Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 4/30/03:

Study Shows Lower Prostate Specific Antigen Cut-Point for Proceeding to Biopsy - Doctor's Guide, 4/30/03 - "For younger people, less than 70 years old, especially if they have certain risk factors, I would obtain a biopsy if they have a PSA over 2.5"

Soy Extract Helps Some Prostate Cancer Patients - HealthScout News, 4/30/03 - "A dietary supplement that contains the soy extract genistein reduced prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels by as much as 61 percent in men with untreated prostate cancer ... But the dietary supplement didn't have the same effect in men who had undergone surgery, radiation or hormone therapy for prostate cancer ... given 5 grams a day of genistein concentrated polysaccharide for six months" - See iHerb or Vitacost genistein products.

Soy Compound Shows Promise for Menopause Symptoms - HealthScout News, 4/30/03 - "Among the 37 women who used the soy supplement [Tofupill (DT56a)], 75 percent reported relief from hot flashes. Tests showed they also experienced a measurable increase in bone density -- up to 4 percent in the spine and 2.9 percent in the neck ... In laboratory tests, the researchers found the soy compound had no negative effects on breast cancer cell lines, indicating it may not share estrogen's ability to stimulate tumor growth"

Recombinant Human Growth Hormone Improves Body Composition in Adults with Growth Hormone Deficiency - Doctor's Guide, 4/29/03 - "After 6 months of therapy, patients receiving recombinant human growth hormone had significant increases in lean body mass compared with patients taking placebo ... This increase was significantly higher in men than women ... Overall, therapy was well tolerated, with the most common side effects being arthralgia, myalgia, peripheral oedema and paresthesia. Most often, these were mild or moderate in severity" - I calculate Saizen® 0.005 to 0.010 mg/kg/day to be 1.03 IU to 2.06 IU per day for a 150 pound person.

Anti-hip Fracture Efficacy Lost with Estrogen Cessation - Doctor's Guide, 4/29/03 - "We found a statistically significant correlation between ending estrogen and increased risk of hip fracture ... Among this sub-group, the current users showed a statistically significant reduced tendency toward hip fracture over never-users (0.10% of 67,973 vs. 0.28% of 53,737"

Sesame Oil Benefits Blood Pressure - WebMD, 4/28/03 - "studied 195 men and 133 women with high blood pressure. All were taking nifedipine (brand names include Adalta, Nifedical, and Procardia), a common blood pressure-lowering drug. Despite this treatment, all patients still had moderate high blood pressure. Sankar's team asked the patients to switch to sesame oil as the only cooking oil they used ... Sixty days later, the patients' average blood pressure dropped into the normal range ... he doesn't think that the PUFAs are involved in the blood-pressure-lowering effect of sesame oil. But he speculates that lower blood pressure may be an indirect effect of sesamin, sesamol, or both" - See iHerb sesame seed oil products.

Skipping Meals May Improve Your Health - HealthScout News, 4/28/03 - "Skipping meals every other day is as beneficial for rodents' health as eating a lower-calorie diet, even if they gorged on food on their eating days ... The meal-skipping mice "showed improvements in glucose regulation and improved outcome in a model of neurodegenerative disorder ... more work needs to be done to see if these results hold true for humans" - see my "Calorie Restriction" page for more research in that area.

Studies find disturbing amounts of chemical contamination in lettuce - USA Today, 4/28/03 - "some of this winter lettuce is contaminated with perchlorate, a pollutant that has found its way into the groundwater in as many as 20 states, from the manufacture of rocket fuel, flares and munitions and is known to contaminate the Colorado [river] ... U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set a preliminary safety level of one part per billion of perchlorate in water ... recent tests by The Press-Enterprise newspaper of Riverside, Calif., found perchlorate in 18 of 18 lettuce samples, at an average of eight parts per billion ... Perchlorate affects the thyroid gland and can disrupt hormone production"

Antidepressants, narcotics raise risk of broken bones in women - HealthScout News, 4/28/03 - "women taking mood medication were 70 percent more likely than those not on the drugs to suffer a broken hip. A smaller but significant increase in the risk of fracture accompanied taking other psychoactive drugs, like those to control seizures, and narcotics ... The reason for the connection isn't clear" - Maybe it's the high cortisol that depressed people often have.  Plus, some anti-depressants raise cortisol even more.  See:

• How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body - Time Magazine, 1/20/03 - "More and more doctors—and patients—recognize that mental states and physical well-being are intimately connected. An unhealthy body can lead to an unhealthy mind, and an illness of the mind can trigger or worsen diseases in the body. Fixing a problem in one place, moreover, can often help the other ... Somehow depression makes the body less responsive to insulin, the hormone that processes blood sugar—plausibly through the action of cortisol, a hormone that can interfere with insulin sensitivity and that is often elevated in depressed patients ... Cortisol may also make depressed patients more prone to osteoporosis ... Cizza estimates that some 350,000 women get osteoporosis each year because of depression. Cortisol appears to interfere with the ability of the bones to absorb calcium and offset the natural calcium loss that comes with menopause and aging"
• Sertraline Effects Differ in Depressed Women - Doctor's Guide, 6/6/02 - "The investigators say four-week sertraline therapy increased plasma cortisol levels in the depressed patients"

Can Lifestyle Changes Stop Prostate Cancer? - HealthScout News, 4/28/03 - "His prescription calls for a low-fat vegan diet supplemented with soy and oxidants, moderate aerobic exercise, stress management and psychosocial group support ... In the study, 41 of the men were assigned to observe the Ornish regimen carefully, under supervision. The others were allowed to follow the regimen if they chose, with no supervision ... At the end of three months, PSA levels dropped by 5 percent in the group following the regimen but rose by 1 percent in the control group, Ornish says. The difference in PSA levels was greater after one year: down by 3 percent in the regimen group, up 7 percent in the control group" - I think they meant anti-oxidants, not oxidants. - Ben

Saw Palmetto Extract Effective in Treating Chronic Prostatitis - Medscape, 4/28/03 - "Permixon, a compound extracted from the fruit of the American dwarf palm tree Serona repens, also known as saw palmetto, appears to improve symptoms of chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome ... Seventy-five percent of the patients who received Permixon had at least mild improvement in symptoms compared with 20% of the control group. Similarly, 55% of patients who received Permixon reported moderate or marked improvement compared with 16% of the control group ... In the control group, PSA did not differ from baseline. However, the group taking Permixon experienced median decreases from baseline PSA of 22% after 6 weeks" - See iHerb or Vitacost saw palmetto products.

Folic acid and reduction of plasma homocysteine concentrations in older adults: a dose-response study - Am. Journ. of Clin. Nutri., 5/03 - "In older adults, daily supplementation with folic acid effectively lowers plasma homocysteine concentrations, and a daily dose of ~ 400 µg is the minimum dose required for adequate homocysteine reduction" - See iHerb or Vitacost folic acid products.

What You Can Do [to prevent heart disease] - Time, 4/28/03 - "Although doctors have traditionally focused on levels of LDL (bad cholesterol), HDL (good cholesterol) may be a better predictor of heart-disease risk in women. Women should maintain HDL at levels as high as possible" - Note:  The cover story was The No. 1 Killer of Women.  The best thing I've found to increase HDL is inositol hexanicotinate.

FDA Approves Low Dose Premarin (Conjugated Estrogens Tablets) - Doctor's Guide, 4/28/03 - "Premarin® (conjugated estrogens tablets, USP) 0.45 mg contains 28 percent less estrogen than the standard 0.625 mg dose. Premarin 0.45 mg was approved for the treatment of moderate to severe vasomotor symptoms associated with menopause and the treatment of moderate to severe symptoms of vulvar and vaginal atrophy"

Variety of Strains May Account for SARS Hot Spots -  washingtonpost.com, 4/26/03 - "The chances are very good that the virus that got carried into Toronto and Hong Kong were different ... the disease has appeared to be much less serious here. One possibility is that only milder strains of the virus have arrived with infected travelers ... In the United States, so far it seems to have been pretty wimpy ... You can't tell me there's that much difference in the ability of the two countries to respond. I suspect there are different strains out there"

Scientists discover new vitamin - MSNBC, 4/24/03 - "pyrroloquinoline quinone, a substance discovered in 1979, can be categorized as a vitamin ... Mice deprived of PQQ suffer reduced fertility and roughened fur ... Vitamins that have an important effect on mice usually act in the same way in humans ... PQQ is believed to belong to the vitamin B group"

SARS Update - WebMD, 4/24/03 - "Hong Kong officials say the territory's death rate from SARS has increased to 7.2 percent from about 5 percent. And one health expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong told a local newspaper the death rate may climb as high as 10 percent"

Simvastatin Enhances Bone Formation And Augments Bone Mineral Density - Doctor's Guide, 4/24/03 - "After a year's treatment with simvastatin the increases in bone mineral density at the lumbar spine, femoral neck and femur were 2.8, 1.0 and 0.8% respectively. In contrast, lumbar spine, femoral neck and femur bone mineral density declined by 1.6, 1.4, and 1.2% in the control group" - Note: Red yeast rice is a non-prescription statin but you should still check with your physician.  See VitaminShoppe or Vitacost red yeast rice products.

Relative's Stroke Can Be a Warning - HealthScout News, 4/24/03 - "Only about half of all strokes can be explained by the traditional risk factors -- high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, cholesterol ... if you have a family member who has had a stroke under age 65, you should speak to your own physician about modifiable risk factors and try to be careful about them"

Study Ties Breast Cancer to Pesticide Exposure - HealthScout News, 4/23/03 - "DDT, HCB and other "environmental endocrine disrupters" mimic the action of certain hormones, including estrogen, in the body. Breast cancer, along with several other cancers, has a strong hormonal component, leading to suppositions that these compounds have contributed to the rise in breast cancer incidence ... The women with breast cancer were more than five times as likely to have detectable levels of DDT as the healthy women and more than nine times as likely to have detectable levels of HCB"

Natural products to lower cholesterol levels - Don't forget niacin - Dr. Murray's Newsletter , 4/23/03 - "The percentage increase in HDL cholesterol, a more significant indicator for coronary heart disease, was dramatically in favor of niacin (33 vs. 7%). Equally as impressive was the percentage decrease in Lp(a) for niacin. While niacin produced a 35% reduction in Lp(a) lipoprotein levels, lovastatin did not produce any effect. Other studies have shown that niacin can lower Lp(a) levels by an average of 38% ... Another approach to reduce flushing is to use inositol hexaniacinate. This form of niacin has long been used in Europe to lower cholesterol levels and also to improve blood flow in intermittent claudication - a peripheral vascular disease that is quite common in diabetes. It yields slightly better clinical results than standard niacin, but is much better tolerated, in terms of both flushing and, more importantly, long-term side-effects"

From this week's Doctor's Guide Nutrition/Dietetics:

Hyperhomocysteinemia and Vitamin Score: Correlations with Silent Brain Ischemic Lesions and Brain Atrophy - Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders 2003;16:39-45 - "In subjects with minor brain ischemic lesions (n = 21), tHcy was higher by 5.6 µM, whereas vitamin score and cognitive function were lower than in controls"

Interrelationship of homocysteine-cobalamin-folate indices in human subjects of various ages: can hyper-homocyteinemia be relieved with B-12 supplementation? - Mo Med 2003 Mar-Apr;100(2):155-8 - "Thirty-nine of the subjects who had hyperhomocysteinemia were daily given 100 mcg B-12 for three months ... B-12 supplementation is effective in alleviating hyperhomocysteinemia" - 100 mcg is a fairly low dose compared to the 1000 and 5000 mcg doses being sold. - Ben

Treatment of diabetic nephropathy with angiotensin II receptor antagonist - Clin Exp Nephrol, 10/02 - "Treatment with irbesartan [an ARB] was associated with a relative risk of endstage renal disease that was 23% lower than that in both other groups [calcium channel blocker or placebo]. These differences were not accounted for by differences in the blood pressures that were achieved"

Depression and Folate Status in the US Population - Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 2003;72:80-87 - "Low folate status was found to be most characteristic of recently recovered subjects, and a large proportion of such subjects were folate deficient. Conclusions: Low folate status was detectable in depressed members of the general US population. Folate supplementation may be indicated during the year following a depressive episode" - See iHerb folic acid products.

Calcium, vitamin D, dairy products, and risk of colorectal cancer in the cancer prevention study II nutrition cohort - Cancer Causes Control 2003 Feb;14(1):1-12 - "Total calcium intake (from diet and supplements) was associated with marginally lower colorectal cancer risk in men and women ... The association was strongest for calcium from supplements ... Total vitamin D intake (from diet and multivitamins) was also inversely associated with risk of colorectal cancer, particularly among men"

Dietary intake and risk of postmenopausal breast cancer - Cancer Causes Control 2003 Feb;14(1):19-27 - "Red meat intake was significantly associated with an increased breast cancer risk (p for trend = 0.002) and fish (including fried fish) and dairy product intake was inversely associated with breast cancer risk (p for trend = 0.04 and 0.05, respectively). No significant associations were noted between fruit or vegetable intake and breast cancer risk"

Dietary carotenoids, vegetables, and lung cancer risk in women: the Missouri women's health study - Cancer Causes Control 2003 Feb;14(1):85-96 - "beta-carotene, beta-cryptoxanthin, lutein + zeaxanthin, and total carotenoid intake were each associated with a significantly lower risk of lung cancer" - Note:  Beta-carotene is just one of over 600 carotenoids.  Some feel that taking mega-doses of just one can cause a deficiency of the others.

n -3 Fatty acids plus oleic acid and vitamin supplemented milk consumption reduces total and LDL cholesterol, homocysteine and levels of endothelial adhesion molecules in healthy humans - Clin Nutr 2003 Apr;22(2):175-82 - "The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a commercially available skimmed milk supplemented with n -3 PUFA, oleic acid, and vitamins E, B(6), and folic acid (Puleva Omega3((R))) on risk factors for cardiovascular disease ... Thirty volunteers were given 500 ml/day of semi-skimmed milk for 4 weeks and then 500 ml/day of the n -3 enriched milk for 8 further weeks ... The consumption of n -3 enriched milk produced a significant decrease in plasma concentration of total and LDL cholesterol accompanied by a reduction in plasma levels of homocysteine" - 500 ml is 2.1 cups.  Oleic acid is an omega-9.

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