Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 10/22/03:

Small Boosts in Bone Density Matter - HealthDay, 10/27/03 - ""If the women lost bone density, 15 percent of them had a fracture," he says. "If they gained zero to 5 percent bone density, 9.5 percent of them had a fracture. If they gained more than 5 percent bone density, 10.2 percent fractured." ... "If the bone density goes up 9 percent, it's not much better than if it goes up 1 percent,""

Heavy Alcohol Use Linked to Colon Cancer - Doctor's Guide, 10/22/03 - "Individuals who drink nine or more drinks made with distilled spirits a week for 10 years or more are about three times more likely to develop significant left-sided colorectal pathology than teetotalers"

Lycopene Helpful After Surgery for Prostate Cancer - Yahoo, 10/21/03 - "Specifically, the average PSA level in the patients taking lycopene fell from 251 units before surgery to 9 at six months, and to 3 after two years. Corresponding figures in the surgery-only group were 260, 26 and 9 units ... An added benefit was a significant improvement in peak urinary flow in patients given lycopene ... Furthermore, 22 percent of the lycopene group died versus 35 percent of those not given lycopene" - See Lyco-Sorb at iHerb.

Multiple Trials Demonstrate Efficacy of Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension Diet in Lowering Blood Pressure - Doctor's Guide, 10/20/03 - "The diet is high in fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products, and minimises fats, red meat, sweets, and sugar-containing beverages. In addition, compared with the control diet in the original study, the DASH diet had lower levels of total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol, and higher levels of potassium, calcium, magnesium, fibre, and protein ... the effects of the DASH diet were especially pronounced in individuals with stage 1 hypertension, in whom blood pressure was reduced on average by 11.4/5.5 mmHg"

Inflammation Molecules Signal Heart Risk - HealthDay, 10/20/03 - "People with the highest IL-6 levels were two to five times more likely to have a heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular episode than those with the lowest levels, the researchers say. High blood levels of TNF-alpha increased the risk of heart disease by 79 percent and of heart failure by 121 percent. High levels of C-reactive protein increased the risk of heart failure by 160 percent compared to those with low levels, but they did not significantly raise the risk of a first stroke or heart attack" - See my inflammation page for ways to reduce it.  Related article:

• Low Dose n-3 LC-PUFAs Linked to Reduced Cytokines and Enhanced Immunity - PUFA: Newsletter, 9/03 - "Consumption of n-3 LC-PUFAs significantly reduced the production of tumor necrosis factor-alpha and interleukin-6" - See Mega Twin EPA at Vitacost or iHerb.
• Inflammation Linked to Cognitive Decline - HealthDay, 7/11/03 - "The scientists took blood levels of three known markers of inflammation, including interleukin-6 (IL-6), C-reactive protein and tumor necrosis factor. They repeated the tests two years later ... If their IL-6 result was high, they were 34 percent more likely to have cognitive decline than those whose scores on the tests were in the lower third. If their C-reactive protein levels were in the top third, they were 41 percent more likely to have cognitive decline than those in the lower third ... research looking at anti-inflammatory drugs shows more promise as a preventive option, rather than as a treatment"

Metformin Treatment Leads to Increased Homocysteine, Decreased Vitamin B12 and Folate in Type 2 Diabetes Patients - Doctor's Guide, 10/20/03 - "Homocysteine requires folate and vitamin B12 to be properly metabolised, and serum vitamin B12 levels are known to decrease during metformin treatment ... compared with placebo, metformin was associated with an increase in serum homocysteine levels (4% [0.2 to 8 µmol L-1]; P=0.039), and decreases in vitamin B12 (-14% [-4.2 to -24 pmol L-1]; P<0.0001) and folate (-7%"

New Player in ALS - HealthDay, 10/20/03 - "free radicals prevent the destruction of glutamate, a potentially toxic molecule. As levels of glutamate increase, cells respond by producing more and more free radicals, further hampering disposal of glutamate"

FDA Approves Namenda (Memantine HCl) for Treatment of Moderate to Severe Alzheimer's Disease - Doctor's Guide, 10/17/03 - "Namenda is the first NMDA receptor antagonist to be approved for Alzheimer's disease and is also the only therapy approved for the treatment of moderate to severe Alzheimer's disease ... Namenda will be available in pharmacies in January 2004"

Veggies Lose Antioxidants in the Microwave - HealthDay, 10/16/03 - "Broccoli, for instance, can lose as much as 97 percent of some antioxidants, or cancer-fighting compounds, when it is zapped in the microwave ... Vegetables that are blanched before freezing (a common processing technique) can lose up to one third of their antioxidants"

Improved Glucose Response with High-protein Diet in Individuals with Type 2 Diabetes - Doctor's Guide, 10/16/03 - "either a control diet designed according to the recommendations of the American Diabetes Association (protein:carbohydrate:fat, 15:55:30) or a high-protein diet (30:40:30) for a period of 5 weeks ... fasting glucose concentration was consistently lower after the high-protein diet, with no significant change in body weight. The mean 24-hour integrated glucose area responses (with fasting glucose concentration as baseline) were 34.1 +/- 7.2 mmol x h/L and 21.0 +/- 4.2 mmol x h/L after the control and high-protein diets, respectively, revealing a 40% decrease with the high-protein diet" - See The Zone at eDiets.com.

Can Cholesterol Drugs Cut Breast Cancer Risk? - HealthDay, 10/16/03 - "women who used any lipid-lowering medication had a 68 percent reduced risk of developing breast cancer compared to women who did not take any of these drugs" - Note:  Red yeast rice is a non-prescription statin but check with your doctor.  See iHerb or Vitacost red yeast rice products.

Testosterone Improves Sexual Function in Women With HSDD - Medscape, 10/15/03 - "After 24 weeks, the women in the testosterone group showed a significant increase in the sexual desire score of the PFSF compared with those in the placebo group ... Testosterone therapy also resulted in a statistically significant change versus placebo for each of the following PFSF domains: orgasm, sexual arousal, sexual responsiveness, sexual self-image, and sexual concerns"

Family Physicians Need to Better Treat Hyperlipidaemia - Doctor's Guide, 10/15/03 - "only 24% of Americans are at their target cholesterol goal"

Short-Term Testosterone Therapy May Boost Effectiveness of Viagra - Clinical Psychiatry News, 10/03 - "The study is the first to indicate that men who have low, but not hypogonadal, levels of testosterone and who fail on Viagra can be helped with testosterone supplementation"

Vitamin D Deficiency Common in Residency - Clinical Psychiatry News, 10/03 - "Nutritional assessment showed that roughly two-thirds of the house staff had a total vitamin D intake below the Reference Daily Intake of 400 IU/day. One participant with inadequate vitamin D intake in the fall was taking a daily multivitamin, as were 11 with sufficient vitamin D intake"

The Serious Search for an Anti-Aging Pill - Scientific America, 8/03 - "Regrettably, however, 2DG has a fatal flaw preventing it from being the "magic pill" we were hoping for. Though safe at certain low levels, it apparently becomes toxic for some animals when the amount delivered is raised just a bit or given over long periods ... Treatment with antidiabetic medications that enhance cellular sensitivity to insulin might be helpful as well, as long as the amounts given do not cause blood glucose levels to fall too low ... Drugs that replicate only selected effects of caloric restriction could have a role to play as well. In theory, antioxidant vitamins might fit that bill"

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

Randomised controlled short-term intervention pilot study on rye bran bread in prostate cancer - Eur J Cancer Prev. 2003 Oct;12(5):407-15 - "In the rye group, there was a significant increase in plasma enterolactone, and the apoptotic index increased significantly from 2.1% (SD 1.3) to 5.9% ... High intake of rye bran bread is suggested to increase apoptosis in prostate tumours"

Vitamin C affects thrombosis/ fibrinolysis system and reactive hyperemia in patients with type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease - Diabetes Care. 2003 Oct;26(10):2749-53 - "Short-term treatment with high doses of vitamin C improved RH% and decreased plasma levels of tPA and vWF in patients with type 2 diabetes and CAD"

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