Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 10/15/03:

The Secrets of Eating Smarter - Time Magazine Cover Story, 10/20/03 - "The latest research on the best ways to lose weight and live longer"

Longevity May Run in Your Blood - WebMD, 10/14/03 - "the HDL and LDL particle sizes were significantly larger in the exceptionally old adults compared with both control groups, regardless of their cholesterol levels ... this trait was also associated with lower rates of high blood pressure, heart disease, and other health problems that account for a large number of deaths among the elderly"

Meal Replacement Plans Do Work - HealthDay, 10/13/03 - "People who followed a meal replacement plan for 10 years weighed, on average, about 33 pounds less than people who didn't use a meal replacement plan"

Target Organ Damage Begins Before Hypertension is Diagnosed - Doctor's Guide, 10/13/03 - "enrolled 265 people with normal pressure, who were divided into 3 groups: optimal blood pressure (<120/80 mm Hg); normal pressure (<130/85 mm Hg); and high normal (130-139/85-89 mm Hg) ... Signs of target organ damage were seen in 7% of patients with optimal blood pressure, 13% of patients with normal pressure, and 23% of patients in the high normal group"

Increasing Calcium More Likely to Lower Blood Pressure Than Decreasing Sodium - Doctor's Guide, 10/12/03 - "When the diet is "balanced with no deficit in minerals, salt is not a problem," he said. "Salt becomes a problem when the diet is calcium deficient. Specifically, as calcium intake increases, blood pressure decreases."" - See Tums at drugstore.com.

Fiber Supplements as Good as the Real Thing - HealthDay, 10/10/03 - "a high-fiber diet may reduce your risk of certain health problems such as diabetes, colorectal cancer, gastrointestinal disorders, high cholesterol and obesity ... Take them before meals if you're overweight and take them after meals if you're underweight or normal weight" - See Drugstore.com/GNC fiber products.

Telmisartan And Lisinopril Appear Equally Effective In Reducing Blood Pressure and Pulse Pressure - Doctor's Guide, 10/10/03 - "For both TPR and SI measurement techniques, no differences were detected between the two drugs in their effects on systolic and diastolic BP" - Note:  Telmisartan is an ARB.  Lisinopril is an ACE inhibitor.  ARBs may have less side effects.

New Skin Lotion for Hot Flashes - HealthDay, 10/10/03 - "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved new estrogen-based skin lotion to treat hot flashes and night sweats associated with menopause ... Estrasorb, manufactured by Novavax, should only be applied to the legs, thighs or calves"

Levitra beats Viagra in study - MSNBC, 10/9/03 - "Nearly half of men who did not respond to Viagra achieved successful sexual intercourse when given Bayer AG and GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s rival drug Levitra" - See Online Prescriptions.

Antibiotics May Ease Alzheimer's Symptoms - HealthDay, 10/9/03 - "The team assigned them randomly to a group that received 200 milligrams of the antibiotic doxycycline and 300 milligrams of rifampin daily for three months ... The magnitude of the difference was similar to the effects seen with therapy with cholinesterase inhibitors" - Note:  Doxycyline is the one that's been shown to lower c-reactive protein by 46%.  See:

• 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"

Recurrent Stroke Often Missed in Nursing Homes - HealthDay, 10/9/03 - "only half of older Americans living in nursing homes are treated to prevent recurrent stroke ... Blood thinners help prevent the blood clots that can result in stroke"

Antioxidants May Protect Women From Alzheimer's - Clinical Psychiatry News, 10/03 - "Compared with women in the lowest quartile of overall antioxidant consumption, those in the highest quartile had an OR of 0.39 for Alzheimer's disease ... When their diets were analyzed for specific antioxidants, women who consumed the most vitamin C and lycopene also had a significantly lower risk of cognitive decline"

Insulin Resistance Theory Advanced - Clinical Psychiatry News, 10/03 - "A new theory linking insulin resistance to depression and the development of Alzheimer's disease could allow clinicians to someday identify patients at risk for dementia and, perhaps, prevent it by treating the insulin dysregulation ... Neuroendocrine factors contributing to insulin resistance, like cortisol and serotonin, have also been implicated in the pathophysiology of both depression and Alzheimer's ... Patients with depression should be screened for insulin resistance at the outset and monitored for signs of its development. If signs develop, these patients might benefit from insulin-sensitizing drugs"

Hormone Hysteria? -- Hormone replacement therapy may not be so bad - Scientific American, 10/03 - "A growing number of researchers believe that Provera is a poor substitute for progesterone. For example, medroxyprogesterone will bind in the breasts to progesterone receptors, which causes breast cells to divide after puberty and during the menstrual cycle, and also to glucocorticoid receptors, which causes cell division during pregnancy. This double-barreled assault on breast cells, explains C. Dominique Toran-Allerand, a developmental neurobiologist at Columbia University, probably led to the high rates of breast cancer in the study. "With Provera you are activating two receptors involved with cell division in the breast," she says, "and that's the culprit, not estrogen.""

Report: Male Menopause - Life Extension Magazine, 10/03 - "there are a growing number of anti-aging researchers who believe that estrogen and its metabolites, such as 16-alpha-hydroxyesterone, may be more significant in the development of prostate cancer than testosterone. In fact, a recent report made the following statement, which just 10 years ago would have been considering heresy by mainstream medicine: "There is no evidence that exogenous testosterone stimulates the development of severe symptomatic prostate hyperplasia, nor does exogenous testosterone seem to increase the risk of clinically significant prostate cancer." ... male rats treated with testosterone alone showed significantly less prostate growth when compared to animals treated with both testosterone and estrogen"

St. John's Wort -  Natural Foods Merchandiser, 10/03 - "Recently, in a large trial comparing SJW with the conventional antidepressant imipramine, researchers concluded SJW is as effective as imipramine and is better tolerated by patients.13 In a newer, larger trial (240 participants) comparing SJW directly with fluoxetine, researchers concluded SJW was as effective and safer than fluoxetine, particularly in patients suffering depression and anxiety" - See Kira® St. John's wort at iHerb.

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

The DASH Diet and Sodium Reduction Improve Markers of Bone Turnover and Calcium Metabolism in Adults - J Nutr. 2003 Oct;133(10):3130-3136 - "the DASH diet significantly reduced bone turnover, which if sustained may improve bone mineral status"

Conjugated linoleic Acid in humans: regulation of adiposity and insulin sensitivity - J Nutr. 2003 Oct;133(10):3041-6 - "It has been clearly demonstrated that specific CLA isomers or a crude mixture of CLA isomers prevent the development of obesity in certain rodent and pig models. This has been attributed mainly to trans-10, cis-12 CLA, both in vivo and in vitro. However, CLA's ability to modulate human obesity remains controversial because data from clinical trials using mixed isomers are conflicting. In support of some studies in humans, our group demonstrated that trans-10, cis-12 CLA prevents triglyceride (TG) accumulation in primary cultures of differentiating human preadipocytes. In contrast, cis-9, trans-11 CLA increases TG content" - See iHerb or Vitacost CLA products.

Licorice consumption and serum testosterone in healthy man - Exp Clin Endocrinol Diabetes. 2003 Sep;111(6):341-3 - "The mean testosterone values decreased by 26 % after one week of treatment"

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