Recent Longevity News for the week ending 2/8/17

For cops, exposure to stressful situations dysregulates cortisol pattern - Science Daily, 2/6/17 - "If you experience chronic stress or high stress situations, the cortisol can no longer adjust normally like this. So what happens with people under a lot of stress, the cortisol flattens out. For some people it goes down and others it goes up and stays up. That's called the dysregulation of the HPA axis"

Jellyfish Memory Supplement Prevagen Is a Hoax, FTC Says - NBC, 2/7/17 - "The Madison Memory Study failed to show a statistically significant improvement in the treatment group over the placebo group on any of the nine computerized cognitive tasks" - See my memory page for studies on supplements with scientific studies behind them.

Vitamin C may decrease risk of atrial fibrillation after cardiac surgery - Science Daily, 2/1/17 - "The single study on the recurrence of AF after a successful cardioversion, which was carried out in Greece, found that vitamin C decreased the risk of AF recurrence by 87% ... In the non-US cardiac surgery trials, vitamin C decreased the length of hospital stay by 12.6% and intensive care unit stay by 8.0% ... Oral administration of vitamin C decreased the occurrence of post-operative AF by 73%, whereas intravenous administration decreased it by 36%. On the other hand, oral administration shortened the length of hospital stay by only 7% (0.4 days), whereas intravenous administration decreased it by 16% (1.5 days). Thus, the effect of intravenous vitamin C administration was greater for the length of hospital stay, but less for the occurrence of post-operative AF" - See American Health Products - Ester C W/Citrus Bioflavonoids, 1000 mg, 180 veg tablets at Amazon.com.

Abstracts from this week:

Folic acid therapy reduces serum uric acid in hypertensive patients: a substudy of the China Stroke Primary Prevention Trial (CSPPT) - Am J Clin Nutr. 2017 Feb 1 - "A total of 15,364 hypertensive patients were randomly assigned to a double-blind daily treatment with a single tablet that contained 10 mg enalapril and 0.8 mg folic acid (n = 7685) or 10 mg enalapril alone (n = 7679) ... After a median of 4.4 y of treatment, the mean ± SD UA concentration increased by 34.7 ± 72.5 μmol/L in the enalapril-alone group and by 30.7 ± 71.8 μmol/L in the enalapril-folic acid group, which resulted in a mean group difference of -4.0 μmol/L (95% CI: -6.5, -1.6 μmol/L; P = 0.001). Furthermore, compared with enalapril alone, enalapril-folic acid treatment showed an increase in controlled hyperuricemia (30.3% compared with 25.6%; OR: 1.31; 95% CI: 1.01, 1.70) and a decrease in new-onset hyperuricemia (15.0% compared with 16.3%; OR: 0.89; 95% CI: 0.79, 0.99)" - See folic acid products at Amazon.com.

Protective Effect of Green Tea (Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze) against Prostate Cancer: From In Vitro Data to Algerian Patients - Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2017;2017:1691568 - "Green tea (GT) ... prostate cancer (PC) ... oxidative stress (OS) ... glutathione (GSH) ... The consumption of 2-3 cups per day of GT during 6 months significantly increased GSH concentration and catalase activity and decreased MDA concentration. In conclusion, GT significantly decreased OS in Algerian PC patients. Regular consumption of GT for a long period may prevent men from developing PC or at least delay its progression" - See green tea extract at Amazon.com.

Consuming Two Eggs per Day, as Compared to an Oatmeal Breakfast, Increases Plasma Ghrelin while Maintaining the LDL/HDL Ratio - Nutrients. 2017 Jan 29;9(2) - "These results demonstrate that compared to an oatmeal breakfast, two eggs per day do not adversely affect the biomarkers associated with CVD risk, but increase satiety throughout the day in a young healthy population"

Efficacy of a novel formulation of L-Carnitine, creatine, and leucine on lean body mass and functional muscle strength in healthy older adults: a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study - Nutr Metab (Lond). 2017 Jan 18;14:7 - "Forty-two healthy older adults aged 55-70 years were randomized to receive either a novel L-Carnitine (1500 mg), L-leucine (2000 mg), creatine (3000 mg), Vitamin D3 (10 μg) (L-Carnitine-combination) product (n = 14), L-Carnitine (1500 mg) (n = 14), or a placebo (n = 14) for eight weeks ... Participants supplemented with the L-Carnitine-combination showed a 1.0 kg increase in total lean muscle mass (P = 0.013), leg lean muscle mass (0.35 kg, P = 0.005), and a 1.0 kg increase in lower leg strength (P = 0.029) at week 8. In addition, these increases were significant when compared to the placebo group (P = 0.034, P = 0.026, and P = 0.002, respectively). Total mTOR protein expression was increased in participants in the L-Carnitine-combination group at the end of the study compared to the baseline (P = 0.017). This increase was also significant when compared to the placebo (P = 0.039), suggesting that the increase in muscle mass and strength was due to new protein synthesis and mTOR pathway activation" - [Nutra USA] - See L-carnitine at Amazon.com. 

Health Focus (Advance Glycation End Products):