Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 11/12/03:

Intravascular Ultrasound Depicts Coronary Artery Plaque Regression With Simvastatin - Doctor's Guide, 11/12/03 - "Lipid-lowering therapy with simvastatin for 12 months is associated with a significant plaque regression ... the plaque regression -- about 6.3% from baseline" - See Zocor at LowPriceMedicine.com but check with your doctor first.

Mediterranean Diet Lowers C-reactive Protein Levels - Medscape, 11/11/03 - "For each 10-point increase in diet score, there was a corresponding 0.22 mg/dL reduction in C-reactive protein levels, a 0.21 pg/ml reduction in interleukin-6, a 12.5 mg/dL decrease in fibrinogen, and a 0.87 mmol/L decrease in homocysteine levels (P < .05), he said. Also, white blood cell count decreased significantly"

Estrogen Deficiency May Be Linked to Increased Risk of Osteoarthritis - Doctor's Guide, 11/11/03 - "Oestrogen deficiency may be associated with an increased risk of osteoarthritis (OA)"

Vitamin C May Ward Off Stroke - HealthDay, 11/11/03 - "A new Dutch study finds people with the lowest amount of vitamin C in their diets were 30 percent more likely to have a stroke than people with the highest amount of it"

Four Popular Diets All Good for Weight Loss But Not Equal for Reducing Heart Disease Risk - Doctor's Guide, 11/10/03 - "Patients were evenly assigned to the Atkins diet (low carbohydrates), Zone (moderate carbohydrates), Ornish (low-fat vegetarian), or Weight Watchers (moderate fat) ... the heart disease risk score is based on the HDL/LDL ratio, and the "Ornish diet does not increase HDL, while the other diets do achieve significant increases in HDL,"" - Keep in mind that the Atkins may be skewed in that more of the weight loss may have just been water loss, which is common with very low carb diets ^{x, y}.  I put the results in table form, the yellow indicates the winner in that category:

Diet May Improve Cognition, Slow Aging, And Help Protect Against Cosmic Radiation - Intelihealth, 11/10/03 - "The role of diet in cognitive function is one of the vastly understudied areas in the neurosciences ... old dogs that were on an antioxidant diet performed better on a variety of cognitive tests than dogs that were not on the diet ... aged rats on the blueberry-enriched diet had lower NF-kappaB levels than aged rats fed a control data ... among the aged rats, the higher the NF-kappaB levels, the poorer their memory scores"

Simvastatin Increases HDL-C And Apo A-I More Than Atorvastatin in Patients With Hypercholesterolemia - Doctor's Guide, 11/10/03 - "Simvastatin appears to increase high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and apolipoprotein (apo) A-I significantly more than does atorvastatin in patients with hypercholesterolaemia ... Liver toxicity occurred in significantly fewer patients treated with simvastatin compared to atorvastatin"  - See Zocor at LowPriceMedicine.com but check with your doctor first.  Related ApoA-I article:

• Potential Heart Disease Breakthrough - WebMD, 11/4/03 - "It's called ApoA-I Milano ... a genetically engineered version of this "good" HDL cholesterol protein has been tested in a small human trial ... The findings exceed even the most optimistic expectations ... In five weeks, patients treated with ApoAI Milano had about a 4% decrease in plaque volume. That's 10 times greater reduction than ever seen before"
• Cholesterol Carriers May Offer Predict Second Heart Attack More Accurately -  Doctor's Guide, 5/17/99 - "ApoA-1 and apo B carry cholesterol in the bloodstream. Apo B is a cholesterol donor, while apoA-1 is a cholesterol scavenger"

Gingko biloba may help memory loss - MEDLINEplus, 11/10/03 - "Researchers at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute found significant improvement in verbal recall among a group of people with age-associated memory impairment who took the herbal supplement for six months, as compared with a group that received a placebo" - See iHerb or Vitacost ginkgo products ginkgo products.

Estrogen Might Improve Memory in Post-Menopausal Women - Doctor's Guide, 11/10/03 - "New data provides further positive evidence that estrogen treatment might provide positive long-term effects on memory and learning in post-menopausal women"

Copper May Guard Against Alzheimer's - HealthDay, 11/10/03 - "two new studies ... mice with more copper in their brain cells are less likely to develop the toxic protein fragments called amyloid-beta associated with Alzheimer's ... mutant mice with high amounts of copper in their brain cells had about half the amyloid-beta buildup as mice without the mutation ... There has been the suggestion that elevations of copper can help drive Alzheimer's disease, but we don't get that"

• Increasing the Good Cholesterol - Health & Nutrition Breakthrough, 1/99 - "Low copper levels, which can be induced by taking more than 25 mg/day of zinc, may increase triglycerides as well as reduce HDL levels. Zinc/copper ratios should be monitored." - See Jarrow Zinc Balance at iHerb.

Vitamins Can Save Your Eyesight - HealthDay, 11/10/03 - "age-related macular degeneration is the number one cause of vision loss and legal blindness in adults over 60 in the U.S. ... it is becoming more apparent that nutrition plays an important role in maintaining eyesight ... You should eat a healthful, low-fat diet with lots of fruits and vegetables and watch your cholesterol intake. Such a diet can help ward off eye disease as well as heart disease. If necessary you can add the AREDS vitamin regimen" - See ICaps® Dietary Supplement AREDS Formula at drugstore.com.

Fat Cells Linked to Hypertension - HealthDay, 11/10/03 - "new research has found fat tissue also secretes hormones. And it is also known a malfunction in the adrenal gland is linked to obesity. This malfunction leads to an excessive release of aldosterone, a blood pressure-elevating steroid that causes the kidneys to hold on to salt ... clinicians could benefit from their and my research by thinking of using aldosterone antagonists, such as spironolactone or eplerenone, in hypertensive patients with upper body obesity. We have found those drugs very useful in stubborn cases"

Two Heart Drugs [ARBs & ACE Inhibitors] Found Equally Effective - HealthDay, 11/10/03 - "Overall survival in both groups and among patients who got combined therapy was better than 80 percent ... The incidence of side effects such as cough, taste disturbance and rash was higher among those given both drugs together, and people getting the combined treatment were more likely to stop taking the medications ... valsartan is "a safe and equally effective alternative" for patients who have problems with ACE inhibitor treatment, Mann writes. People with kidney problems, for instance, are usually kept away from these drugs"

Higher Whole-Grain Intake Associated With Increased Insulin Sensitivity - Medscape, 11/7/03 - "Given that insulin sensitivity is one of the main predictors of diabetes, our findings support previous reports on the protective effects of whole grains on the risk of developing diabetes in men and women by substantiating one of the underlying mechanisms"

Can Broccoli Prevent Lupus? - WebMD, 11/6/03 - "I3C is believed to act as an anti-estrogen ... At 12 months of age, 80% of the mice fed the I3C diet from soon after birth were alive, compared with only 10% of the non-supplemented mice. Normal mice live from one to two years ... I3C-fed mice had far fewer kidney problems than the mice whose diets were not supplemented, and researchers say this is the reason that they lived much longer. Kidney disease is one of the main, life-threatening complications of lupus" - See Life Extension Buyers Club or iHerb I3C products.

Low Blood Levels of Vitamin C Linked to Mortality - Medscape, 11/6/03 - "Individuals in the lowest quintile for ascorbate concentration (<17 µmol/L) had the highest mortality, whereas those in the highest quintile (>66 µmol/L) had the lowest mortality ... After excluding subjects with cardiovascular disease or cancer at baseline, mortality for those in the highest quintile was still about half of that in the lowest quintile" - See iHerb or Vitacost vitamin C products.

Best Way to Clear the Air? - Dr. Weil, 11/6/03 - "The health benefits of these negative ion machines are debatable because some may produce ozone as they operate ... Ozone is beneficial in the upper atmosphere where it protects the Earth from the damaging effects of ultraviolet light, but you don’t want it in your living room or sleeping area"

Esomeprazole Provides Longer and Better Intragastric Acid Control Than Lansoprazole - Doctor's Guide, 11/6/03 - "A Swiss study has shown that esomeprazole 40 mg provides longer and better intragastric acid control than any of a 15-60 mg range of doses of lansoprazole" - Note: Esomeprazole is the brand name Nexium and lansoprazole is Prevacid.

Hot Cocoa May Prevent Heart Disease - WebMD, 11/6/03 - "Hot cocoa has more disease-fighting antioxidants than tea or red wine ... black tea, green tea, red wine, and cocoa are "major" sources of antioxidants called phenols and flavonoids -- antioxidant chemicals found naturally in foods that can help prevent chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer" - Yeah, but what about the sugar and calories.  See iHerb or Vitacost green tea products. - Ben

A Comprehensive Guide to Preventative Blood Testing - Life Extension Magazine, 11/03 - The best article I've seen showing what the blood lab numbers mean and what optimal ranges are.

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

Fish Intake Is Positively Associated with Breast Cancer Incidence Rate - J Nutr. 2003 Nov;133(11):3664-3669 - "higher intakes of fish were significantly associated with higher incidence rates of breast cancer. The association was present only for development of ER+ breast cancer" - See my page on toxins in fish/fish oil.

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