Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 1/3/07.  You should consult your doctor if you are taking any medications.

Folic Acid May Slow Hearing Loss - WebMD, 1/2/07 - "Half the study participants got strong folic acid supplements -- 800 micrograms per day, about twice what one would get in a multivitamin pill ... After three years, those who got folic acid pills had less low-frequency hearing loss than did placebo recipients"

Calories Seen Outweighing Sugar as Diabetes Risk - Vital Choices Newsletter, 1/1/07 - "they found no link between consumption of sweetened beverages and the risk of developing diabetes ... men who drank four or more cups of coffee a day cut their risk of developing type-2 diabetes by more than 23 percent ... while a high sugar intake may not by itself cause diabetes, it can certainly be a major contributing factor to weight gain and obesity: factors that clearly do promote diabetes" - Abstracts for the two studies stated in this article:

• Effect of eucaloric high- and low-sucrose diets with identical macronutrient profile on insulin resistance and vascular risk: a randomized controlled trial - Diabetes. 2006 Dec;55(12):3566-72 - "In this study, a high-sucrose intake as part of an eucaloric, weight-maintaining diet had no detrimental effect on insulin sensitivity, glycemic profiles, or measures of vascular compliance in healthy nondiabetic subjects"
• Coffee and sweetened beverage consumption and the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus: the atherosclerosis risk in communities study - Am J Epidemiol. 2006 Dec 1;164(11):1075-84 - "They found an inverse association, after adjusting for potential confounders, between increased coffee consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus in men (for > or =4 cups (> or =0.95 liter)/day compared with almost never: hazard ratio = 0.77, p(trend) = 0.02) with no significant association in women (hazard ratio = 0.89 ... Sweetened beverage consumption (men: hazard ratio = 1.03, p(trend) = 0.94; women: hazard ratio = 1.01, p(trend) = 0.58) showed no consistent association with the incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus"

Nitrates Lower Blood Pressure - WebMD, 12/27/06 - "the nitrates in many vegetables may keep blood vessels healthy and lower blood pressure"

Poor Athletic Performance Linked To Vitamin Deficiency - Science Daily, 12/27/06 - "Current national B-vitamin recommendations for active individuals may be inadequate, and athletes who follow the recommended daily allowances set by the U.S. government may be receiving lower amounts of nutrients than there bodies need"

FDA Approves Radiesse(R) Facial Filler for Two New Aesthetic Indications - Doctor's Guide, 12/27/06 - "Radiesse provides immediate improvement so a patient looks better the moment the product is injected. The calcium microsphere technology also enables the body to generate new collagen, providing longer lasting effects than other available fillers"

Gene Tied To Longevity Also Preserves Ability To Think Clearly - Science Daily, 12/26/06 - "Centenarians were three times likelier to possess CETP VV compared with a control group representative of the general population and also had significantly larger HDL and LDL lipoproteins than people in the control group ... Researchers believe that larger cholesterol particles are less likely to lodge themselves in blood vessels" - Could niacin do the same thing?  See:

• Effects of extended-release niacin on lipoprotein particle size, distribution, and inflammatory markers in patients with coronary artery disease - Am J Cardiol. 2006 Sep 15;98(6):743-5 - "Addition of niacin resulted in a 32% increase in large-particle HDL (p <0.001), an 8% decrease in small-particle HDL (p = 0.0032), an 82% increase in large-particle LDL (p = 0.09), and a 12% decrease in small-particle LDL (p = 0.008)" - See niacin at Amazon.com.

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

Risk of diabetes mellitus associated with atypical antipsychotic use among medicaid patients with bipolar disorder: a nested case-control study - Pharmacotherapy. 2007 Jan;27(1):27-35 - "the risk of diabetes was greatest among patients taking risperidone (hazard ratio [HR] 3.8, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.7-5.3), olanzapine (3.7, 95% CI 2.5-5.3), and quetiapine (2.5, 95% CI 1.4-4.3). The risk for developing diabetes was also associated with weight gain (HR 2.5, 95% CI 1.9-3.4), hypertension (HR 1.6, 95% CI 1.2-2.2), and substance abuse (HR 1.5"

Cortisol Secretion in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: Relationship with chronic complications - Diabetes Care. 2007 Jan;30(1):83-8 - "the degree of cortisol secretion is related to the presence and number of diabetes complications"

Botanical and dietary supplements for mood and anxiety in menopausal women - Menopause. 2006 Dec 28 - "Five of seven trials of St. John's wort for mild to moderate depression showed a significant improvement. The one randomized, controlled trial of ginseng in postmenopausal women reported improvements in mood and anxiety. All three randomized, controlled trials of ginkgo found no effect on depression. In four of eight controlled trials, kava significantly reduced anxiety. Black cohosh significantly reduced depression and anxiety in all studies reviewed"

The association between non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and insulin resistance in 20 obese children and adolescents - Acta Paediatr. 2007 Jan;96(1):109-12 - "The high prevalence of insulin resistance we found in children with NAFLD confirms the suggestion that there may be an association between insulin resistance and NAFLD in obese children"

Affiliates (I could sure use some sales.  You can drag the links onto your desktop and use them so that I get credit for the sale.  Click here for more stores):