Recent Longevity News (9/19/01):

Snack Food Fats May Increase Risk of Eye Disease - ABC News, 9/18/01 - "Decreasing one's intake of specific types of fat, rather than fats in general, may help to lower a person's risk of the eye disease known as age-related macular degeneration ... Some fats, such as those found in processed foods, may increase an individual's risk of the eye condition, while other fats, such as the omega-3 fatty acids found in tuna, salmon and other coldwater fish, may decrease one's risk"

Dopamine Receptor Agonist Piribedil Improves Mildly Impaired Cognition in Elderly - Medscape, 9/18/01, user=benhess, pwd=asdfgh - "investigators suggest that dopamine insufficiency is associated with age-related cognitive impairment"

Six Months Of Endurance Exercise Reverses 30 Years Of Aerobic Decline - Intelihealth, 8/18/01 - "The studies indicate that middle-aged men can actually reverse many of the negative results of non-exercise, even after being physically inactive for a long time ... We found that 100 percent of the age-related decline in aerobic power that occurred over 30 years in these men was reversed by six months of endurance training"

Looking for the Fountain of Youth? Try the Gym - WebMD, 9/17/01 - "Remarkably, this study shows that 20 days of bed rest caused the cardiovascular fitness of these men who were in their 20s to decline worse than 30 years of aging"

Herb's Active Ingredient Fights Inflammation - ABC News, 9/17/01 - "The Yale team found that feverfew's active ingredient--parthenolide--specifically binds to and inhibits the protein IKK-beta, which plays a role in the body's inflammatory process ... Crews pointed out that IKK-beta has been identified as a drug target only within the last few years. And, he said, while the pharmaceutical industry has conducted "massive research" for compounds that will target IKK-beta and its "pathway" in the body, the search has reached a bottleneck ... The biggest problem [with feverfew] is its relative impurity. It's hard getting good-quality preparations"

Doctors Target Two Brain Chemicals to Treat Depression, Anxiety - WebMD, 9/17/01 - "Prozac works by increasing the availability of the mood chemical serotonin, while Effexor targets serotonin and norepinephrine, another brain chemical that plays a role in anxiety and depression ... there's a whole series of other studies in the area of anxiety disorders and new medications that are in development that target both brain chemicals ... One such drug, Remeron, is currently available"

Statins Mobilize Endothelial Progenitor Cells, Possibly Promoting Vasculogenesis - Medscape, 9/17/01, user=benhess, pwd=asdfgh - "While statins are widely used to lower blood cholesterol levels, two reports indicate that they may also promote new blood vessel formation by augmenting the population of circulating endothelial progenitor cells"

Vitamin B6 Helps Quell Neuroleptic-Induced Tardive Dyskinesia - Medscape, 9/17/01, user=benhess, pwd=asdfgh - "Movement disorders brought on by neuroleptics such as chlorpromazine can be curtailed by vitamin therapy ... daily dose of 400 mg of vitamin B6 appears to be effective in reducing symptoms of tardive dyskinesia in schizophrenic and schizoaffective patients"

Study Finds Adult Diabetes 90 Percent Preventable - ABC News, 9/16/01 - "Nine out of 10 cases of adult diabetes could be prevented if people exercised more, ate healthier food, stopped smoking and adopted other healthy behavior"