and alcohol" - See my scare with neck cancer.  I've never smoked and believe this might be the reason for my cancer.  I'm going to ask about the vaccine on the next doctor visit.

Testosterone Reduces Visceral Fat Gain in Nonobese Older Men - Medscape, 2/1/08 - "Testosterone therapy lessens the gain in visceral adipose tissue and the loss of skeletal muscle in aging men who are not obese ... Given the strong association of visceral fat with metabolic syndrome -- leading to diabetes -- and cardiovascular disease ... these findings suggest testosterone may be used to modify the age-related increase in visceral adipose tissue, and possibly the associated adverse metabolic changes"

Smoking Can Double Risk Of Colorectal Polyps - Science Daily, 2/1/08 - "Smokers have a two-fold increased risk of developing colorectal polyps"

Blame Sweet Soda for Gout? - WebMD, 1/31/08 - "Compared with men who almost never drank sugar-sweetened soft drinks -- fewer than one per month -- frequent soft-drink drinkers were significantly more likely to suffer gout: ... Two or more soft drinks each day upped gout risk by 85% ... One soft drink each day upped gout risk by 45% ... Five or six soft drinks each week upped gout risk by 29%"

Periodontal Disease Is Associated With Chronic Kidney Disease - Medscape, 1/30/08 - "subjects with periodontal disease and those who were edentulous were nearly twice as likely to have CKD (adjusted odds ratios, 1.60 and 1.85, respectively)"

Sex Hormones Unrelated To Prostate Cancer Risk, Report Shows - Science Daily, 1/30/08 - "collected the original data from 18 studies and analyzed it to determine the relationship between blood levels of sex hormones and prostate cancer. The pooled data included 3,886 men with prostate cancer and 6,438 controls ... The researchers found no association between prostate cancer risk and blood levels of different forms of testosterone or estrogen"

Lung Cancer Risk Increases With Cannabis Use - oncologystat.com, 1/29/08 - "smoking a single joint is the same as smoking 20 cigarettes in terms of lung cancer risk ... cannabis smoke contains higher levels of carcinogens than cigarette smoke ... cannabis smokers are more likely to inhale more smoke deeply and hold it in their lungs longer, allowing for more carcinogens to be deposited in the lungs. Marijuana cigarettes do not usually have proper filters and are smoked to the tip, which also increases the amount of smoke inhaled ... smoking 1 joint daily for 10 years or 2 joints daily for 5 years increased the risk of lung cancer 5.7 times"

Great Drug, but Does It Prolong Life? - New York Times, 1/28/08 - "High-risk groups have a lot to gain ... But patients at low risk benefit very little if at all. We end up overtreating a lot of patients ... This month, The Journal of the American College of Cardiology published a report combining data from several studies of people 65 and older who had a prior heart attack or established heart disease. This “meta-analysis” showed that 18.7 percent of the placebo users died during the studies, compared with 15.6 percent of the statin users ... This translates into a 22 percent lower mortality risk for high-risk patients over 65"

Abstracts from this week's Doctor's Guide Nutrition/Dietetics plus abstracts from my RSS feeds (Click here for the journals, the PubMed ones at the top):

Astaxanthin improves muscle lipid metabolism in exercise via inhibitory effect of oxidative CPT I modification - Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2008 Feb 22;366(4):892-7 - "Astaxanthin increased fat utilization during exercise compared with mice on a normal diet with prolongation of the running time to exhaustion. Colocalization of fatty acid translocase with carnitine palmitoyltransferase I (CPT I) in skeletal muscle was increased by astaxanthin. We also found that hexanoyl-lysine modification of CPT I was increased by exercise, while astaxanthin prevented this increase. In additional experiment, we found that astaxanthin treatment accelerated the decrease of body fat accumulation with exercise training"

Hepatoprotective effect of vitamin b(12) on dimethylnitrosamine-induced liver injury - Biol Pharm Bull. 2008 Feb;31(2):309-11 - "Vitamin B(12) decreased the blood levels of aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase, and clearly inhibited the overaccumulation of collagen fibrils ... vitamin B(12) could be an effective hepatoprotective agent" - Note:  Aspartate aminotransferase is the AST reading on blood tests and alanine aminotransferase is the ALT.  See vitamin B12 at Amazon.com.

Comparison of Antioxidant Potency of Commonly Consumed Polyphenol-Rich Beverages in the United States - J Agric Food Chem. 2008 Jan 26 - "pomegranate juice (PJ) ... PJ had the greatest antioxidant potency composite index among the beverages tested and was at least 20% greater than any of the other beverages tested. Antioxidant potency, ability to inhibit LDL oxidation, and total polyphenol content were consistent in classifying the antioxidant capacity of the polyphenol-rich beverages in the following order: PJ > red wine > Concord grape juice > blueberry juice > black cherry juice, açaí juice, cranberry juice > orange juice, iced tea beverages, apple juice. Although in vitro antioxidant potency does not prove in vivo biological activity, there is also consistent clinical evidence of antioxidant potency for the most potent beverages including both PJ and red wine" - See pomegranate at Amazon.com.

Ellagitannin-rich pomegranate extract inhibits angiogenesis in prostate cancer in vitro and in vivo - Int J Oncol. 2008 Feb;32(2):475-80 - "pomegranate extract standardized to ellagitannin content (POMx) ... POMx decreased prostate cancer xenograft size, tumor vessel density, VEGF peptide levels and HIF-1alpha expression after 4 weeks of treatment in SCID mice. These results demonstrate that an ellagitannin-rich pomegranate extract can inhibit tumor-associated angiogenesis as one of several potential mechanisms for slowing the growth of prostate cancer in chemopreventive applications" - See pomegranate at Amazon.com.

A prospective study of trans-Fatty Acid levels in blood and risk of prostate cancer - Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2008 Jan;17(1):95-101 - "The relative risks (95% confidence intervals; P trend) comparing top with bottom quintile trans-fatty acid levels were 2.16 (1.12-4.17; 0.11) for 18:1n-9t, 1.97 (1.03-3.75; 0.01) for total 18:2t, and 2.21 (1.14-4.29; 0.06) for total trans-fatty acids"

Adiponectin, Change in Adiponectin, and Progression to Diabetes in the Diabetes Prevention Program - Diabetes. 2008 Jan 11 - "Adiponectin is a powerful marker of diabetes risk in subjects at high risk of diabetes, even after adjustment for weight. An increase in adiponectin in lifestyle and placebo was associated with a reduction in diabetes risk. However, these changes in adiponectin were comparatively small and less strongly related to diabetes outcome than baseline adiponectin levels" - See my adiponectin page for more advantages of adiponectin and ways to increase it.

Breast development in the first 2 years of life: an association with soy-based infant formulas - J Pediatr Gastroenterol Nutr. 2008 Feb;46(2):191-5 - "We suggest that phytoestrogens impose a preserving effect on breast tissue that is evolved in early infancy, leading eventually to a slower waning of infantile breast tissue"

Screening for Prostate Cancer in U.S. Men ACPM Position Statement on Preventive Practice - Am J Prev Med. 2008 Feb;34(2):164-70 - "digital rectal examination (DRE) ... prostate-specific antigen ... rials. There is currently no convincing evidence that early screening, detection, and treatment improves mortal ... The American College of Preventive Medicine concludes that there is insufficient evidence to recommend routine population screening with DRE or PSA"

Health Focus (Adiponectin):

Medications that increase it:

News & Research:

  • Adiponectin definition - Medterms.com - "Low levels of adiponectin are found in people who are obese (and who are at increased risk of a heart attack)"
  • Fat Hormone May Contribute To Longevity - Science Daily, 11/21/07 - "long-lived Snell dwarf mice burn less glucose and more fatty acids during periods of fasting, and as a result produce fewer free radicals ... The key to this switch may be adiponectin, a hormone produced by fat cells that helps lower glucose production and stimulates cells to use fat for energy instead. The researchers found that Snell mice had three times as much adiponectin in their blood as control mice" - Something that was also in today's abstracts (see below) was pioglitazone, which increased adiponectin 156%.
  • Key Hormone Protects Obese Mice From Diabetes - WebMD, 8/23/07 - "The high levels of adiponectin, however, made the mice physiologically skinny ... This discovery also suggests that in people who have low adiponectin levels fat cells don't send the signal that they're ready to accept fat, Dr. Scherer said. Instead, the fat is stored in dangerous places -- liver, heart and muscle tissues -- where it can cause inflammation and pave the way for disease"
  • Pioglitazone Treatment Increases Concentrations of Adiponectin in Plasma - Doctor's Guide, 11/16/06 - "Results showed there was a 6.9 mcg/mL mean increase in adiponectin levels in the pioglitazone group while in non-pioglitazone patients it decreased by 0.42 mcg/mL"
  • Adiponectin Level Found to be Independent Risk Factor for Endometrial Cancer - Doctor's Guide, 3/34/05 - "The investigators found that mean serum adiponectin levels were significantly lower among patients with endometrial cancer than among controls"

Abstracts:

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):