Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 6/14/06.  You should consult your doctor if you are taking any medications.

Retinopathy Study Asks for Re-Examination of Diabetes Definition - Doctor's Guide, 6/13/06 - "the prevalence of retinopathy is 5 times higher at a fasting glucose level of 120 mg/dL or a 2-hour plasma glucose >180 mg/dL"

Aspirin for Preventing Flushing from Niacin - Medscape, 6/13/06 - "the impact of flushing can be minimised by careful dose escalation, administering 'extended-release' NA at bedtime, administering ASA 30 min before 'extended-release' NA and avoiding alcohol or hot drinks near the timeof administration"

High Blood Sugar Linked to More ICU Deaths - Intelihealth, 6/13/06 - "Even modest hyperglycemia - starting at just one point above normal glucose levels -- was associated with mortality"

Encouraging Results For Folic Acid As A Cancer Prevention Drug - Science Daily, 6/12/06 - "31 of 43 patients with the precancerous laryngeal lesion called leucoplakia demonstrated 50 percent or greater reduction in the lesion size after six months of taking folate supplements. In 12 of 31 responders, there was no evidence of the original lesion ... Folate deficiency is the most common vitamin deficiency in the United States"

Depression Drugs May Up Diabetes Risk - WebMD, 6/12/06 - "taking antidepressants was associated with a two- to threefold increase in risk ... The increase was not seen, however, in people at high risk for diabetes who were taking both antidepressants and the blood-sugar-regulating drug glucophage (metformin)"

Beer ingredient may fight prostate cancer - USA Today, 6/12/06 - "the ingredient is present in such small amounts that a person would have to drink more than 17 beers to benefit ... the compound xanthohumol, found in hops, inhibits a specific protein in the cells along the surface of the prostate gland"

Coffee Might Curb Alcoholic Cirrhosis - WebMD, 6/12/06 - "For every daily cup of coffee that participants reported drinking, they were 22% less likely to have been diagnosed with alcoholic cirrhosis during the study ... Coffee drinkers were also less likely to have high blood levels of liver enzymes"

Green tea may help explain lower cancer rates in Asia - CNN, 6/12/06 - "EGCG and other green tea antioxidants may block tumor formation or growth in a number of ways. This may, according to the researchers, help explain why the lung cancer death rate in Korea is unexpectedly low"

Carotenoids linked to lower risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma - Nutra USA, 6/12/06 - "High daily intakes of the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin, as well as vegetables in general, could reduce the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma by almost 50 per cent"

Eat Trans Fat, Get Big Belly - WebMD, 6/12/06 - "Trans fats make you fatter than other foods with the same number of calories -- but that's not all ...  trans fats increase the amount of fat around the belly"

Metabolic Benefits of Calorie Restriction - Medscape, 6/12/06 - "A total of 48 overweight but otherwise healthy adults (body-mass index, 25-30 kg/m2; mean age, 38) were assigned to one of four groups: weight maintenance, 25% calorie restriction, 12.5% calorie restriction plus exercise, or very low calorie intake (890 calories daily until weight was reduced by 15%) ... At 6 months, all three intervention groups showed significant weight loss (10%-14% of baseline weight), as well as significant reductions in fasting insulin levels and DNA damage"

Identifying Risk Factors for BPH - Physician's Weekly, 6/12/06 - "Obesity, elevated fasting plasma glucose concentration, and diabetes appear to be risk factors for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH)"

Experts: Half of Americans risk diabetic condition - CNN, 6/12/06 - "half of all Americans will develop a condition known as insulin resistance, a type of pre-diabetes that puts them at high risk of heart attacks ... high blood sugar alone made hospital patients much more likely to die of other conditions ... Curing insulin resistance alone would reduce heart attacks by 42 percent"

Five Years on Anastrozole Can Promote Progression to Osteoporosis - Medscape, 6/12/06 - "Women taking anastrozole also had about a 40% increased risk of fractures while on the study ... At 5 years, women taking anastrozole lost 6.1% of BMD at the hip and 7.2% at the spine ... women with a normal BMD at baseline did not develop osteoporosis" - It's something to think about for men taking anastrozole for aromatization.

Study: A daily pill could narrow the scope of diabetes - USA Today, 6/11/06 - "If everyone who had the most common form of diabetes were given a daily "polypill" that combined low-dose aspirin with commonly used drugs to lower cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar, it would prevent 7.2 million deaths and disabilities that result from the disease"

Vitamin B6 May Help Prevent Colorectal Cancer - Medscape, 6/10/06 - "There was an inverse association between vitamin B6 intake and colorectal cancer, with the relative risk (RR) for the highest quintile vs the lowest quintile being 0.66 ... Vitamin B6 may have a role in colorectal cancer prevention through reduction of oxidative stress and synthesis of a form of folate required for DNA repair, synthesis, and methylation"

Lipitor Safety Questioned in Lawsuit - WebMD, 6/9/06 - "The two lawsuits claim that Lipitor caused lasting, debilitating muscle and nerve problems -- including memory loss"

ACE Inhibitors May Boost Birth Defects - WebMD, 6/7/06 - "about 7% of all babies in that group -- were born with birth defects, the study shows. That’s more than twice the rate of babies unexposed to any high blood pressure drugs"

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

Influences of statins on glucose tolerance in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus - J Atheroscler Thromb. 2006 Apr;13(2):95-100 - "compared an atorvastatin-treated group (Group A, n = 76) with a pravastatin-treated group (Group P, n = 78) ... blood glucose levels increased from 147 +/- 50 (mean +/- SD) mg/dL to 177 +/- 70 mg/dL in Group A ... These results suggest a predisposition to a deterioration of glycemic control in type 2 diabetic patients treated with atorvastatin"

Effect of chromium on the insulin resistance in patients with type II diabetes mellitus - Folia Med (Plovdiv). 2005;47(3-4):59-62 - "We found a significant decrease of the immune-reactive insulin and the insulin resistance index after a two-month application of chromium 30 microg daily (1 tablet of chrome picolinate) ... Chromium included early in the complex therapy of diabetes is beneficial in the reduction of the degree of insulin resistance"

Loss of vision as a presenting sign of cobalamin deficiency: An eye-opener - Eur J Intern Med. 2006 Jul;17(4):292-4 - "We describe a patient who presented with loss of vision that turned out to be caused by cobalamin deficiency. Both her vision and her visual field improved upon supplementation of cobalamin. It is, therefore, important to consider cobalamin deficiency as a treatable cause of loss of vision" - Note:  Cobalamin is vitamin B12.

A positive dose-response effect of vitamin D supplementation on site-specific bone mineral augmentation in adolescent girls: a double-blinded randomized placebo-controlled 1-year intervention - J Bone Miner Res. 2006 Jun;21(6):836-44 = "Bone mineral augmentation in the femur was 14.3% and 17.2% higher in the groups receiving 5 and 10 microg of vitamin D, respectively, compared with the placebo group, but only 10 mug increased lumbar spine BMC augmentation significantly"

Lutein supplementation in retinitis pigmentosa: PC-based vision assessment in a randomized double-masked placebo-controlled clinical trial - BMC Ophthalmol. 2006 Jun 7;6(1):23 - "These results suggest that lutein supplementation improves visual field and also might improve visual acuity slightly, although these results should be interpreted cautiously. As a combined phase I and II clinical trial, this study demonstrated the efficacy and safety of lutein supplementation"

Soy isoflavones attenuate bone loss in early postmenopausal Chinese women : A single-blind randomized, placebo-controlled trial - Eur J Nutr. 2006 Jun 8 - "There is a significantly dose-dependent effect of soy isoflavones on attenuating bone loss at the spine and femoral neck possibly via the inhibition of bone resorption in non-obese postmenopausal Chinese women with high Kuppermann Scale"

TNF-{alpha} induces endothelial dysfunction in diabetic adults, an effect reversible by the PPAR-{gamma} agonist pioglitazone - Eur Heart J. 2006 Jun 8 - "Pioglitazone treatment can convey direct protection against cytokine (TNF-alpha)-induced endothelial dysfunction in humans with an increased cardiovascular risk due to type 2 diabetes"

Association of carotene rich diet with hypogonadism in a male athlete - Asian J Androl. 2006 Jul;8(4):488-92 - "This is the first report associating excessive carotene intake with a hypothalamic form of hypogonadism in a young man"

Impaired {beta}-cell Function in Human Aging: Response to Nicotinic Acid-Induced Insulin Resistance - J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2006 Jun 6 - "Human aging is associated with impaired beta-cell sensitivity to glucose and impaired beta-cell compensation to insulin resistance"

Tadalafil vs sildenafil patient preference in Spanish men with erectile dysfunction: results from an International Multicentric Study - Actas Urol Esp. 2006 Jan;30(1):67-79 - "7 out of 10 patients preferred tadalafil and its dosing instructions to sildenafil, for the treatment of their ED"

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