Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 10/8/03:

Study Confirms Benefit Of New Statin, Crestor (Rosuvastatin), In 'Real Life Setting - Doctor's Guide, 10/8/03 - "substantially more patients (more than three quarters) achieved the recommended NSF for CHD cholesterol targets1 when treated with rosuvastatin compared to other statins" - See Crestor (rosuvastatin) at drugstore.com.

One in Three Americans Will Get Diabetes - HealthDay, 10/8/03 - "the estimated lifetime risk of developing diabetes for males born in 2000 is 32.8 percent and for females, 38.5 percent ... People diagnosed with diabetes have shorter life expectancies. The researchers estimate that a man diagnosed at age 40 will lose 11.6 years off his life as well as 18.6 quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). Women will lose 14.3 actual years and 22 QALYs" - See my diabetes and syndrome X page for preventative measures.

Supplements for Diabetes? - Dr. Weil, 10/7/03 - "... In addition, I recommend supplementing with 1,000 mcg a day of GTF (glucose tolerance factor) chromium ..."

Over Time, Vitamins May Lower Colon Cancer Risk - Medline Plus, 10/7/03 - "participants who were regular multivitamin users 10 years before the start of the study had an approximately 30 percent less risk of developing colorectal cancer"

Carbohydrate-Rich Diet Associated with Lower High-Density Lipoprotein Levels - Doctor's Guide, 10/6/03 - "The researchers defined glycaemic index as the measure of blood glucose after consumption of carbohydrate-containing foods, ranging in values from 1 to 100. Glycaemic load was defined as the carbohydrate content of a food multiplied by the glycaemic index and servings per week ... Results showed an inverse relationship between high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol level and both the glycaemic index and glycaemic load" - Note:  HDL is the good cholesterol.

High-Protein Diet Helpful in Type 2 Diabetes - Medscape, 10/6/03 - "The ratio of protein to carbohydrate to fat was 30:40:30 in the high-protein diet and 15:55:30 in the control diet ... there was a 40% decrease in the mean 24-hour integrated glucose area response after the high-protein diet. Patients on the high-protein diet also fared better in terms of decrease in glycated hemoglobin ... longer-term studies are necessary to determine the total magnitude of response, possible adverse effects, and the long-term acceptability of the diet"

Nitric Oxide Now -- Ask Me How -  WashingtonPost.com, 10/6/03 - "In the arteries, the innermost layer of cells releases nitric oxide to signal smooth muscle cells to dilate (increase the diameter of) the arteries. This allows blood to flow more freely, particularly during exercise ... By the 1990s, many scientists saw nitric oxide as the next great weapon for treating heart disease, impotence and even bacterial infections ... Niteworks has L-arginine and also L-citrulline, which recycles spent L-arginine by resupplying it with atoms it lost producing nitric oxide ... "Ninety dollars a month? That's obscene," Murad said. "You can probably get [vitamin] C and E for pennies a day. You can probably get arginine for about a dollar a day"" - See l-citrulline at iHerb.

Vitamin B12 Improves Homocysteine Levels and Lipid Profiles in Patients with End-Stage Renal Disease - Doctor's Guide, 10/6/03 - "During Phase 1, patients were prescribed oral doses of folic acid 5 mg/day and vitamin B12 0.6mg/day. Through out Phase 2, participants were given intravenous doses of vitamin B12 1mg every other day in addition to folic acid 5 mg/day ... By the completion of the study, patients exhibited significantly lower serum tHcy (29.4 verses 21.1 mg/dL), total cholesterol (222 verses 196 mg/dL), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels (139 versus 109 mg/dL). Serum high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels increased significantly among the participants"

Significant Increases in Bone Mineral Density With Alendronate Over Raloxifene in Head-To-Head Study - Doctor's Guide, 10/6/03 - "In the first head-to-study comparing a weekly dosage of alendronate with a daily dosage of raloxifene for postmenopausal women with osteoporosis, alendronate produced significantly greater increases in bone mineral density (BMD) in the spine and hip"

Combo Hormone Therapy Doesn't Help Hypothyroidism - HealthDay, 10/3/03 - "the scientists found the combination therapy offered no significant benefits compared to the T4 alone. But they did find patients on the combination therapy suffered much worse anxiety and nausea than patients receiving only T4" - That contradicts previous studies and my own experience with T4/T3.  See:

• Algorithm-Based Treatment Shows High Lack Of Response To Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors - Doctor's Guide, 4/17/03 - "When the clinicians added T3, they found it was effective among 10 out of 16 women patients (62.5%), but was not effective in any of the 9 male patients who received it. Although values were within the normal range, patients who responded to T3 had higher serum thyroid-stimulating hormone levels than those who did not ... The effect of T3 may be related to thyroid function even within the normal range"
• Thyroid Hormones Accelerate Depressive Response to Drug Therapy - Doctor's Guide, 10/30/01 - "Five of the six studies found T3 to be significantly more effective than placebo in accelerating clinical response ... Investigators say they found that the average effect was highly significant"
• Replacing T4 With Triiodothyronine Improves Cognition And Mood In Hypothyroidism - Doctor's Guide, 7/5/00 - "Substituting T3 for a portion of T4 changed the concentrations of thyroid hormones and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) as well as improving cognition and mood"
• Adding Natural Hormone Boosts Brain Function In Hypothyroidism - Doctor's Guide, 2/11/99 - "We found there wasn't much difference between the two treatments in terms of metabolic effects or effects on various peripheral organs," Prange said. "There were big differences, however, in the mental state of the patients. If these findings hold up, they will be very important."
• Effects of thyroxine as compared with thyroxine plus triiodothyronine in patients with hypothyroidism - N Engl J Med. 1999 Feb 11;340(6):469-70 - "among 15 visual-analogue scales used to indicate mood and physical status, the results for 10 were significantly better after treatment with thyroxine [t4] plus triiodothyronine [t3]"
• Depression Management - ContinuingEducation.com, exp. 12/31/02 - See table six, recommends 5 - 50 mcg T3, 100 mcg (.1 mg) T4

Hypertension Reduces Task-Specific Blood Flow to Brain - Doctor's Guide, 10/3/03 - "people with high blood pressure "recruit less blood to the brain than people with normal blood pressure." He said the hypertension-associated changes are subtle and he likened them to premature aging of the brain ... blood flow between hypertensives and normotensives were most apparent in the posterior regions of the brain and the image results, "correlated to slightly worse scores -- perhaps a point or two lower -- on the memory tests.""

Conjugated Oestrogens/Trimegestone Improve Quality Of Life For Postmenopausal Women - Doctor's Guide, 10/3/03 - "All of the groups of patients taking OE/TMG had a significantly greater improvement than those on placebo in terms of vasomotor symptoms, sleep difficulty, physiological symptoms, memory concentration, sexual behavior and attractiveness (p<0.05). However, depressed mood and anxiety or fear related symptoms were not impacted by OE/TMG therapy"

Combination Treatment of Ezetimibe and Simvastatin Safe and Effective - Doctor's Guide, 10/3/03 - "The combined administration of ezetimibe 10 mg/dL and simvastatin 5 mg to 80 mg/dL is well tolerated and effective in allowing patients with primary hypercholesterolaemia to attain the recommended low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels ... ezetimibe is a cholesterol absorption inhibitor that blocks the transport of dietary and biliary cholesterol across the intestinal wall"

Study Shows Vitamins Save Health Costs - Yahoo, 10/2/03 - "The five-year estimate of potential savings (or cost offsets) resulting from improved immune functioning and a reduction in the relative risk of coronary artery disease through providing older adults with a daily multivitamin is approximately $1.6 billion ... For instance, one 1998 study involving 80,000 nurses found a 24 percent reduction in the risk of heart attacks among women who took daily multivitamins"

Avoid in-flight colds - MSNBC, 10/2/03 - "roughly one in five passengers came down with a cold within one week of a flight"

Few Get Osteoporosis Drugs After Falls - WebMD, 10/2/03 - "only 22% of elderly men and women who had a major bone fracture filled a prescription for an osteoporosis drug within six months after their injury ... that's despite the fact that people who have suffered one fracture from osteoporosis are up to five times more likely so suffer another one, and use of osteoporosis drugs can reduce that risk of by as much as 60%"

How Dangerous is Farmed Salmon? - Dr. Weil, 10/2/03 - "A study reported last year in the journal Chemosphere found the level of PCBs in farmed salmon in the U.S. and Canada to be five to 10 times higher than those in wild salmon" - See my page on toxins in fish/fish oil.

Soy Isoflavones May Improve Cognition in Postmenopausal Women - Healthwell Exchange Daily News, 10/2/03 - "Women taking soy isoflavones had significant improvements in recall, logical thinking, planning tasks, and attention compared with women taking a placebo, which translates to better memory and ability to focus on a particular task"

Vitamin E Helps People with Sudden Hearing Loss - Healthwell Exchange Daily News, 10/2/03 - "one group received vitamin E, 600 IU two times per day, while the other did not. Treatment was considered successful when hearing improved by 75% or more ... At follow-up examinations, successful treatment was noted in 76% of those receiving vitamin E and 56% of those not receiving vitamin E"

Comparing the Newer Antidepressants - Psychiatric Times, 8/03 - "venlafaxine has been compared to the noradrenergic and specific serotonergic agent mirtazapine ... Both drugs demonstrated significant improvement in all scales. Although mirtazapine showed higher reductions on both the MADRS and HAM-D-17, none of the results were statistically significant except for the sleep disturbance scale ... a statistically significantly higher percentage of patients treated with venlafaxine (15.3%) than mirtazapine (5.1%) dropped out because of adverse events"

Cholesterol Article Should Have Discussed Niacin Therapy - Natural Foods Merchandiser, 10/03 - "research indicates a person with low HDL can be at high risk of death and disease, even with low total cholesterol or LDL [low-density lipoprotein]"

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

Supplementation of Diets with alpha-Tocopherol Reduces Serum Concentrations of gamma- and delta-Tocopherol in Humans - J Nutr. 2003 Oct;133(10):3137-40 - "Despite promising evidence from in vitro experiments and observational studies, supplementation of diets with alpha-tocopherol has not reduced the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer in most large-scale clinical trials. One plausible explanation is that the potential health benefits of alpha-tocopherol supplements are offset by deleterious changes in the bioavailability and/or bioactivity of other nutrients ... Compared with placebo, supplementation with alpha-tocopherol reduced serum gamma-tocopherol concentrations by a median change of 58% ... and reduced the number of individuals with detectable delta-tocopherol concentrations ... In view of the potential benefits of gamma- and delta-tocopherol, the efficacy of alpha-tocopherol supplementation may be reduced due to decreases in serum gamma- and delta-tocopherol levels. Additional research is clearly warranted" - This is what I've been saying for years yet they still do nearly all the studies with the alpha-tocopherol.  See Gamma E Tocopherol / Tocotrienols at iHerb or Vitacost vitamin E products.  Related study:

• Effect of oral supplementation with D-alpha-tocopherol on the vitamin E content of human low density lipoproteins and resistance to oxidation - Medline, 8/91 - "gamma-Tocopherol significantly decreased in plasma and LDL during vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) supplementation"

Dietary Folate and Depressive Symptoms Are Associated in Middle-Aged Finnish Men -J Nutr. 2003 Oct;133(10):3233-3236 - "The participants were grouped into thirds according to their dietary folate intake. Those in the lowest third of energy-adjusted folate intake had a higher risk of being depressed [odds ratio (OR) 1.67, 95% CI = 1.19-2.35, P = 0.003] than those in the highest folate intake third ... There were no associations between the intake of cobalamin, pyridoxine or riboflavin, and depression. These results indicate that nutrition may have a role in the prevention of depression" - See iHerb folic acid products.

Antioxidant effects of tea: evidence from human clinical trials - J Nutr. 2003 Oct;133(10):3285S-92S - "tea flavonoids are potent antioxidants that are absorbed from the gut after consumption. Tea consumption consistently leads to a significant increase in the antioxidant capacity of the blood. Beneficial effects of increased antioxidant capacity in the body may be the reduction of oxidative damage to important biomolecules. The scientific support is strongest for the protection of DNA from oxidative damage after black or green tea consumption" - See iHerb or Vitacost green tea products.

Mechanisms of cancer prevention by tea constituents - J Nutr. 2003 Oct;133(10):3262S-7S - "Consumption of tea (Camellia sinensis) has been suggested to prevent cancer, heart disease and other diseases. Animal studies have shown that tea and tea constituents inhibit carcinogenesis of the skin, lung, oral cavity, esophagus, stomach, liver, prostate and other organs. In some studies, the inhibition correlated with an increase in tumor cell apoptosis and a decrease in cell proliferation"

Vitamin C Inhibits Lipid Oxidation in Human HDL - J Nutr. 2003 Oct;133(10):3047-51 - "In the absence of vitamin C, lipid oxidation in HDL began immediately and proceeded rapidly ... Vitamin C (50-200 micro mol/L) retarded initiation of lipid oxidation for at least 4 h under the same conditions ... Our results demonstrate that vitamin C inhibits lipid oxidation in HDL and preserves the antioxidant activity associated with this lipoprotein fraction"

B vitamin status and concentrations of homocysteine and methylmalonic acid in elderly German women - Am J Clin Nutr. 2003 Oct;78(4):765-72 - "Even in younger, well-educated, female seniors, the prevalence of low B vitamin status and elevated plasma tHcy concentration is high. Thiamine, pyridoxine, folate, and cobalamin supplementation should be considered"

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