Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 8/4/04:

Vitamin D May Ease Depression - WebMD, 8/3/04 - "Vitamin D supplementation ... may also relieve depression ... Basically, what vitamin D does is increase levels of the [chemical] serotonin in the brain ... About 90% of patients in my hospital are vitamin D deficient" - See item #7 on my home page for more important vitamin D articles.  See iHerb or Vitacost vitamin D products.

Soy Benefits Type 2 Diabetes - WebMD, 8/3/04 - "Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure.  The earliest sign of this complication is small amounts of protein in urine ... Those who added the soy protein powder to their diets had a 10% reduction in protein found in urine ... the soy protein supplement boosted "good" HDL cholesterol by 4%" - [Abstract]

Overweight? Good Cholesterol May Fight Cancer - WebMD, 8/3/04 - "overweight, postmenopausal women with high levels of good HDL cholesterol have 67% less breast cancer than similar women with low HDL levels"

Stress-Busting Help Comes From Hormone - WebMD, 8/2/04 - "The people who reported fewer symptoms and who performed best at their military tasks had "significantly higher" levels of the hormone DHEA-S compared with cortisol" - See iHerb or Vitacost DHEA products.

A New, Independent Risk Factor for Heart Disease - Life Extension Magazine, 8/04 - "In this study, aged men with low free testosterone and low HDL showed more severe coronary blockage ... Artery-protecting HDL can be increased by taking high doses of niacin and chromium, and/or one glass of red wine per day"

Too Little Fish Oil Hurts Your Heart - HealthDay, 7/29/04 - "an Omega-3 Index of 8 percent to 10 percent reduces a person's relative risk of death from coronary heart disease by 40 percent, and from sudden cardiac death by 90 percent"- See Mega Twin EPA at Vitacost or iHerb.

Treatment With Folate to Lower Homocysteine - Medscape, 7/29/04 - "For patients with known cardiovascular disease, it is generally recommended to treat with folic acid (1 mg/day), vitamin B6 (10 mg/day), and vitamin B12 (0.4 mg/day). Folic acid can be increased up to 5 mg/day to reach a goal of lowering homocysteine levels below 15 mmol/L"

Technical Communication from CAROTECH INC, Edison, NJ (In Response to the latest Scientific Review on Vitamin E, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine) - NPI Center, 7/29/04 - "These studies were carried out with regular commercial vitamin E supplements (ie - alpha-tocopherol alone) that did not contain the other forms of vitamin E such as tocotrienols"

Vitamin E Useless in Fighting Heart Disease - WebMD, 7/28/04 - "vitamin E had no significant effect in reducing the risk of heart attack, stroke, or heart-related death" - Maybe that's because the studies used the d-alpha tocopherol form, which has shown to deplete the gamma form.  See the vitamin E articles on my home page and the next article.

Jarrow Formulas’ All-New Gamma E 300(TM) Inhibits Nitric Oxide Radicals - NPI Center, 7/27/04 - "Typical Vitamin E supplements only offer d-alpha tocopherol, which has been shown to deplete serum gamma tocopherol and alpha tocotrienol" - See Gamma E 300(TM) at iHerb.  Also see the Life Extension(TM) Brand.

Scientists call for calcium, vitamin D fortification - Nutra USA, 7/28/04 - "Americans consume inadequate dietary calcium and vitamin D – far below the recommended levels established by the Food Nutrition Board, Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences" - See iHerb or Vitacost vitamin D products.

Not All ACE Inhibitors Have the Same Effect on Mortality - Medscape, 7/28/04 - "enalapril, fosinopril, captopril, quinapril, and lisinopril were associated with higher mortality than was ramipril. The adjusted hazard ratios were 1.47 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.14 to 1.89), 1.71 (95% CI, 1.29 to 2.25), 1.56 (95% CI, 1.13 to 2.15), 1.58 (95% CI, 1.10 to 2.82), and 1.28 (95% CI, 0.98 to 1.67), respectively, and 0.98 (95% CI, 0.60 to 1.60) for perindopril"

Pravastatin Lowers Blood Pressure as Well as Lipids - Medscape, 7/28/04 - "After pravastatin therapy, systolic blood pressure fell from 141.2 mm Hg to 136.5 mm Hg while diastolic pressure remained the same"

K-State Researcher Links Cigarette Smoke, Vitamin A Deficiency And Emphysema - Science Daily, 7/28/04 - "When the lung content of vitamin A was low, the score of emphysema was high ... So, the hypothesis is that smokers develop emphysema because of a vitamin A deficiency"

Sex, Sexuality, and Serotonin - Medscape, 7/20/04 - "From our study of the brain, we have some nice evidence that elevated activity of dopamine is involved in that intense sense of passion and arousal of romantic love. I also maintain in my book, Why We Love, that we're going to find out sometime that norepinephrine is also involved, largely because heightened activity of norepinephrine is also associated with focused attention, elevated energy, motivation to win a reward, elation, and 2 characteristics of romantic love -- obsessional following and object imprinting ... low activity levels of serotonin are going to be involved"

DHEA Lessens Depressive Symptoms, NIMH Study Shows - Psychiatric Times, 7/04 - "In both men and women taking DHEA, significant improvement was seen on the HAM-D in depression severity compared to both baseline (p<0.01) and placebo conditions ... DHEA administration resulted in an improvement overall in sexual functioning compared with baseline and placebo" - See iHerb or Vitacost DHEA products.

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

Corticosteroids, depression and the role of serotonin - Rev Neurosci. 2004;15(2):109-16 - "corticosteroids lower serotonin levels ... lowered serotonin levels may result in depression, aggression and other psychological conditions"

Non-HDL Cholesterol and Apolipoprotein B Predict Cardiovascular Disease Events Among Men With Type 2 Diabetes - Diabetes Care. 2004 Aug;27(8):1991-7 - "Non-HDL cholesterol and apoB are more potent predictors of CVD incidence among diabetic men than LDL cholesterol. Statistically, the ratio of total to HDL cholesterol is the best predictor of CVD in this cohort of diabetic men"

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