Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 11/29/06.  You should consult your doctor if you are taking any medications.

iHerb went in-house with their affiliate program.  If you dragged their link onto your desktop to help me out with commissions, please delete the one you have and use this one (iHerb).  I've changed all the links yet all my sales are still via the old affiliate program so it has to be from the desktops and they will go dead on 12/1/06.

Fish Consumption May Be Linked to Reduced Cognitive Decline - Medscape, 11/28/06 - "Compared with participants who rarely or never ate fish, subjects who ate fish once per week had a 10% slower rate of annual cognitive decline. The group who ate fish twice or more per week reduced their rate of cognitive decline by 13% vs the cohort that rarely or never ate fish. These reductions in cognitive decline correlated with saving 3 to 4 years of cognitive decline related to age"

Folic Acid Modestly Protects Against Cardiovascular Events - Medscape, 11/27/06 - "the combined evidence from cohort, genetic, and randomized controlled studies is indeed strong enough to support a modest protective effect of this nutrient"

Zinc Plays Important Role In Brain Circuitry - Science Daily, 11/27/06 - "By engineering a mouse with a mutation affecting a neuronal zinc target ... The resulting mutant mice showed tremors, delayed ability to right themselves when turned over, abnormal gait, altered transmission of visual signals, and an enhanced startle response to sudden noise"

Statin Drugs May Help the Healthy - WebMD, 11/27/06 - "people without heart disease or stroke who took statins had a nearly 30% lower risk of coronary heart event, including heart attack, and 14% lower risk of stroke compared with those who didn't"

Yo-Yo Dieting Ups Men's Gallstone Risk - WebMD, 11/27/06 - "men who repeatedly lose, then regain 20 or more pounds through dieting are up to 76% more likely to develop gallstones later in life than men who maintain a constant weight"

Fastest Osteoporosis Drug: Actonel - WebMD, 11/27/06 - "After a year of treatment, women taking Actonel had 43% fewer hip fractures and 18% fewer non-spine fractures than women taking Fosamax"

Folic acid can cut heart attack risk - Reuters, 11/24/06 - "The evidence is very persuasive that lowering homocysteine with folic acid will lower your risk of heart attack and stroke by about 10-20 percent" - See iHerb or Vitacost folic acid products.

Vitamin E may protect against cancer, heart ills - MSNBC, 11/22/06 - "Men with the highest levels of vitamin E in their blood were 18 percent less likely to die than those with the lowest levels, the researchers found. They also had a 21-percent lower risk of death from cancer, a 19-percent lower risk of dying from heart disease, and a 30-percent lower risk of death from other causes" - See Jarrow FamilE (contains all eight members of the vitamin E family) at iHerb.

More support omega-3 may protect against colorectal cancer - Nutra USA, 11/22/06 - "A diet rich in omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) could reduce the risk of colorectal cancer by 85 per cent"

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

B-vitamins reduce plasma levels of beta amyloid - Neurobiol Aging. 2006 Nov 17 - "Elevated plasma homocysteine (tHcy) is a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD), and thus B vitamins may have a role in the prevention of AD. The objective of this study was to determine if tHcy lowering vitamins decrease the circulating levels of A-beta protein 1-40 (Abeta40). We randomized 299 older men to treatment with 2mg of folate, plus 25mg of B6 and 400mug of B12, or placebo. After 2 years of treatment the mean (S.E.) increase of Abeta40 was 7.0pg/ml (8.4) in the vitamin group (4.9%), and 26.8pg/ml (7.7) (18.5%) in the placebo group. We conclude that B vitamins may decrease the plasma level of Abeta40 and have a role in the prevention of AD"

Dietary intake of B-vitamins in mothers born a child with a congenital heart defect - Eur J Nutr. 2006 Nov 21 - "The CHD risk doubled if vitamin B(12) intake in these mothers reduced by 50%"

Dietary Phytoestrogen Intake Is Associated with Reduced Colorectal Cancer Risk - J Nutr. 2006 Dec;136(12):3046-3053 - "Dietary lignan intake was associated with a significant reduction in colorectal cancer risk [OR (T3 vs. T1) = 0.73; 95% CI: 0.56, 0.94], as was isoflavone intake [OR (T3 vs. T1) = 0.71"

Cortisol-cause and cure for metabolic syndrome? - Diabet Med. 2006 Dec;23(12):1281-8 - "reducing cortisol action may provide a novel therapeutic approach in the metabolic syndrome. There is substantial evidence that circulating cortisol concentrations are higher in people with hypertension and glucose intolerance ... Promising preclinical data suggest that novel 11beta-HSD1 inhibitors will have a role in lowering intracellular cortisol levels as a treatment for the metabolic syndrome"

Reductions in biomarkers of cardiovascular risk in type 2 diabetes with rosiglitazone added to metformin compared with dose escalation of metformin: an EMPIRE trial sub-study - Curr Med Res Opin. 2006 Sep;22(9):1715-23 - "These results suggest that rosiglitazone plus metformin has positive cardiovascular effects against a background of similar glycemic improvements" - See metformin and rosiglitazone at OffshoreRx1.comor SuperSaverMeds.com.  Note:  The reason I include information on thiazolidinediones (Actos (pioglitazone) and Avandia (rosiglitazone) and metformin is because some feel that high insulin is a major cause of aging.  See item 1 on my home page.  I take both rosiglitazone and metformin but check with a doctor before doing that as it may cause hypoglycemia.  I check my glucose with a diabetes monitor.

A fixed-dose combination of pioglitazone and metformin: A promising alternative in metabolic control - Curr Med Res Opin. 2006;22 Suppl 2:S39-48 - "Pioglitazone increases insulin sensitivity, while metformin reduces hepatic gluconeogenesis and improves peripheral glucose uptake. Both agents reduce hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinemia, and appear to protect beta-cell function ... In randomized studies, pioglitazone and metformin administered separately provided significantly better glycemic control than metformin monotherapy or metformin plus gliclazide. Pioglitazone and metformin have complimentary benefits on diabetic dyslipidemia; pioglitazone primarily improves high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglyceride levels (to a greater extent than rosiglitazone does), while metformin mainly improves total cholesterol. Pioglitazone and metformin also modulate other atherosclerosis biomarkers, including inflammatory mediators, coagulation thrombosis components, and carotid intima media thickness. Together, these pleiotropic effects have the potential to confer a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease in patients with type 2 diabetes. Pioglitazone and metformin are well tolerated in combination, with low rates of hypoglycemia, and the convenience of a single tablet may be expected to aid dosing compliance"

Metformin and pioglitazone: Effectively treating insulin resistance - Curr Med Res Opin. 2006;22 Suppl 2:S27-37 - "The different insulin-sensitizing mechanisms of metformin and the thiazolidinediones are manifest in partially distinct effects on hepatic and peripheral glucose homeostasis, and clinical studies show improved glucose control with combination therapy. Both metformin and thiazolidinediones may also have pancreatic beta-cell preserving properties. Furthermore, they have different beneficial effects on several other metabolic risk markers and risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Whereas the thiazolidinediones (particularly pioglitazone) have greater effects on multiple aspects of dyslipidemia, metformin has anorexigenic properties. They also have distinct effects on levels of mediators involved in inflammation and endothelial dysfunction, and outcome studies suggest that either pioglitazone or metformin may reduce the risk of macrovascular events"

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