Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 12/13/06.  You should consult your doctor if you are taking any medications.

Almost Everyone Needs More of the Sunshine Vitamin - US News, 12/18/06 - "A single nutrient that keeps bones strong, wards off diabetes, and protects against tuberculosis, cancer, colds, and the flu ... the rash of new findings suggests to the experts that the guidelines are way too low ... many people suffering symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia actually have a painful softening of the bones that is caused by a D deficiency ... having too little appears to cause the immune system to weaken as well" - See iHerb vitamin D products.

Vitamin K may reverse artery hardening, suggests study - Nutra USA, 12/11/06 - "A high-dose vitamin K supplement reduced calcium precipitates associated with hardening of the arteries by 37 per cent in rats"

Aspirin 'blocks prostate problem' - BBC News, 12/9/06 - "taking NSAIDs was found to prevent or delay enlargement of the prostate"

Pro-vitamin E Shown To Be Active Against Breast Cancer Cells - Science Daily, 12/9/06 - "pro-vitamin E or alpha-tocopheryl succinate can reduce tumour volume in experimental animals with high levels of HER2"

Blood Pressure Drugs Could Help Halt Pancreatic Cancer Spread, Researchers Find - Science Daily, 12/8/06 - "two types of pressure-lowering drugs -- ACE inhibitors and AT1R blockers -- may help reduce the development of tumor-feeding blood vessels, a process called angiogenesis. Such drugs, they say, may become part of a novel strategy to control the growth and spread of cancer ... In the test tube, Ang II significantly enhanced VEGF production in AT1R-positive cells. Captopril and losartan both blocked this effect"

Rimonabant May Reduce Risk for Diabetes Complications - Medscape, 12/7/06 - "At the end of 1 year, patients receiving rimonabant 20 mg had an average weight loss of 5.3 kg, compared with 1.4 kg in the placebo group. Average levels of HbA1C decreased by 0.7 percent in the rimonabant 20-mg group from a baseline level of 7.3%, but increased in the placebo group by 0.1%" - See rimonabant at International Antiaging Systems.

Exercise When Young May Reduce Risk Of Fractures Later In Life - Science Daily, 12/7/06 - "Even though the best time to gain lifetime bone health benefits is while people are young, exercising when people are older is essential to maintain bone mass and balance, as well as maintain aerobic fitness, all of which aid in reducing the risk of low-trauma (osteoporotic) fractures associated with aging"

'Erectile Dysfunction' Drugs Heighten Natural Anti-cancer Activity - Science Daily, 12/7/06 - "Tests at Hopkins on mice with implanted colon and breast tumors showed that tumor size decreased two- and threefold in sildenafil-treated animals, compared to mice that did not get the drug"

Diabetes Drugs Compared - WebMD, 12/6/06 - "Avandia had the lowest treatment failure rate -- 15% -- compared with 21% for Glucophage and 34% for Micronase"

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

How to select the doses of vitamin D in the management of osteoporosis - Osteoporos Int. 2006 Dec 7 - "The dose of vitamin D in the management of osteoporosis should be no less than 700-800 IU per day ... Today, desirable serum 25(OH)D levels of at least 75 nmol/l may only be reached in about one third of US older individuals and even fewer European older individuals" - See iHerb vitamin D products.

Hyperinsulinemia and cognitive decline in a middle-aged cohort - Diabetes Care. 2006 Dec;29(12):2688-93 - "word recall (DWR), digit symbol subtest (DSS), and first letter word fluency (WF) ... hyperinsulinemia based on fasting insulin and HOMA at baseline was associated with significantly lower baseline DWR, DSS, and WF scores and a greater decline over 6 years in DWR and WF ... Insulin resistance is a potentially modifiable midlife risk factor for cognitive decline and dementia"

Hyperhomocysteinemia: a novel risk factor for erectile dysfunction - Metabolism. 2006 Dec;55(12):1564-1568 - "Hyperhomocysteinemia, known to be an important risk factor in endothelial dysfunction, seems to be an important determinant in ED. These data suggest that slightly elevated Hcys levels are significantly related with arterial and probably endothelial dysfunction in patients with ED" - See Homocysteine formulas at iHerb.

• Vitamins Fight Alzheimer's - WebMD, 5/28/02 - "homocysteine levels can be reduced by taking the vitamins B6, B12, and folic acid"
• In Praise of Folic Acid - Time Magazine, 2/25/02 - "the easiest ways to lower homocysteine levels is to get plenty of folic acid "
• Mix B-12 and Folic Acid for Heart Health - WebMD, 1/18/02 - "Folic acid alone reduces the level of a potentially harmful amino acid in the blood, called "homocysteine." ... But adding vitamin B-12 to the mix "is likely to be much more effective in lowering homocysteine concentrations,""
• Alzheimer's Risk Doubles With Elevated Homocysteine - Clinical Psychiatry News, 3/02
• Homocysteine and cognitive function - Medscape, 3/25/05 - "Higher homocysteine levels were associated with worse function across a broad range of cognitive domains, and the magnitude of the associations was large. The data suggest that homocysteine may be a potentially important modifiable cause of cognitive dysfunction"
• 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"
• Metformin Treatment Leads to Increased Homocysteine, Decreased Vitamin B12 and Folate in Type 2 Diabetes Patients - Doctor's Guide, 10/20/03 - "metformin was associated with an increase in serum homocysteine levels (4% [0.2 to 8 µmol L-1]; P=0.039), and decreases in vitamin B12 (-14% [-4.2 to -24 pmol L-1]; P<0.0001) and folate (-7%"
• Biomarker For Age-related Macular Degeneration Found - Science Daily, 1/8/06 - "elevated homocysteine in the blood may be another biomarker for increased risk of AMD"

Effect of treatment with food supplement (containing: selected sea fish cartilage, vitamin C, vitamin E, folic acid, zinc, copper) in women with iron deficiency: double blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial - Minerva Med. 2006 Oct;97(5):385-390 - "in patients with iron deficiency, the use of a food supplement, consisting of nutrients that improve the bioavailability of Fe, leads to a significant improvement in blood iron and blood ferritin levels"

Fenofibrate and pioglitazone improve endothelial function and reduce arterial stiffness in obese glucose tolerant men - Atherosclerosis. 2006 Dec 2 - "Pioglitazone and fenofibrate treatment of obese, glucose tolerant men reduces inflammation, improves markers of endothelial function and reduces arterial stiffness. These results suggest that treatment with PPAR agonists has potential to reduce the incidence of premature cardiovascular disease associated with obesity"

Fasting glucose levels and incident diabetes mellitus in older nondiabetic adults randomized to receive 3 different classes of antihypertensive treatment: a report from the Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT) - Arch Intern Med. 2006 Nov 13;166(20):2191-201 - "Mean FG levels increased during follow-up in all treatment groups. At year 2, those randomized to the chlorthalidone group had the greatest increase (+8.5 mg/dL [0.47 mmol/L] vs +5.5 mg/dL [0.31 mmol/L] for amlodipine and +3.5 mg/dL [0.19 mmol/L] for lisinopril)" - Note:  Chlorthalidone is a thiazide-like diuretic, amlodipine is a calcium channel blocker and lisinopril is an ACE inhibitor.  I don't believe that is true for all ACE inhibitors though.  See:

• Blood Pressure Drugs May Help People Avoid 'Type 2' Disease, but Healthy Habits Still Best - WebMD, 10/16/01 - "people at high risk for developing diabetes who take the drug Altace [ramipril] were 34% less likely to develop diabetes than those who did not get the drug"

Renal and vascular protective effects of telmisartan in patients with essential hypertension - Hypertens Res. 2006 Aug;29(8):567-72 - "telmisartan is more effective at protecting renal function and vascular endothelial function, and at improving arteriosclerosis than the calcium channel blocker in patients with essential hypertension"

Vitamin D status and cancer: new insights - Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2007 Jan;10(1):6-11 - "Sun exposure and indicators of high vitamin D status were found to be associated with improved survival for cutaneous melanoma, Hodgkin's lymphoma, and cancers of the lung, breast, prostate and colon. Therapeutic trials of vitamin D are especially prominent in the treatment of prostate cancer"

The effect of vitamin E on blood pressure in individuals with type 2 diabetes: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial - J Hypertens. 2007 Jan;25(1):227-34 - "Treatment with alpha-tocopherol significantly increased systolic BP [7.0 (5.2, 8.8) mmHg, P < 0.0001], diastolic BP [5.3 (4.0, 6.5) mmHg, P < 0.0001], pulse pressure [1.8 (0.6, 3.0) mmHg, P < 0.005] and heart rate [2.0 (0.6, 3.3) bpm, P < 0.005] versus placebo. Treatment with mixed tocopherols significantly increased systolic BP [6.8 (4.9, 8.6) mmHg, P < 0.0001], diastolic BP [3.6 (2.3, 4.9) mmHg, P < 0.0001], pulse pressure [3.2 (2.0, 4.4) mmHg, P < 0.0001] and heart rate [1.8 (0.5, 3.2) bpm, P < 0.01] versus placebo"

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