Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 11/15/06.  You should consult your doctor if you are taking any medications.

Soy, Fish May Cut Cancer Risk - WebMD, 11/14/06 - "Women who ate the most soy as teens or adults were about 25% less likely to have breast cancer than those who skimped on it ... men who ate the most fish -- and that was five or more servings per week of fish -- compared to the least fish -- less than one time per week -- had a 40% lower risk of developing colorectal cancer"

Vitamin link to bone loss probed - BBC News, 11/14/06 - "Increased amounts of homocysteine in the blood may increase the risk of developing osteoporosis ... Individuals who have a poor dietary intake of B-vitamins tend to have high homocysteine levels"

Fat in Fish May Help Prevent Dementia - WebMD, 11/13/06 - "participants with the highest DHA levels at the beginning of the study were 47% less likely to get dementia and 39% less likely to get Alzheimer's disease during the study than the rest of the group" - See iHerb or Vitacost DHA products.  My favorite is Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.

Depression May Be Related to Testosterone Levels in Men - Doctor's Guide, 11/13/06 - "Levels of TT were 11.94 among patients with major depression and 17.64 among healthy controls (P < .001). Bioavailable testosterone measures were 3.51 among patients with depression and 4.69 among controls ... Men with depression have a significantly lower BT level than do non-depressed men but using TT as the threshold to define hypogonadism revealed an even greater difference between the 2 groups in this study"

Diabetes drug may cut heart risks - MSNBC, 11/13/06 - "Patients with type 2 diabetes taking the older generic drug, glimepiride, saw their artery thickness rise by .012 millimeters after 72 weeks on the drug, while those on pioglitazone saw their artery wall thickness drop by .001 millimeters ... pioglitazone raised HDL levels, which seem to protect against heart attacks, by about 13 percent in patients after 24 weeks, and sustained that increase over the life of the study"

Mom's Diet May Affect Generations - WebMD, 11/13/06 - "supplements given to pregnant mice not only affected the coloring of their offspring, but their offspring's offspring as well"

Treat Rheumatoid Arthritis Early - WebMD, 11/13/06 - "treating these individuals with the drug methotrexate can possibly prevent the disease from progressing to rheumatoid arthritis" - See methotrexate at OffshoreRx1.com.

Salt Intake Is Strongly Associated With Obesity - Science Daily, 11/13/06 - "Perhaps the most interesting finding of the study is the close link between salt intake and obesity. The study reports that increasing intakes of sodium (salt) obligatorily produce a progressive increase in thirst. The progressive increase in the average intake of salt explains the observed concomitant increase in the intake of beverages which, in turn, has caused a marked net increase in the intake of calories during the same period in the United States"

Red meat raises breast cancer risk - MSNBC, 11/13/06 - "Women who ate more than 1½ servings of red meat per day were almost twice as likely to develop hormone-related breast cancer as those who ate fewer than three portions per week"

Diseased gums raise risk of pancreatic cancer - MSNBC, 11/13/06 - "that men with gum disease and recent tooth loss had a 2.7-fold increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer compared with those who reported neither gum disease nor tooth loss"

Chromium Picolinate Supplements Improve Glycemic Control - Physician's Weekly, 11/13/06 - "Patients who received 1,000 µg CrPic demonstrated significant improvements in insulin sensitivity and glucose control when compared with placebo. Patients in the CrPic arm also gained less weight (0.9 kg vs 2.2 kg) than those in the placebo arm and had a smaller increase in body fat (0.12% vs 1.17%)" - See iHerb or Vitacost chromium products.

Research Finds Antioxidant Therapies Do Not Interfere With Radiation Treatment - Science Daily, 11/12/06 - "Radiation Therapy for Prostate Cancer, was conducted by researchers ... Researchers found no difference between patients taking antioxidants and those who did not. Antioxidants used in the study included green tea extract, melatonin, high-potency multivitamins, vitamin C and vitamin E"

Hormone Therapy Does Not Improve Quality Of Life For Women, Finnish Trial Finds - Science Daily, 11/11/06 - "The women receiving hormone therapy showed slightly more cardiovascular disease, cerebral circulatory disease and cancer in comparison to the women who did not take hormones. However, these differences were not statistically significant. The hormone recipients had less fractures and less hot flashes and night-time sweating than the comparison group, but they also had more flow. There were no differences in depression, sleep disorders, fatigue, dizziness or bloating"

High Blood Sugar a Global Killer - WebMD, 11/9/06 - "Our results show that one in five deaths from heart disease and one in eight from stroke worldwide are attributable to higher-than-optimum blood [sugar] ... As an annual cause of death, it's right up there with smoking"

More People Could Benefit From Statins - WebMD, 11/9/06 - "They found treatment with a generic statin to be cost-effective, even for people as young as 35 or as old as 85, whose annual risk of having a major heart or stroke event was as little as 1% ... generic statins could save patients in the U.S. as much as $1,800 per year" - See various statins at OffshoreRx1.com.

Flavonoid-Rich Grapeseed Extracts: for Cardiovascular Patients - Medscape, 11/9/06 - "The antioxidant and vascular protective aspects of flavonoid-rich products such as GSE, when combined with the potential hypolipidaemic and anti-platelet effects make a strong case for its potential in preventing and treating diseases associated with endothelial injury, oxidative damage and inflammation; chief among which are type 2 DM and atherosclerotic vascular disease ... the use of GSE in such patients may demonstrate concomitant improvements in insulin resistance, endothelial function, inflammation in high-risk patient groups and ultimately cardiovascular outcome" - See iHerb or Vitacost grape seed extracts.

Excess Mortality Seen Among Prostate Cancer Patients on Long Term Androgen Deprivation Therapy - Doctor's Guide, 11/9/06 - "More than 6 months' treatment with these androgen deprivation drugs appears to double the risk of mortality in these patients"

20-year Study Finds No Association Between Low-carb Diets And Risk Of Coronary Heart Disease - Science Daily, 11/9/06 - "In the first study to look at the long-term effects of low-carbohydrate diets, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) found no evidence of an association between low-carb diets and an increased risk of CHD in women. Their findings did suggest, however, an association between low-carb diets high in vegetable sources of fat and protein and a low risk of CHD"

Systolic Blood Pressure Predicts Mortality In Heart Failure Patients - Science Daily, 11/9/06 - "heart failure patients with higher systolic blood pressures had substantially lower death rates compared to patients with lower systolic pressures, and that lower systolic pressures may indicate more advanced disease and a poorer prognosis"

Thiazolidinediones, Insulin Resistance And Obesity - Medscape, 11/8/06 - "Several studies indicate, rather than a neutral effect, a significant reduction in visceral adipose tissue with TZD therapy.[72-75] In patients taking metformin, however, there is conflicting evidence, with some studies showing no significant change in visceral fat mass[73] and others showing significant decreases with metformin treatment (Figure 5).[74] Rosiglitazone (but not metformin) is also associated with decreases in hepatic fat, as shown by reductions in the liver:spleen attenuation ratio, and, while both agents reduced plasma FFA, the decrease was only statistically significant in the rosiglitazone group"

Carbs may be worse for heart than fatty foods - MSNBC, 11/8/06 - "The study of thousands of women over two decades found that those who got lots of their carbohydrates from refined sugars and highly processed foods nearly doubled their risk of heart disease ... At the same time, those who ate a low-carb diet but got more of their protein and fat from vegetables rather than animal sources cut their heart disease risk by 30 percent on average"

Calcium again linked to lower colorectal cancer risk - Nutra USA, 11/8/06 - "the relative risk of colorectal cancer for the highest calcium intake group was 40 per cent lower compared to the lowest intake group"

Pancreatic cancer tied to fizzy drinks and sugar - MSNBC, 11/8/06 - "The group of people who said they drank fizzy or syrup-based drinks twice a day or more ran a 90 percent higher risk of getting cancer of the pancreas than those who never drank them"

T3 Supplementation Raises Patients' Response to Sertraline - Clinical Psychiatry News, 11/06 - "The sertraline-T3 cohort also was much more likely (odds ratio 2.69) to go into remission by the sixth week of treatment. At that point, 58.5% (31/53) of the T3-augmented patients but only 38% (19/50) of the placebo group was in remission" - See T3 at International Anti-aging Systems.

Serotonin syndrome has been reported in patients who used both St. John's Wort and an SSRI - Clinical Psychiatry News, 11/06 - "The evidence is strongest for the psychotropic herb St. John's wort, which appears to induce cytochrome P450 (CYP450) enzyme systems, particularly 3A4, leading to substantial reductions in drug substrates, including antivirals and cancer chemotherapy agents"

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

Effect of Testosterone Replacement Therapy on Prostate Tissue in Men With Late-Onset Hypogonadism: A Randomized Controlled Trial - JAMA, 11/15/06 - "These preliminary data suggest that in aging men with late-onset hypogonadism, 6 months of TRT normalizes serum androgen levels but appears to have little effect on prostate tissue androgen levels and cellular functions"

Lack of cholesterol-lowering efficacy of Cuban sugar cane policosanols in hypercholesterolemic persons - Am J Clin Nutr. 2006 Nov;84(5):1003-8 - "2-40 mg Cuban sugar cane policosanol (SCP) mixtures/d ... Present results show no beneficial effects of Cuban SCPs on lipid indicators in hypercholesterolemic persons and question the clinical usefulness of policosanol mixtures as cholesterol-lowering neutraceutical agents"

Predictors of optical density of lutein and zeaxanthin in retinas of older women in the Carotenoids in Age-Related Eye Disease Study, an ancillary study of the Women's Health Initiative - Am J Clin Nutr. 2006 Nov;84(5):1107-22 - "Macular pigment optical density (MPOD) was measured by heterochromatic flicker photometry ... MPOD is directly related to dietary intake of lutein and zeaxanthin but even more strongly to serum concentrations, which may reflect unmeasured physical and medical factors that influence the uptake, distribution, and utilization of lutein and zeaxanthin. Higher abdominal body fat and diabetes are related to lower MPOD"

Plasma Phosphatidylcholine Docosahexaenoic Acid Content and Risk of Dementia and Alzheimer Disease: The Framingham Heart Study - Arch Neurol 2006;63 1545-1550 - "Subjects in the upper quartile of plasma PC DHA levels had a mean DHA intake of 0.18 g/d and a mean fish intake of 3.0 servings per week ... The top quartile of plasma PC DHA level was associated with a significant 47% reduction in the risk of developing all-cause dementia" - See iHerb or Vitacost DHA products.  My favorite is Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.

Onion and garlic use and human cancer - Am J Clin Nutr. 2006 Nov;84(5):1027-32 - "The multivariate ORs for the highest category of onion and garlic intake were, respectively, 0.16 and 0.61 for cancer of the oral cavity and pharynx, 0.12 and 0.43 for esophageal cancer, 0.44 and 0.74 for colorectal cancer, 0.17 and 0.56 for laryngeal cancer, 0.75 and 0.90 for breast cancer, 0.27 and 0.78 for ovarian cancer, 0.29 and 0.81 for prostate cancer, and 0.62 and 0.69 for renal cell cancer" - See iHerb or Vitacost garlic products.

High- but not low-dose folic acid improves endothelial function in coronary artery disease - Eur J Clin Invest. 2006 Dec;36(12):850-9 - "Both 400 microg day(-1) and 5 mg day(-1) FA significantly increased plasma folate and decreased plasma Hcy. The FMD [flow-mediated dilatation, a measure of endothelial function] improved significantly after 6 weeks' treatment of 5 mg day(-1) FA but did not correlate with the reduction in Hcy. There was no change in FMD in either the 400 microg FA or placebo group"

Dose effect of soy supplementation in prostate cancer: A pilot study - Oncol Rep. 2006 Dec;16(6):1221-4 - "With soy supplementation, serum testosterone levels decreased in 9 of 11 patients and estrogen levels decreased in 8 of 10 patients in a dose-dependent manner"

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