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Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 10/29/08.  You should consult your doctor if you are taking any medications.

Grapes And Grape Extracts May Lower Cardiovascular Disease Risk, Review Article Suggests - Science Daily, 10/28/08 - "grape polyphenols work in many different ways to prevent cardiovascular and other "inflammatory-mediated" diseases. Polyphenols are natural antioxidants found in grapes and some other plant foods. Their types and actions vary, depending on where in the grape they are found. Grape seeds, grape skin, and grape juice contain several types of polyphenols, including resveratrol, phenolic acids, anthocyanins, and flavonoids" - See grape seed extract at Amazon.com.

High-fat Diet Could Promote Development Of Alzheimer's Disease - Science Daily, 10/28/08 - "the main neurological markers for Alzheimer's disease are exacerbated in the brains of mice fed a diet rich in animal fat and poor in omega-3s"

Statins Lower Prostate Cancer Marker - WebMD, 10/28/08 - "On average, PSA declined by 4.1% after starting a statin ... a bigger decrease was seen in men who started out with the highest PSA levels (2.5 ng/mL or more) -- but only among those who had the greatest decrease in cholesterol. These men had a 17.4% drop in PSA"

Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Sleep Apnea Severity - Medscape, 10/28/08 - "Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) levels were inversely correlated with AHI score" - See Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.

Doorknobs and TV Remotes Are Germ Hotbeds - InteliHealth, 10/28/08 - "Someone in your house have the sniffles? Watch out for the refrigerator door handle. The TV remote, too. A new study finds that cold sufferers often leave their germs there, where they can live for two days or longer"

Prostate Cancer: Vitamin E, Selenium No Help - WebMD, 10/28/08 - "That evidence included a 1998 Finnish study of whether vitamin E could prevent lung cancer in some 30,000 smokers. It didn't, but men taking vitamin E had 32% fewer prostate cancers ... I am afraid it will be the end of the story for large trials of vitamin E and selenium to prevent prostate cancer" - Note:  Most of the vitamin E studies I've read on prostate cancer indicated that only the gamma-tocopherol worked yet they spent $114 million on this study and used the cheapest synthetic dl-alpha-tocopherol acetate form.  How dumb was that?  I don't know what the story on the selenium was.  Some say it's because people in the U.S. aren't deficient in selenium.

Do Diabetes Drugs Affect Heart Health? - WebMD, 10/27/08 - "metformin seemed to be associated with a decrease in heart disease and heart-related deaths ... researchers point to metformin as a drug that is "moderately protective" and Avandia as "possibly harmful." ... Avandia, which works well to reduce blood sugar, was associated with a higher risk of heart attack. However, researchers in that case also acknowledged that their conclusions were limited by a lack of access to original clinical data"

Eating Whole Grains Lowers Heart Failure Risk, According To New Study - Science Daily, 10/27/08 - "whole grain consumption lowered HF risk, while egg and high-fat dairy consumption raised risk. Other food groups did not directly affect HF risk"

Businesses Wary of Details in Obama Health Plan - NYTimes.com, 10/26/08 - “To all of a sudden whack 6 to 7 percent of payroll costs, forget it,” he said. “If they do that, prices go up and employment goes down because nobody can absorb that.”

Green Tea May Delay Onset Of Type 1 Diabetes - Science Daily, 10/23/08 - "EGCG modulates several important genes, so it suppresses the abnormality at the molecular level in the salivary gland. It also significantly lowered the serum autoantibodies, reducing the severity of Sjogren's syndrome-like symptoms ... Autoantibodies are antibodies the body makes against itself ... Both type 1 diabetes and Sjogren's syndrome are autoimmune diseases, which cause the body to attack itself" - See green tea extract at Amazon.com.

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):

Omega-3 as well as caloric restriction prevent the age-related modifications of cholesterol metabolism - Mech Ageing Dev. 2008 Sep 26 - "both caloric restriction and Omega-3 supplemented diets are able to prevent hypercholesterolemia, by regulating HMG-CoAR activation state by controlling ROS production and p38 phosphorylation. Moreover also the age-dependent loss of LDLr membrane exposition is prevented" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com and Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.

Glycemic Index, Retinal Vascular Caliber, and Stroke Mortality - Stroke. 2008 Oct 23 - "high glycemic index (GI) and low cereal fiber (CF) ... Persons consuming food in the highest GI tertile and lowest CF tertile had a 5-fold increased risk of stroke death ... High-GI and low-CF diets predict greater stroke mortality and wider retinal venular caliber. The association between a high-GI diet and stroke death was partly explained by GI effects on retinal venular caliber, suggesting that a high-GI diet may produce deleterious anatomic changes in the microvasculature"

Role of vitamin D treatment in glucose metabolism in polycystic ovary syndrome - Fertil Steril. 2008 Oct 16 - "Treatment with the vitamin D(3) analogue (alphacalcidol) could be of value in the management of PCOS"

Vitamin D and glucose metabolism in chronic kidney disease - Curr Opin Nephrol Hypertens. 2008 Nov;17(6):566-72 - "Vitamin D therapy holds promise for improving health outcomes in chronic kidney disease. Improved glucose metabolism is one potential mechanism through which vitamin D may exert beneficial effects" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.

Role of Acetyl-L-Carnitine in the Treatment of Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy (November) - Ann Pharmacother. 2008 Oct 21 - "acetyl-L-carnitine (ALC) in the treatment of diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) ... Data on treatment of DPN with ALC support its use. It should be recommended to patients early in the disease process to provide maximal benefit. Further studies should be conducted to determine the effectiveness of ALC in the treatment and prevention of the worsening symptoms of DPN" - See acetyl l-carnitine products at Amazon.com.

Green Tea Protects Rats against Autoimmune Arthritis by Modulating Disease-Related Immune Events - J Nutr. 2008 Nov;138(11):2111-2116 - "polyphenolic compounds from green tea (PGT) possess antiinflammatory properties ... Interestingly, PGT-fed rats had a lower concentration of the proinflammatory cytokine interleukin (IL)-17 but a greater concentration of the immunoregulatory cytokine IL-10 than controls. PGT feeding also suppressed the anti-Bhsp65 antibody response. Thus, green tea induced changes in arthritis-related immune responses. We suggest further systematic exploration of dietary supplementation with PGT as an adjunct nutritional strategy for the management of RA" - See green tea extract at Amazon.com.

Chronic Green Tea Consumption Decreases Body Mass, Induces Aromatase Expression, and Changes Proliferation and Apoptosis in Adult Male Rat Adipose Tissue - J Nutr. 2008 Nov;138(11):2156-2163 - "Green tea (GT) ... These results suggest new mechanisms for GT on body weight and highlight its potential benefit to prevent or treat obesity and the metabolic syndrome" - See green tea extract at Amazon.com.

Neat Tech Stuff (more yoghurt recommendations):

  • On the yoghurt maker last week, I forgot to mention, it takes 12 hours not 5 hours as in the directions.  I've been mixing two cups of the Nido and two cups for the non-fat Carnation and top it off with water for two quarts.  You can go one and three to cut down on the fat.  There is no timer on that yoghurt maker.  I use my wake-up call service (https://snoozester.com/). I've been sweetening the yoghurt with Simply Fruit® which is sweetened with fruit juice instead of refined sugar.

Supplement Focus (Gamma Linolenic Acid (GLA)):

Specific GLA Recommendations:

GLA News & Research: