Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 6/25/03:

Menopausal Estrogen-Related Bone Loss Much Greater than Age-Related Bone Loss - Doctor's Guide, 6/25/03 - "In middle-aged women, age-related bone loss has a minor impact on the metabolic activity of bone compared to the impact of estrogen loss that accompanies menopause, which affects metabolic activity and bone density to a larger degree"

Obese Individuals Experience Modest Weight Loss with Growth-Hormone Therapy - Doctor's Guide, 6/24/03 - "9-month study ... were encouraged to slowly lose weight by exercising and reducing their daily caloric intake by 500 calories. Twenty-three subjects self-injected growth hormone nightly and 17 self-administered placebo injections ... People who took growth hormone lost an average of 2.4 kg, or 5.25 pounds. This weight loss was all due to loss of body fat; they did not lose any muscle mass ... Most of the fat loss was in the abdominal area. There were also improvements in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol of about 19%"

Specific Type of Cognition Improves with Hormone Replacement in Postmenopausal Women - Doctor's Guide, 6/24/03 - "The oestrogen therapy had no effect on overall verbal recall; however, it reduced perseverative errors -- the repetition of words already recalled -- by almost half. Perseveration is an important part of verbal learning, representing either inability to inhibit a previously stated response or true forgetting that a response was already given"

Too Much or Too Little Vitamin A Raises Hip-Fracture Risk in Post-Menopausal Women - Doctor's Guide, 6/24/03 - "the highest and lowest quintiles were at twice the risk of hip fracture compared to the middle quintile ... without knowing the vitamin A status of an individual, eliminating vitamin A supplements could actually increase the number of vitamin A-deficient individuals, which would put them at risk not only of hip fractures, but also for other health risks associated with low vitamin A"

Proscar for Prostate Cancer Prevention: Q&A - WebMD, 6/24/03 - "a drug called Proscar can also prevent or delay prostate cancer. It also shows that the drug may increase the risk of aggressive, high-grade prostate tumors. And while men taking Proscar have fewer urinary problems, they also have more sexual problems"

Improved Satisfaction Seen in Overall Sexual Performance with Levitra - Doctor's Guide, 6/24/03 - "reported significantly improved satisfaction with erection hardness, orgasmic function and overall sexual performance ... sexual response as early as 16 minutes, and indicate that the medication remains largely unaffected by food and alcohol" - See Sexual Health Doctor - Has Levitra (vardenafil), Uprima® (apomorphine), Cialis (tadalafil) and testosterone gel from the United Kingdom.

Men with Borderline Low and Low Baseline Testosterone Benefit Equally from Testosterone Gel (Androgel) - Doctor's Guide, 6/23/03 - "Transdermal testosterone replacement gel (Androgel) improves sexual function, body composition and bone mineral density in men with borderline low testosterone levels almost equal as in men with pretreatment testosterone levels below the normal"

Can Tea Lower Cholesterol? - HealthDay, 6/23/03 - "studied the impact of a 375-milligram pill containing green and black tea extracts ... they were surprised to find a robust reaction -- a 16 percent cholesterol drop among the subjects who took the tea extract pill ... "While I wouldn't want to see this taken instead of a drug that's been indicated, I would like to see if this has an additive or synergistic effect" ... Tea has the most antioxidants of any beverage you could drink, and now we have this great cholesterol-lowering effect" [Abstract] - See iHerb or Vitacost green tea extracts.

Blood Protein Predicts Stroke Risk - HealthDay, 6/23/03 - "whether the substance [CRP] is an independent risk factor for these episodes or merely a reflection of narrowed and crumbling arteries hasn't been entirely clear ... New research now suggests that the molecule, called C-reactive protein (CRP), is indeed its own oddsmaker ... The cholesterol-fighting drugs known as statins have been shown to lower CRP by about 25 percent or so, Stein says. However, it's not clear that that effect reduces cardiovascular trouble or increases survival" - Ask your doctor if Periostat might cure your gum disease and lower CRP by 45% to boot:

• Low-dose Periostat (Doxycycline) Shows Benefits in Patients with Heart Failure - Doctor's Guide, 11/20/02 - "At six-month follow-up, sub-antimicrobial dose doxycyline significantly reduced CRP levels by 45.8 percent compared to baseline values (p<0.05). The drug was also associated with a 33.5 percent reduction in interleukin-6 and a 50 percent reduction in metalloproteinase ... The findings are exciting, since research is now showing that CRP is both a key marker of inflammation leading to future acute coronary events, but also that CRP itself may contribute to the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis"
• Inflammation May Be Diabetes Risk Sign - Intelihealth, 6/17/02 - "Investigators have concluded in recent years that heart disease may be linked to inflammation, and they are trying to determine the cause. Now there is increasing evidence that type 2 diabetes, which is strongly linked to heart disease, may be related to inflammation ... it took longer for patients' diabetes to get worse if they were taking statins ... It was remarkable that those who used statins needed insulin nearly a year later than the other group ... Previous studies have shown that people who take statins have a 33 percent lower risk of developing diabetes" - Note:  Red yeast rice is a non-prescription statin.  See iHerb and Vitacost red yeast products.

Fatty Diet Raises Diabetes Risk - WebMD, 6/20/03 - "surveys of people with diabetes have suggested a link between the amount of saturated fat in a person's diet and diabetes risk, but until now that link has not been confirmed by biological evidence ... they looked at the levels of fatty acids in the blood, which reflects how much saturated fat a person generally eats over time, and compared it to the risk of developing type 2 diabetes among a group of 2,909 adults aged 45-64 ... During nine years of follow-up, 252 of the men and women developed type 2 diabetes ... As the level of fatty acids increased, the likelihood that the person developed type 2 diabetes also increased" - This is something else the Atkin's studies should be looking at.  This study was nine years.  I believe the longest Atkin's study was one year. - Ben

FDA Approves Striant (Testosterone Buccal System), Treatment For Men With a Deficiency or Absence of Testosterone - Doctor's Guide, 6/20/03 - "The controlled- and sustained-release buccal testosterone product (which has the appearance of a small monoconvex tablet) acts by rapidly adhering to the buccal mucosa, the small, natural depression in the mouth where the gum meets the upper lip above the incisor teeth. As it is exposed to saliva the product softens into a gel-like form, which remains comfortably in place over each 12-hour dosing period. The product delivers testosterone through the buccal mucosa, where it is absorbed into the bloodstream and delivered directly into the superior vena cava (major blood vessel), bypassing the gastrointestinal system and liver. Striant is able to produce circulating testosterone concentrations in hypogonadal males that approximate physiologic levels seen in healthy young men. Because Striant is available in a single strength, no dose titration is required ... the most frequent adverse events that occurred with an incidence of one percent or greater were: gum or mouth irritation, bitter taste, gum pain, gum tenderness, headache, gum edema, and taste perversion. The majority of the gum-related adverse events were transient and resolved within 1 to 14 days"

Testosterone Taken With HRT May Lower Breast Cancer Risk - Medscape, 6/20/03 - "Adding testosterone to conventional estrogen and estrogen plus progestin hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may lower the risk of breast cancer associated with HRT to levels seen in the general untreated population"

Managing Menopause: What to Do? - WebMD, 6/20/03 - "Hot flashes, mood changes, lost sleep, decreased sexual interest, vaginal changes such as dryness -- "Quality of life is big issue for many women," ... The vast majority of women, more than 60%, take hormone replacement therapy to relieve these symptoms ... Here's what works and what does not: ..."

Androgens Add Muscle Mass, Not Strength - WebMD, 6/20/03 - "those who used androgens along with strength training saw more significant gains in both muscle mass and muscle quality. Their muscles not only got bigger, but they also got a greater increase in strength not attributable to size alone"

Antioxidant [alpha]-Lipoic Acid Provides Relief for Diabetic Polyneuropathy - Doctor's Guide, 6/20/03 - "After 3 weeks, alpha-lipoic acid had a 24.1% improvement over placebo ... for TSS [Total Symptom Score] and 16.0% for NIS [Neuropathy Impairment Score]" - See iHerb or Vitacost alpha lipoic acid products.

Nighttime Computer Users May Lose Sleep - WebMD, 6/20/03 - "the bright light of a computer screen may alter the body's biological clock and suppress the natural production of melatonin that's critical to the normal sleep-wake cycle" - See iHerb or Vitacost melatonin products.

FDA approves over-the-counter Prilosec - USA Today, 6/20/03 - "Heartburn sufferers soon won't need a prescription to buy the popular remedy Prilosec, better known in TV ads as "the purple pill.""

Healthy Aging - The University of California, Davis, Health System CME, 8/20/04 - "How do You Stay Healthy? 30% genetic/70% behavioral" - Click on the "Handouts".

What Should We Advise Our Patients About Taking Antioxidants? - J Clin Hypertens 5(3):231-233, 2003 via Medscape - "At least two randomized trials of the effects of coenzyme Q10 (another antioxidant) on blood pressure have been reported. In the first,[20] 59 treated hypertensives were randomized to either coenzyme Q10 (60 mg twice daily) or vitamin B (placebo); after 8 weeks, clinic blood pressure was 14/7 mm Hg lower in the treated group. In the second,[21] 83 patients with isolated systolic hypertension were treated with coenzyme Q10 (using the same dose as the earlier study) for 12 weeks. The mean reduction of blood pressure was 17.8/7.3 mm Hg" - See iHerb or Vitacost coenzyme Q10 products.  Personally, I've had better results from Anti-ACE Peptides™.

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

n-3 Fatty acids and 5-y risks of death and cardiovascular disease events in patients with coronary artery disease - Am J Clin Nutr. 2003 Jul;78(1):65-71 - "High proportions of n-3 fatty acids in serum lipids are associated with a substantially reduced risk of death" - See Mega Twin EPA at Vitacost or iHerb

Effects on bone mineral density of calcium and vitamin D supplementation in elderly women with vitamin D deficiency - Joint Bone Spine. 2003 Jun;70(3):203-208 - "bone mass in older women with vitamin D deficiency increases significantly at the lumbar spine, femur, trochanter, and whole body after calcium and vitamin D supplementation for 1 year, and concomitantly bone markers improved as vitamin D levels returned to normal"

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