Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 12/29/04:

Fine-Tune Your Intake of Fatty Acids - HealthDay, 12/28/04 - "our Stone Age ancestors had diets with an equal ratio of the two acids, while current research suggests that most Americans consume 14 to 25 times more inflammation-promoting omega-6 fats than anti-inflammatory omega-3s ... Reducing this ratio has several benefits, Kulze added, including cancer prevention, weight loss, improved cardiovascular health, and diabetes and arthritis control ... fish oil oral supplements have an important role in restoring the desired 3-to-6 balance" - See Mega Twin EPA at Vitacost or iHerb.

Physical Activity in Old Age Keeps Mind Sharp - WebMD, 12/28/04 - "elderly men who decreased the duration or intensity of their physical activity level over a 10-year period experienced a greater decline in cognitive skills, such as attention, memory, and language skills, than men who maintained the intensity of their physical activity"

Herbal Extract May Help Prevent Migraines - WebMD, 12/28/04 - "The 75-mg butterbur dose reduced headache frequency by 48 percent -- a substantial treatment effect"

MIT: Magnesium May Reverse Middle-age Memory Loss - Science Daily, 12/27/04 - "In the cover story of the Dec. 2 issue of Neuron, MIT researchers report a possible new role for magnesium: helping maintain memory function in middle age and beyond ... magnesium helps regulate a key brain receptor important for learning and memory" - See iHerb or Vitacost magnesium products.

Research Studies Effects Of Soy Baby Formula On Intestinal Development - Science Daily, 12/27/04 - "Two studies by University of Illinois food science and human nutrition professor Sharon Donovan show that the soy isoflavone genistein, in amounts present in commercial soy infant formulas, may inhibit intestinal cell growth in babies"

Fewer Calories Could Slow Alzheimer’s - Science Daily, 12/24/04 - "Restricting the diets of mice reduces the build-up of plaques in the brain that are linked to Alzheimer’s disease"

A Healthy Gut May Resist Allergies, Asthma - WebMD, 12/23/04 - "People need a mix of healthy bacteria and fungi in their guts. Microflora in humans can be thrown off by antibiotics and a sugary, high-fat, low-fiber diet"

High Blood Sugar Hurts Thinking - WebMD, 12/22/04 - "More than half of the group (55%) didn't think as clearly as normal when their blood sugar was too high. They responded more slowly or made more verbal and subtraction errors when their blood sugar levels were high"

Depression May Raise Women's Diabetes Risk - WebMD, 12/22/04 - "symptoms of depression were linked to greater levels of insulin resistance among the women ... depression can alter hormones relating to how the body handles stress. This in turn can affect body fat distribution and how it handles blood sugar metabolism"

U.S. Study Sees Little Benefit From Melatonin - HealthDay, 12/22/04 - "The one area where melatonin did seem to work was with a group of people with a condition called "delayed sleep phase syndrome," which means that otherwise healthy people have a biological quirk that prevents a normal sleep cycle"

Soy formula may inhibit intestinal development in babies - Nutra USA, 12/22/04 - "in newborn piglets fed a formula supplemented with genistein at the level found in soy formula, the number of proliferating cells in the intestine was 50 per cent lower than in piglets fed cow's milk formula alone"

Should Men With Serum PSA Levels of 4.0 ng/mL or Less Undergo a Prostate Biopsy? - Medscape, 12/21/04 - "Levels <4.0 ng/ml can be predictive of the risk of developing prostate cancer, and of the likelihood of malignancies being high-grade"

Testing of Alpha-Lipoic Acid Supplements By Consumerlab.com Finds Most Meet Label Claims :: Natural and Nutritional Products Industry Center :: News - NPI Center, 12/21/04 - "one of 21 alpha-lipoic acid supplements recently tested contained only 15% of the alpha-lipoic acid that it claimed ... There is fairly good evidence that alpha-lipoic acid can be help people with diabetes"

Alpha-Lipoic Acid Supplements review - ConsumerLab.com (paid subscription), 12/20/04

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

Frequency of fruit and vegetable consumption and coronary heart disease in France and Northern Ireland: the PRIME study - Br J Nutr. 2004 Dec;92(6):963-72 - "There was no evidence for any association between vegetable intake and total CHD events. In conclusion, frequency of citrus fruit, but not other fruits, intake is associated with lower rates of acute coronary events in both France and Northern Ireland"

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