Recent Longevity News (8/15/01):

High Fatty Acid Levels May Mean Sudden Death For Middle-Aged Men - Intelihealth, 8/14/01 - "The editorial suggests that increasing omega-3 fatty acids in the diet, which come from fatty fish or canola oil, and decreasing the intake of omega-6 fatty acids, found in plant seed oils (corn, safflower, sunflower), is a way to reduce the risk of sudden death"

Free Fatty Acids May Be Linked to Sudden Cardiac Death in Healthy Men - WebMD, 8/14/01 - "Very high levels of free fatty acids were associated with "2.5 to three times the risk for sudden cardiac death" ... Several factors, including cigarette smoking, fasting, hyperthyroidism, or heart attack, can trigger the release of free fatty acids ... The real risk, says Leaf, who is professor of clinical medicine at Harvard Medical School, comes from omega-6 fatty acids, which are found in foods fried in corn, safflower, or sunflower oils ... By contrast omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in fatty fish and canola oil are actually heart healthy"

Age-Related Increases in DNA Damage Favor Development of Prostate Cancer - Medscape, 8/14/01, user=benhess, pwd=asdfgh - "Free radicals produce changes in the DNA of prostate cells that have opposing effects on the risk of prostate cancer development. At around 60 years of age, the pro-cancer alterations start to outweigh the anti-cancer changes ... Eating foods that are high in antioxidants may reduce the risk ... There are a number of studies that indicate that intake of foods rich in antioxidants, such as vitamin E and selenium, reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer"

Lower Dose Hormone Replacement Should Become Standard Therapy - Medscape, 8/13/01, user=benhess, pwd=asdfgh - "All hormone treatment combinations resulted in significant increases in HDL cholesterol (p < 0.001)], the authors report, and all treatments in which the daily estrogen dose exceeded 0.3 mg brought significant declines in total cholesterol (p < 0.05) and LDL cholesterol (p < 0.02) ... I think the low-dose regimens are most appropriate for women who are older (perhaps over 60)"

Health Supplement [DHEA] A Hit Among Lupus Sufferers - Intelihealth, 8/13/01 - "DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone), also being developed as Aslera by GeneLabs Technologies, has been found to improve the health of people with lupus, a debilitating, chronic, autoimmune disease that causes inflammation of various parts of the body, especially the skin, joints and kidneys"

Group wants warning on cholesterol drugs - CNN, 8/10/01 - "Washington D.C.-based Public Citizen says the class of drugs known as statins are responsible for an additional 50 deaths in the United States and should carry a more significant warning label ... Statins work by blocking a liver enzyme that causes cholesterol. In very rare instances it has been linked to a disease called Rhabdomyolysis, a potentially life threatening disease in which muscle cells are destroyed and released into the blood stream. In the worst-case scenario it causes patients to develop kidney failure." - Might be a good reason to switch to policosonal.

Tomato Extract May Have Role in Slowing Prostate Cancer - WebMD, 8/10/01 - "So when the results came in, Kucuk and colleagues were startled: the men who used the lycopene supplement actually had smaller tumors than the men who did not. Even more intriguing, the tumors taken from the men who used lycopene supplement were more likely to be confined to the prostate, and less likely to have advanced beyond it." - click here for lycopene at  iHerb (discount code "qc").

Wendy Williams dives into depression awareness - USA Today, 8/10/01 - "Depression is the number one cause of disability in the world, worse than heart disease, cancer, and car accidents"

Regarding the following article on antioxidants affecting the HDL rise of the simvastin/niacin combo, I feel that it's dumb to stop taking antioxidants just because it decreases the HDL rise.  You just need to be aware of it and account for it.  I brought my HDL from 34 to 51 with 1200 mg of red yeast rice, 1000 mg of niacin and red clover and not many people take more antioxidants than me.  I have since replaced the red yeast rice (RYR) with policosanol, which has been shown to increase HDL more than RYR.  Testosterone actually lowers HDL.  So does that mean you should stop taking testosterone also?  Why not just throw out your entire anti-aging program?  Media hype!  Red clover extract has been shown to raise HDL by 28%.  Policosanol has been shown to raise HDL by 29%.  See my HDL page for other ways to raise HDL.

• An Antioxidant Cocktail May Prove to Be Heart Unhealthy - WebMD, 8/9/01 - "Taken alone the drug combination simvastatin and niacin increased HDL, the so-called good cholesterol by 25%, but when antioxidants were added HDL increased by only 18%"

The following CME on l-arginine was a Doctor's Guide web site CME course on 8/9/01:

• The Role of L-Arginine in Cardiovascular Health - U.S. Pharmacist Continuing Education, exp. 11/30/01 - "Except in a few cases, supplementation with the amino acid from which nitric oxide is synthesized can be beneficial in boosting heart health" - see l-arginine and ArginMax

Bayer Stock Plummets After Drug Withdrawal - ABC News, 8/8/01 - "Bayer AG withdrew a key anti-cholesterol drug [Baycol] on Wednesday after reports its side effects could be deadly ... because of increasing reports of potentially lethal side effects involving muscular weakness and kidney failure"

How to Avoid Diabetes -- Landmark Results Unveiled - WebMD, 8/8/01 - "Either a low-fat diet combined with moderate exercise or the drug metformin -- brand name Glucophage -- dramatically reduced type 2 diabetes risk among overweight people with elevated blood sugar"

Rebuilding The Food Pyramid - Intelihealth, 8/8/01 - "The USDA's Food Guide Pyramid is "built on shaky scientific ground" and distorted by the department's mission to promote agriculture ... it recommends sharply restricting red meat, potatoes and refined grain products such as white bread; limiting dairy products to one or two servings a day; replacing unhealthy saturated fat with healthier unsaturated vegetable oils; and emphasizing whole grains, fruits and vegetables"

L-carnitine - New Hope Institute Continuing Education Module (eight pages in .pdf format), 7/01 - "Dogs given intravenous infusions of L-carnitine had an increase in heart contractility (35 percent), decrease in heart rate (17 percent), and a direct coronary vasodilator resulting in increased coronary blood flow (60 percent) ... L-carnitine supplementation intravenously in humans has yielded similarly encouraging results."

Affiliates:

iHerb policosanol products - use this link to receive a 5% discount (discount code "qc") plus free shipping on orders over $40 - see policosanol

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