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Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 6/24/09.  You should consult your doctor if you are taking any medications.

Testosterone Therapy Improves Metabolic Syndrome, Liver Steatosis in Hypogonadal Men - Doctor's Guide, 6/22/09 - "After receiving TU for 6 months, their body mass index, waist circumference, and low-density and high-density lipoprotein were improved ... Similarly, their serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels decreased towards the end of the first year of treatment, and then remained stable for the duration of the study ... The mean tryglyceride levels after treatment with TU were 195 mg/dL, down from 312 mg/dL before treatment ... LDL levels decreased after treatment as well, from 164 to 134 mg/dL, whereas HDL levels increased from 36.5 to 54.6 mg/dL"

New Evidence That Vinegar May Be Natural Fat-fighter - Science Daily, 6/22/09 - "Their new study showed that laboratory mice fed a high-fat diet and given acetic acid developed significantly less body fat (up to 10 percent less) than other mice. Importantly, the new research adds evidence to the belief that acetic acid fights fat by turning on genes for fatty acid oxidation enzymes. The genes churn out proteins involved in breaking down fats, thus suppressing body fat accumulation in the body" - See apple cider vinegar at Amazon.com - 4.5 tablets equals about 3 tablespoons by my calculations.  I've been popping 4 of these with meals for years and more and more research keeps backing me up.

Melatonin: The Fountain Of Youth? - Science Daily, 6/22/09 - "Melatonin can slow down the effects of aging. A team at laboratoire Arago in Banyuls sur Mer (CNRS / Université Pierre et Marie Curie) has found that a treatment based on melatonin can delay the first signs of aging in a small mammal ... studied the long-term effects of melatonin on the Greater White-toothed shrew, a small nocturnal insectivorous mammal. Under normal conditions, this animal shows the first signs of aging after reaching 12 months, mainly through the loss of circadian rhythm in its activities. By continuously administering melatonin, starting a little before 12 months, the appearance of these first signs was delayed by at least 3 months, which is a considerable period in relation to the lifespan of this shrew ... Melatonin is now known to play several beneficial roles. These include being an antioxidant, an anti-depressant, and helping to remediate sleep problems" - See melatonin at Amazon.com.

Statins Can Protect Against Alzheimer’s Disease, According To New Study - Science Daily, 6/22/09 - "They clearly demonstrated that treatment with a statin called Lovastatin could prevent the death of nerve cells under these conditions. The statins not only prevented cells from dying but also prevented the loss of memory capacity that normally occurs after such cell death. In a previous study Dolga had showed that these statins stimulate the protective capacity of tumor necrosis factor, which is a key player in the brain’s immune response" - [Abstract] - Note:  Lovastatin (that's the generic name and therefore shouldn't be capitalized) is in red yeast rice.  See red yeast rice at Amazon.com.

Protecting the Brain from Aging? - Dr. Weil, 6/22/09 - "Dr. Khalsa is president and medical director of the Alzheimer's Prevention Foundation International and author of the book "The Better Memory Kit" to be published later this year. He tells me that supplemental acetyl-L-carnitine can increase energy in the mitochondria, the power plants of all cells, and thereby helps generally boost physical and mental energy. He describes acetyl-L-carnitine as a superior antioxidant that promotes the production in cells of glutathione, perhaps our most potent free radical scavenger. If you decide to try it, Dr. Khalsa recommends taking 500 to 1,500 mg per day along with 100 mg of Coenzyme-Q-10"

Most men deficient in key nutrients - MSNBC, 6/19/09 - "studies show that 77 percent of men don't take in enough magnesium, that many of us are deficient in vitamin D, and that the vitamin B12 in our diets may be undermined by a common heartburn medication. And we haven't even mentioned our problems with potassium and iodine" - See magnesium supplements at Amazon.com.

Green Tea May Slow Prostate Cancer Progression - Science Daily, 6/19/09 - "According to results of a study published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, men with prostate cancer who consumed the active compounds in green tea demonstrated a significant reduction in serum markers predictive of prostate cancer progression ... Findings showed a significant reduction in serum levels of HGF, VEGF and PSA after treatment, with some patients demonstrating reductions in levels of greater than 30 percent" - See green tea extract at Amazon.com.

Dramatic Outcomes In Prostate Cancer Study - Science Daily, 6/19/09 - "The patients first received a type of hormone therapy called androgen ablation, which removes testosterone and usually causes some initial reduction in tumor size. Researchers then introduced a single dose of ipilimumab, an antibody, which builds on the anti-tumor action of the hormone and causes a much larger immune response, resulting in massive death of the tumor cells. Both men experienced consistent drops in their prostate specific antigen (PSA) counts over the following weeks until both were deemed eligible for surgery. Then, during surgery, came a greater surprise ... The tumors had shrunk dramatically"

New Supplement May Help Slow Sight Loss In Elderly - Science Daily, 6/19/09 - "As the macula of the eye is very rich in antioxidants the researchers wanted to see if a supplement called CARMA (Caroteneoids and Co-antioxidants in Age-related Maculopathy) containing the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin could help slow down AMD ... The supplement also contained vitamins C,E and Zinc"

Could vinegar be natural fat fighter? - Nutra USA, 6/18/09 - "fed mice a high-fat diet, with 50 per cent of energy coming from fat, and treated the animals with 1.5 per cent vinegar (high-dose group), 0.3 per cent vinegar (low-dose group), or water (control group) ... the researchers noted that that both vinegar groups produced reductions in fat mass of about 10 per cent, with no apparent dose-dependent effect, compared to the control mice ... The results of this study suggest that acetic acid suppresses body fat accumulation by increasing fatty oxidation and thermogenesis in the liver through PPAR-alpha" - [Abstract] - See vinegar supplements at Amazon.com.  Related study:

  • Vinegar as a Sweet Solution? - Science News, 12/18/04 - "2 tablespoons of vinegar before a meal—perhaps, as part of a vinaigrette salad dressing—will dramatically reduce the spike in blood concentrations of insulin and glucose that come after a meal ... vinegar cut their blood-glucose rise in the first hour after a meal by about half ... a 2-pound weight loss, on average, over the 4 weeks in the vinegar group" - Note:  1 Source Natural 500 mg tablet equals 2 tsb of vinegar.  4.5 tablets equals about 3 tablespoons by my calculations.

Antibiotics Take Toll On Beneficial Microbes In Gut - Science Daily, 6/18/09 - "Normally, a set of thousands of different kinds of microbes lives in the gut – a distinctive mix for each person, and thought to be passed on from mother to baby. The microbes, including many different bacteria, aid digestion and nutrition, appear to help maintain a healthy immune system, and keep order when harmful microbes invade ... Mice, which normally develop a diverse set of microbes after being born without one, then were given either cefoperazone, a broad-spectrum cephalosporin antibiotic, or a combination of three antibiotics (amoxicillin, bismuth and metronidazole) ... Both antibiotic treatments caused significant changes in the gut microbial community. However, in the mice given cefoperazone, there was no recovery of normal diversity. In other mice given the amoxicillin-containing combination, the microbiota largely recovered, but not completely ... Probiotics may be part of the solution, but we don’t know that yet" - See probiotics at Amazon.com.

Certain Zinc-based Cold Remedies Linked To Loss Of Sense Of Smell, FDA Says - Science Daily, 6/18/09 - "The FDA has received more than 130 reports of loss of sense of smell associated with the use of these three Zicam products" - Seems like Zicam has been around over ten years and at least 20 million people must have used it by now.  130/20,000,000 = 0.0000065 or one chance in 154,000.  Seems like it could have been due to chance.  People worried about those odds might not want to drive to work.  36,000 people in the U.S. die from the flu each year (360,000 in ten years).  Maybe the reduction in flu severity provided by the Zicam would have been enough to save 130 of them.  Sometimes I think the FDA gets carried away.  We've probably had more problems with peanut allergies so maybe peanuts should be outlawed.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids May Protect Against Progression Of Age-related Macular Degeneration - Science Daily, 6/18/09 - "we observed participants with early stages of AMD in the placebo group benefited from higher intake of DHA, but it appears that the high-dose supplements of the antioxidants and/or the minerals somehow interfered with the benefits of DHA against early AMD progression ... The antioxidant supplements did not seem to interfere with the protective effects of DHA and EPA against progression to advanced stages of AMD. Participants who consumed higher amounts of DHA and EPA appeared to have lower risk of progression to both wet and dry forms of advanced AMD" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com and Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.

Red Yeast Rice May Lower Cholesterol - WebMD, 6/17/09 - "After six months, patients who took the red yeast rice had lowered their LDL cholesterol by an average of 35 mg/dL, compared to 15 mg/dL among the placebo group" - See red yeast rice products at iHerb.

Abstracts from this week's Doctor's Guide Nutrition/Dietetics plus abstracts from my RSS feeds (Click here for the journals, the PubMed ones at the top):

Pretreatment with Lovastatin Prevents N-Methyl-D-Aspartate-Induced Neurodegeneration in the Magnocellular Nucleus Basalis and Behavioral Dysfunction - J Alzheimers Dis. 2009 Mar 6 - "From these studies we conclude that treatment with lovastatin may provide protection against neuronal injury in excitotoxic conditions associated with neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease" - Note:  Lovastatin (that's the generic name and therefore shouldn't be capitalized) is in red yeast rice.  See red yeast rice at Amazon.com.

Comparison of dietary conjugated linoleic acid with safflower oil on body composition in obese postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes mellitus - Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 Jun 17 - "Supplementation with CLA reduced body mass index (BMI) (P = 0.0022) and total adipose mass (P = 0.0187) without altering lean mass. The effect of CLA in lowering BMI was detected during the last 8 wk of each 16-wk diet period. In contrast, SAF had no effect on BMI or total adipose mass but reduced trunk adipose mass (P = 0.0422) and increased lean mass (P = 0.0432). SAF also significantly lowered fasting glucose (P = 0.0343) and increased adiponectin (P = 0.0051). No differences were observed in dietary energy intake, total fat intake, and fat quality in either diet period for either intervention. CONCLUSIONS: Supplementation with CLA and SAF exerted different effects on BMI, total and trunk adipose mass, and lean tissue mass in obese postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes" - See conjugated linoleic acid at Amazon.com.

Inhibition of UVA and UVB radiation-induced lipid oxidation by quercetin - J Agric Food Chem. 2009 Jun 24;57(12):5301-5 - "Quercetin, which absorbs UV radiation at 255 and 365 nm, was determined to be a stronger inhibitor of lipid oxidation induced by UVB (3.7 radicals scavenged per molecule) than by lipid oxidation induced by UVA (1.9 radicals scavenged per molecule). The values for inhibition of UVB-induced lipid oxidation by quercetin are comparable to those when 2,2'-azobis(2-amidinopropane) was used as an oxidizing system (four radicals scavenged per molecule). The protective effect of quercetin appears to be mainly the result of scavenging of UV-generated radical species, although this may be decreased slightly in the UVA as a result of its absorption at 365 nm" - See quercetin at Amazon.com.

Acetic Acid Upregulates the Expression of Genes for Fatty Acid Oxidation Enzymes in Liver To Suppress Body Fat Accumulation - J Agric Food Chem. 2009 May 26 - "acetic acid (AcOH) ... AcOH suppresses accumulation of body fat and liver lipids by upregulation of genes for PPARalpha and fatty-acid-oxidation-related proteins by alpha2 AMPK mediation in the liver" - See vinegar supplements at Amazon.com.

Pioglitazone might prevent the progression of slowly progressive type 1 diabetes - Intern Med. 2009;48(12):1037-9 - "We report a slowly progressive type 1 diabetic patient whose insulin production was preserved for 4 years (SigmaC-peptide from 29.48 ng/mL to 24.58 ng/mL) using pioglitazone despite a high titer of anti-GAD antibody (GADA; 120.7 U/mL). This case suggests that pioglitazone might prevent or delay the loss of insulin secretion and insulin dependency in slowly progressive type 1 diabetic patients" - See pioglitazone at OffshoreRx1.com.

Clinical studies show no effects of soy protein or isoflavones on reproductive hormones in men: results of a meta-analysis - Fertil Steril. 2009 Jun 11 - "No significant effects of soy protein or isoflavone intake on T, SHBG, free T, or FAI were detected regardless of statistical model"

Antidiabetic effects of 11beta-HSD1 inhibition in a mouse model of combined diabetes, dyslipidaemia and atherosclerosis - Diabetes Obes Metab. 2009 Jul;11(7):688-99 - "Importantly, 11beta-HSD1 inhibition leads to improved glucose metabolism and does not result in a worsening of atherosclerotic lesion area, yet retained antidiabetic potential in the face of multiple severe metabolic aberrations. This study reinforces the potential use of 11beta-HSD1 inhibitors in patients with the metabolic syndrome without negatively impacting atherosclerosis" - Note:  I  started that page on 11beta-HSD1 quit some time ago because of its connection with cortisol.  Also it may be a major cause of belly fat.  11beta-HSD1 inhibitors may be the way to go to reduce cortisol.  So far the only thing I'm aware of to reduce cortisol is phosphatidylserine which is claimed to reduce cortisol by 30% but I couldn't find anything on for how long, i.e., 5 minutes, an hour, 24 hours, etc.  Plus phosphatidylserine is very expensive.

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