Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 10/20/04:

Patients with Knee Osteoarthritis May Benefit from Increased Levels of Vitamin D - Doctor's Guide, 10/18/04 - "Higher levels of vitamin D appear to increase muscle strength, improving physical function for knee-osteoarthritis patients who are vitamin-D deficient ... increasing serum vitamin D over 30 months correlated directly with an improvement in WOMAC [Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index] disability measures" - See iHerb or Vitacost vitamin D products.

Many Depressed Patients Have Bipolar Disorder - Medscape, 10/18/04 - "used the Structured Clinical Interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) to reinterview 61 patients diagnosed with unipolar depression who had failed to respond to at least two adequate courses of antidepressants ... after following them for a year, fully 80% of patients were deemed to have bipolar disorder"

Garlic Consumption Appears to Reduce Blood Pressure - Doctor's Guide, 10/18/04 - "those patients with the highest consumption of garlic were more likely to have systolic blood pressures under 100 mm Hg than individuals with lower garlic consumption. While the group that had eaten more garlic also had lower diastolic blood-pressure readings, the difference were not as robust"

An Apple a Day for Cancer Prevention - WebMD, 10/18/04 - "exposed cancer cells to various antioxidants found in apples ... one type of antioxidant, called procyanidins, triggered a series of cell signals that resulted in cancer cell death ... Rats getting "apple water" for six weeks had half the number of precancerous lesions in their colons compared with rats eating the regular diet ... compared the cancer patients' diets with a group of people without cancer ... Those who ate both green leafy and cruciferous vegetables got "particularly strong" cancer prevention protection"

Experts: Fewer Take Statins Than Should - Intelihealth, 10/18/04 - "About 13 million Americans take statins -- roughly one-third of the number for whom they're recommended ... Clinton's case shows the need for educating more doctors to treat cholesterol more aggressively ... The president's doctors didn't even know how to manage lipids"

Deep Belly Fat Predicts Risk of Serious Metabolic Syndrome - WebMD, 10/14/04 - "fat inside the body -- that which can't be seen or "pinched" -- is the strongest among a set of signs that predict metabolic syndrome, a set of signs known to increase heart disease risk"

Portion Control Induces Greatest Weight Loss in Obese Patients - Doctor's Guide, 10/14/04 - "Although we saw similar patterns of weight loss related to reduced dietary fat consumption, increased fruit and vegetable consumption, increased physical activity and increased planned exercise, the target behavior that induced the greatest weight loss was portion control"

Surgeon General Warns of Bone Break Epidemic - HealthDay, 10/14/04 - "An epidemic of broken bones caused by osteoporosis is inevitable unless older Americans start getting the calcium, vitamin D and physical activity needed to prevent it ... Half of all Americans older than 50 will run the risk of fractures from osteoporosis by 2020 unless they do the right things"

Common Blood Test May Predict Carotid Artery Disease - Doctor's Guide, 10/14/04 - "When the researchers adjusted for other carotid stenosis risk factors, such as age, history of smoking, diabetes, hypertension, and coronary artery disease, CRP was independently associated with stenosis, while LDL was not" - Related articles to reduce CRP:

• Low-dose Periostat (Doxycycline) Shows Benefits in Patients with Heart Failure - Doctor's Guide, 11/20/02 - "At six-month follow-up, sub-antimicrobial dose doxycyline significantly reduced CRP levels by 45.8 percent compared to baseline values (p<0.05) ... The findings are exciting, since research is now showing that CRP is both a key marker of inflammation leading to future acute coronary events, but also that CRP itself may contribute to the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis"
• Vitamin C supplement to beat diabetes and heart disease - Nutra USA, 4/14/04 - "Researchers at the University of California say that participants who took about 500 milligrams of vitamin C supplements per day saw a 24 per cent drop in plasma C-reactive protein (CRP) levels after two months" - See iHerb or Vitacost vitamin C products.
• Dietary Changes Can Reduce Cholesterol and C-Reactive Protein as Much as Medication - New Hope Natural Media, 9/18/03 - "CRP levels decreased 10% in the placebo group, 33% in the statin group and 28% in the modified-diet group"
• Inflammation Syndrome a Red-Hot Topic - Natural Foods Merchandiser, 9/03 - "Several studies have shown that natural vitamin E supplements lower CRP levels by 30 percent to 50 percent"

Portfolio Diet: Recipe for Lower Cholesterol - WebMD, 10/14/04 - "substitutes soy-based foods for meat ... three daily servings of the natural psyllium product Metamucil ... replaces butter and margarine with plant sterol-enriched margarine ... diet includes nuts ... Just about a third of them get very good results, with better than a 20% reduction in the 'bad' LDL cholesterol after six months"

New Research: What is Your Optimal TSH Level? - About.com, 9/30/04 - "normalizing the TSH with a target TSH level of less than 2 mIU/mL is advisable to lower CRP levels and homocysteine levels, and possibly the cholesterol levels"

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

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