Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 7/9/03:

Efforts to Prevent Heart Disease Should Begin Earlier - Doctor's Guide, 7/10/03 - "While there has never been a controlled trial examining the long-term effects of risk reduction in children, the AHA notes that, "existing evidence indicates that primary prevention of atherosclerotic disease should begin in childhood.""

1 in 3 Adults Have High Blood Pressure - WebMD, 7/8/03 - "We have no specific information about the cause for the increased rates, but we speculate that a lot can be attributed to our nation's increased rates of obesity in the last decade"

When Diet Doesn't Lower Cholesterol - WebMD, 7/7/03 - "Study participants whose CRP levels were originally below average saw dramatic reductions in cholesterol after 12 weeks on the DASH diet. Total cholesterol dropped by almost 9% and LDL, or bad cholesterol, dropped by almost 12%. In participants with higher than average CRP levels, total and LDL cholesterol levels dropped by just 3% each ... This is the first study to suggest that inflammation impacts the response to a traditional cholesterol lowering diet ... Several recent studies have shown that people who lost weight on high-protein, relatively high-fat diets lowered their cholesterol, suggesting that weight loss alone, no matter how it is achieved, plays a significant role in lowering cholesterol" - See my CRP page for possible ways to reduce it.  Also, ask your doctor about:

• 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"

Estrogens as Antioxidants – Reducing Heart Disease in Younger Postmenopausal Women - Doctor's Guide, 7/4/03 - "If LDL becomes oxidised its ability to cause heart disease increases. If HDL becomes oxidised its ability to protect against heart disease is lessened ... estrogens can act as antioxidants, which neutralise free radicals, and hence protect HDL from oxidation. In addition, high levels of HDL are able to protect LDL from oxidation, and this ability is strongly enhanced when estrogens are present ... Although recent randomised control trials have shown that HRT in older women may not reduce the incidence of coronary heart disease, Dr. Bhavnani believes that this is not the whole story" - I'm working on information to help clear up the confusion regarding HRT options.  More estrogen info:

• Hormone Therapy: Steering the Middle Course - Physician's Weekly, 5/26/03 - "After reviewing the study design, I think the intent was to maximize resources and minimize expenses. To that end it was deliberately designed to recruit women who were older; two-thirds of the women in that study had to be older than 60 and the average age of the women was 63. Furthermore, because it was a prospective, randomized, double-blind clinical trial, individuals with moderate to severe menopausal symptoms were encouraged not to participate"
• Hormone Studies: What Went Wrong? - NY Times, 4/22/03 - "He said it was possible that estradiol, the estrogen women naturally produce and that goes directly to their bloodstream is protective. The estrogen in pills, metabolized by the liver before entering the blood, may be harmful. Neither the nurses' study nor the Women's Health Initiative addressed that question, Dr. Rossouw said"
• Progestin-Estrogen Therapy Debate Cools - WebMD, 3/17/03 - "Many women refused to be enrolled in the WHI study because they wanted to keep taking their hormones"
• Timing of HRT Key to Heart Disease Prevention - WebMD, 3/3/03 - "taking estrogen around the time of menopause may protect against heart disease, but starting it later in life increases the risk"
• Estradiol Alone Does Not Increase Breast Cancer Risk - Doctor's Guide, 12/16/02 - "Hormone replacement therapy containing progestins significantly elevates breast cancer risk, but preparations containing estradiol alone do not, a large Swedish observational study suggests" - However:
  • Hormone Therapy Linked to Ovarian Cancer - WebMD, 4/2/02 - "ovarian cancer risk almost doubled in those taking either estrogen alone or an estrogen plus progestin regimen in which progestin is not given every day (known as cyclic HRT). The researchers found no increased ovarian cancer risk in women taking continuous HRT, in which progestin is always given with estrogen"
• HRT May Save Women's Sight - WebMD, 12/13/02 - "Women who take hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may be more than 50% less likely to develop the common, sight-robbing condition known as macular degeneration as they grow older then women who have never used HRT"
• Nonoral HRT May Be Safer Alternative - WebMD, 10/10/02 - "Investigators conducting a small European study in which HRT was given in the form of estrogen skin patches and vaginally administered natural progesterone say these methods may be free of the cardiovascular risks that have recently been associated with oral hormone therapy. As an added benefit, postmenopausal women who were on the regimen for one year lost weight, lowered their blood pressure, and had less vaginal bleeding ... the weight loss and the decreases in blood pressure may have been associated with the use of natural progesterone in the HRT regimen, rather than the synthetic form of the hormone that is commonly used"

Essential Fatty Acid Beneficial for Women with Personality Disorder - New Hope Natural Media, 7/3/03 - "30 women with moderately severe BPD between the ages of 18 and 40 received 500 mg twice a day of EPA or a similar looking placebo for eight weeks ... Compared with the placebo group, average aggression and depression scores decreased in the EPA treatment group by 44% and 22%, respectively ... a purified EPA product, called ethyl-eicosapentaenoic acid (E-EPA), was used in this study. This product is not yet commercially available" - See Mega Twin EPA at Vitacost or iHerb.

How Dry Eye Am - washingtonpost.com, 7/1/03 - "O'Brien currently recommends TheraTears Nutrition for Dry Eyes, a capsule that includes flaxseed oil, fish oil and vitamin E" - See TheraTears at drugstore.com.

Lose The Hair Loss - Delicious! Online, 7/03 - "Most women aren't aware that more than 290 drugs are known to cause or contribute to hair loss, including some antidepressants, blood-thinning agents, amphetamines, birth control pills, and drugs that treat hypertension. One natural supplement—vitamin A—also contributes to hair loss, but only when taken at ten times or more the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for an extended period of time ... Nalbandian suggests a good multivitamin, underscoring the importance of the B vitamins biotin, B6, and B12; zinc; and selenium"

New Research Supports Omega-3's Benefits - Natural Foods Merchandiser, 7/03 - "Research keeps piling up to support omega-3 use for a whole host of purposes, from brain food to arrhythmia prevention. In fact, Andrew Weil, M.D., the alternative medicine promoter and guru, recommends omega-3s for no fewer than 20 conditions on his Web site" - The second bullet on my home page lists 30 conditions along with the references.

I've heard berries have a powerful antioxidant called ellagic acid - Natural Foods Merchandiser, 7/03 - "In one 30-week study, rats fed a diet consisting of 5 percent whole, freeze-dried raspberries had 39 percent fewer tumors than rats not fed the berries, while those fed a 10 percent raspberry diet had 49 percent fewer tumors.6 Ellagic acid has been shown to inhibit chemically induced cancer in the lung, liver, skin and esophagus of rodents"

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

The effect of low-dose potassium supplementation on blood pressure in apparently healthy volunteers - Br J Nutr. 2003 Jul;90(1):53-60 - "After 6 weeks of supplementation MAP [mean arterial pressure] was reduced by 7.01 ... mmHg, SBP was reduced by 7.60 ... mmHg and DBP was reduced by 6.46 ... mmHg ... A low daily dietary supplement of K, equivalent to the content of five portions of fresh fruits and vegetables, induced a substantial reduction in MAP, similar in effect to single-drug therapy for hypertension" - See iHerb or Vitacost potassium products.

Dietary calcium lowers the age-related rise in blood pressure in the United States: the NHANES III survey - J Clin Hypertens (Greenwich). 2003 Mar-Apr;5(2):122-6 - "higher calcium intake was associated with lower rates of age-related increases of systolic blood pressure and pulse pressure (p<0.001). If the calcium intake of the general population were to increase to above 1200 mg, the incidence of isolated systolic hypertension in the elderly might be decreased"

Dietary Lycopene, Tomato-Based Food Products and Cardiovascular Disease in Women - J Nutr. 2003 Jul;133(7):2336-2341 - "the possible inverse associations noted for higher levels of tomato-based products, particularly tomato sauce and pizza, with CVD suggest that dietary lycopene or other phytochemicals consumed as oil-based tomato products confer cardiovascular benefits"

Influence of depressive mood on the association of CRP and obesity in 3205 middle aged healthy men - Brain Behav Immun. 2003 Aug;17(4):268-75 - "Stratification of the sample into three levels of depressive mood revealed a significant association between increased CRP in the obese sample with highest level of depression in comparison to the low level obese depression group" - See my CRP page for possible ways to reduce it.

Plasma interleukin-6 is associated with psychological coronary risk factors: Moderation by use of multivitamin supplements - Brain Behav Immun. 2003 Aug;17(4):296-303 - "Plasma IL-6 was independently associated with anger, hostility, and severity of depressive symptoms ... Multivitamin use was associated with lower plasma IL-6 levels, but only among men with high composite factor scores ... These data suggest that plasma IL-6 is elevated among healthy men characterized by a propensity for anger, a hostile disposition, and greater severity of depressive symptoms and that multivitamin supplements could ameliorate plasma IL-6 levels among these men" - See my IL-6 page for possible ways to reduce it.

Supplementation with a combination of omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants (vitamins E and C) improves the outcome of schizophrenia - Schizophr Res. 2003 Aug 1;62(3):195-204 - "We report the supplementation with a mixture of EPA/DHA (180:120 mg) and antioxidants (vitamin E/C, 400 IU:500 mg) orally morning and evening to schizophrenic patients (N=33) for 4 months ... there was significant reduction in psychopathology based on reduction in individual total scores for brief psychiatric rating scale (BPRS) and positive and negative syndrome scale (PANSS), general psychopathology-PANSS and increase in Henrich's Quality of Life (QOL) Scale" - See Mega Twin EPA at Vitacost or iHerb.

Relationship between obesity-related metabolic abnormalities and sexual function - J Endocrinol Invest. 2003;26(3 Suppl):62-4 - "it will be reported about the 3 possible mechanisms through which obese people may suffer from sexual dysfunction: a) insulin resistance and associated hormonal changes, b) dyslipidemia and related drugs, and c) psychological problems"

Does grapefruit juice increase the bioavailability of orally administered sex steroids? - Ceska Gynekol. 2003 Mar;68(2):117-21 - "The mean area under curve (AUC) of estradiol rose significantly to 117% ... Our results suggest that grapefruit juice may increase bioavailability of orally administered estradiol and progesterone. The response varies markedly between individuals. This observation may be of some importance also for users of OC and HRT"

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