Recent Longevity News (8/1/01):

For Some Women, Limiting Salt Can Drastically Lower Health Risks - WebMD, 7/31/01 - "those women who ate only a teaspoon of salt per day reduced their blood pressure by 16 points, experiencing as much benefit as they would from some blood pressure lowering medicines"

FDA Panel Okays Osteoporosis Drug for Women - ABC News, 7/30/01 - "Women on Forteo showed a 65% reduced risk of spinal fractures ... also had significantly improved bone mineral density scores ... the same dose could increase bone mineral density in the spine by over 5% in 437 men who took it for 6 months ... most common side effects were nausea, leg cramps and headaches, experienced in 3% to 9% of patients who took active injections ... panelists focused their attention on previous laboratory studies showing that the drug drastically increased cancer rates in rats ... no humans in their studies developed osteosarcoma ... agency scientists remained skeptical" - see osteoporosis

Exercise can help you recover faster from the discomfort of arthritis - Healthscout, 1/29/01 - "Not only is regular exercise the best way to prevent pain from occurring in arthritic joints in the first place, those who exercise regularly also recover faster from existing arthritic pain" - see arthritis

Apple and Pear Consumption Linked to Reduced COPD Risk - Medscape, 7/27/01, user=benhess, pwd=asdfgh - "The study is the first to investigate the relationship between the dietary intake of three flavonoid subclasses — catechins, flavonols, and flavones ... Total flavonoid intake was associated directly with forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), and inversely to chronic cough and breathlessness symptoms, but not chronic phlegm symptoms. Catechin intake was independently linked to FEV1 and to a reduction in all three COPD symptoms, while flavonol and flavone intake were only tied to an improvement in chronic cough"

Do Vitamins Lower Prostate Cancer Risk? - ABC News, 7/27/01 - "Selenium and vitamin E, both naturally occurring nutrients, have proved not to be of much use in fighting skin and lung cancers. But in conducting those studies, researchers accidentally discovered the supplements may be effective in preventing prostate cancer"

Apples, Pears May Help Protect Lungs: Researchers - ABC News, 7/26/01 - ""solid fruits," including apples and pears, help protect the lungs due to their high flavonoid content"

New shape of the food pyramid - USA Today, 7/26/01 - "The U.S. Department of Agriculture pyramid is outdated and doesn't reflect the latest food research"

Pesticides linked to male infertility - MSNBC, 7/26/01 - "exposure to pesticides and solvents could be contributing to falling sperm counts and rising levels of male infertility" - see toxins

Baycol (Cerivastatin) Not To Be Used In Combination With Gemfibrozil, Says Bayer - Doctor's Guide, 7/25/01 - "Statins are known to cause a rare side effect of muscle breakdown ... In a very small percentage of patients, there is a risk of muscle breakdown resulting in kidney damage, which in rare instances can lead to life-threatening kidney failure ... The risk of muscle breakdown is greater in patients taking gemfibrozil as well as other fibric acid derivatives (a group of cholesterol-lowering drugs), cyclosporine (an immunosuppressant), erythromycin (an antibiotic), azole antifungals, or lipid-lowering doses of niacin (nicotinic acid) together with statins including cerivastatin." - muscle breakdown might be an argument for going with policosanol.

New research shows potassium-rich foods may lower your risk of stroke - HealthScout, 7/23/01 - "People who are taking in more potassium are getting rid of more sodium, which in turn is lowering their blood pressure. And it is probably the lowered blood pressure that in the end is reducing the risk of stroke"

Low-Dose Hormone Replacement Therapy Lowers Cholesterol in Postmenopausal Women - Doctor's Guide, 7/17/01 - "lower doses of HRT showed a significant (10%) increase in HDL, or good cholesterol, and an approximate 7% decrease in LDL, or bad cholesterol -- similar to results seen with standard therapy"

Cognition Improves With Antihypertensive Therapy - Clinical Psychiatry News, 7/01, user=benhess, pwd=asdfgh - "patients were randomized to 24 weeks of open-label antihypertensive therapy with either the calcium channel blocker felodipine or the ACE inhibitor enalapril, with dosages titrated as needed to achieve blood pressure goals of 140/90 mm Hg or lower ... The testing found 15%-40% improvement in information-processing speed, visual and spatial skills, executive skills, and motor functioning. There were no significant improvements in attention and mental control or verbal memory" - see memory and hypertension

I've often wondered why the medical community concentrates on increasing serotonin and/or norepinephrine to reverse depression.  I ran across articles today and in the past that support increasing dopamine for depression.  Here are a few of the articles:

• Pramipexole Can Improve Depression in Parkinson's Disease - Doctor's Guide, 8/1/01 - see pramipexole

• Depression: Combination Therapies; Use of Anti-Parkinsonion Drugs; Effect of Menopause; Risk of Suicide - Medscape, 5/99, user=benhess, pwd=asdfgh - "Five of the six patients had greater than 40% reduction in depressive symptoms, as scored by the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale"

• St. John's wort to increase dopamine?

  • Neuroendocrine evidence for dopaminergic actions of hypericum extract (LI 160) in healthy volunteers - Biol Psychiatry 1999 Aug 15;46(4):581-4 - "the findings suggest that this dose of HP may increase some aspects of brain dopamine function in humans"

• NADH to increase dopamine?

  • NADH article by James South - "NADH could elevate H4BP production, tyrosine hydroxylase activity and dopamine production"

• Some interesting articles on Ritalin, which also increases dopamine:

  • Ritalin (Methylphenidate)/Behaviour Therapy Combo Most Effective for Teens With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - Doctor's Guide, 6/1/01 - "Scores improved by an average of about 17 percent - a jump that could mean two or three letter grades"

  • How Ritalin Works in ADHD - WebMD, 7/12/01 - "the children's brains have too many molecules that suck up dopamine before it does its thing. Ritalin gums up these molecules, so they leave the dopamine alone"

  • Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Adults - ABC News, 7/16/01

  • ADD: Dr. David Goodman - USA Today, 7/16/01

  • Pay Attention! - USA Today, 7/15/01

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