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Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 3/30/11. You should consult your doctor if you are taking any medications.
Long-Term Vitamin E Intake Linked to Reduced ALS Risk - Medscape, 3/29/11 -
"For dietary vitamin E
intake, the adjusted RR comparing the highest quartile with the lowest was 0.79"
- See
Jarrow FamilE (contains all eight members of the vitamin E family, includes
Tocomin) at Amazon.com Antioxidant formula prior to radiation exposure may prevent DNA injury, trial suggests - Science Daily, 3/29/11 - "In what the researchers say is the first clinical trial of its kind, as much as a 50 percent reduction in DNA injury was observed after administering the formula prior to CT scans" Thyroid hormone controls the eye‘s visual pigments throughout life - Science Daily, 3/29/11 - "in mature cones of mice and rats the production of visual pigment is regulated by thyroid hormone. It is assumed that this mechanism exists in all mammals, including humans. If so, the adult-onset of thyroid hormone deficiency would affect colour vision ... Studies in mice have shown that thyroid hormone also plays an important role in the development of the eye and particularly the cone visual cells. In the retina of the eye, the cones are the visual cells responsible for colour vision" Put Those Shoes On: Running Won't Kill Your Knees - NPR, 3/28/11 - "We know from many long-term studies that running doesn't appear to cause much damage to the knees ... When we look at people with knee arthritis, we don't find much of a previous history of running, and when we look at runners and follow them over time, we don't find that their risk of developing osteoarthritis is any more than expected ... exercise, including jogging, may even be beneficial ... exercise appears to stimulate cartilage to repair to minor damage. It could be that the impact of body weight when the foot hits the ground increases production of certain proteins in the cartilage that make it stronger, he says" - Note: I run six miles per day three times per week and swim three times per week. I've never had knee problems. Even my doc seems confused that I don't. The most important thing seems to be to replace your running shoes every 500 miles or so (with good ones) or you have heel problems. Alexander Technique: A Balm For Back Pain? - NPR, 3/28/11 - "The people who had 24 lessons had gone down from about 21 days of pain that the usual care group reported to about 3 days in pain ... A summary of the results of a major back pain study published in the British Medical Journal in 2008. The study showed that the Alexander Technique was highly effective in treating back pain" - [Abstract1] [Abstract2] [Abstract3] [YouTube video] Natural aphrodisiacs: 'Spicing' up your love life possible, finds study of ginseng and saffron - Science Daily, 3/28/11 - "Ours is the most thorough scientific review to date. Nothing has been done on this level of detail before now ... They found that panax ginseng, saffron and yohimbine, a natural chemical from yohimbe trees in West Africa, improved human sexual function ... People report increased sexual desire after eating muira puama" Mothers' hard work pays off with big brains for their babies - Science Daily, 3/28/11 - "brain growth in babies is determined by the duration of pregnancy and how long they suckle" Weight loss surgery can significantly improve migraines, study finds - Science Daily, 3/28/11 - "obese patients who had suffered painful and debilitating migraines before bariatric surgery reported improvements in headache frequency, severity and disability just six months after surgery. At that point, most patients had lost an average of 66.4 pounds"
Eskimo
study suggests high consumption of omega-3s in fish-rich diet reduces
obesity-related disease risk - Science Daily, 3/24/11 -
"A study of Yup'ik Eskimos in Alaska, who on average
consume 20 times more omega-3 fats from fish
than people in the lower 48 states, suggests that a high intake of these fats
helps prevent obesity-related chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart
disease ... The fats the researchers were interested in measuring were those
found in salmon, sardines and other fatty fish: docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA,
and eicosapentaenoic acid, or EPA ... in participants with low blood levels of
DHA and EPA, obesity strongly increased both blood triglycerides (a blood lipid
abnormality) and C-reactive protein, or CRP (a measure of overall body
inflammation). Elevated levels of triglycerides and CRP increase the risk of
heart disease and, possibly, diabetes ... While genetic, lifestyle and dietary
factors may account for this difference ... it is reasonable to ask, based on
our findings, whether the lower prevalence of diabetes in this population might
be attributed, at least in part, to their high consumption of omega-3-rich fish"
See
Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com Exposure to chemicals in environment associated with onset of early menopause - Science Daily, 3/23/11 - "In this study of 25,957 women aged 18 to 65 years, researchers ascertained menopausal status of participants and then measured their serum concentration levels of PFCs and estradiol. They found that there was an association between PFC exposure, decreased estradiol and early menopause in women over age 42. There was also an inverse association between PFC levels and estradiol in women of child bearing age but this association was not statistically significant" Pioglitazone Shows Promise for Oral Cancer Prevention - Medscape, 3/23/11 - "In a phase 2 clinical trial, the thiazolidinedione pioglitazone partially or completely eliminated two thirds of leukoplakia lesions, which can sometimes become cancerous ... Pioglitazone (Actos, Takeda Pharmaceuticals) "works pretty well — better than anything we've seen before ...Leukoplakia lesions, which are usually caused by irritation, appear on the tongue or sometimes on the insides of the cheek. About 17% of the lesions become invasive cancer, and no treatment has been shown to reliably prevent this ... The researchers randomly divided these patients so that 22 patients received pioglitazone 45 mg daily for 12 weeks and 22 patients served as a comparison group ...15 of the 22 patients in the pioglitazone group had a clinical and/or histologic response; they did not detect any change in the comparison group ... In the pioglitazone group, the lesions completely disappeared in 3 patients and partially disappeared in 12 patients, the epithelium completely returned to normal in 1 patient, and the dysplasia or hyperplasia reverted from advanced to early, or from early to normal, in 6 patients ... Because it is a diabetes drug, researchers checked the subjects' glucose levels, but they found no change, apparently because pioglitazone only affects glucose in diabetics" - See pioglitazone at OffshoreRx1.com. Statins make radiation more effective at curing prostate cancer, study suggests - Science Daily, 3/23/11 - "the men taking statins were less like to relapse than other patients. At five years, 11 percent of men taking statins saw their cancer return compared to 17 percent of patients not taking the medication. At eight years, 17 percent of men on statins had a relapse compared to 26 percent not taking the drug"
'Knowing
it in your gut' is real - Science Daily, 3/23/11 -
"the "cross-talk" between bacteria in our gut and our brain plays an important
role in the development of
psychiatric illness, intestinal diseases and
probably other health problems as well including obesity ... Using germ-free
mice, Foster's research shows gut bacteria influences how the brain is wired for
learning and memory ... genes linked to learning and memory are altered in
germ-free mice and, in particular, they are altered in one of the key brain
regions for learning and memory -- the hippocampus ... The take-home message is
that gut bacteria influences anxiety-like behavior
through alterations in the way the brain is wired" - See
probiotics at Amazon.com High levels of dietary nitrate might in part explain the vascular benefits of diets rich in leafy greens - Science Daily, 3/23/11 - "Nitric oxide (NO) is an important molecule that helps maintain the contractility and health of vascular smooth muscle cells, and multiple studies have linked vascular pathology to a decreased level of NO ... NO is synthesized from arginine by an enzyme called nitric oxide synthase (NOS) ... after vessel injury in the rat, the NOS pathway is disrupted, but a secondary pathway that generates NO from nitrate is activated. Furthermore, supplementing rats with nitrate before inducing vessel injury markedly limited the extent of the damage, while a diet low in nitrate exacerbated it ... high levels of dietary nitrate might in part explain the vascular benefits of diets rich in leafy greens, but warn that high dose supplementation could lead to the generation of carcinogenic molecules" Physical activity decreases salt's effect on blood pressure, study finds - Science Daily, 3/23/11 - "Investigators compared study participants' blood pressure on two one-week diets, one low in sodium (3,000 mg/day) and the other high in sodium (18,000 mg/day) ... The American Heart Association recommends consuming less than 1,500 mg/day of sodium ... Compared with the sedentary group, the odds of being salt-sensitive, adjusted for age and gender, fell: 10 percent in the next-to-lowest activity group ... 17 percent in the next-to-highest activity group ... 38 percent in the most active group" Drug prevents Type 2 diabetes in majority of high-risk individuals - Science Daily, 3/23/11 - "A pill taken once a day in the morning prevented type 2 diabetes in more than 70 percent of individuals whose obesity, ethnicity and other markers put them at highest risk for the disease ... The team also noted a 31 percent decrease in the rate of thickening of the carotid artery, the major vessel that supplies blood to the brain ... The 72 percent reduction is the largest decrease in the conversion rate of pre-diabetes to diabetes that has ever been demonstrated by any intervention, be it diet, exercise or medication ... pioglitazone, which is marketed as Actos® ... It is the most efficacious method we have studied to date to delay or prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes ... This particular medication does two things -- improves insulin resistance and improves beta cell function, which are the two core defects of diabetes" - Note: Like I've said before, my doc says I'm crazy but I've been taking pioglitazone for anti-aging for some time. See my Insulin and Aging and Telomerase pages. Anyway see pioglitazone at OffshoreRx1.com.
Even mild stress is linked to long-term disability, study finds - Science Daily, 3/23/11 - "Between 2002 and 2007, the authors tracked the health of more than 17,000 working adults up to the age of 64, who had been randomly selected from the population in the Stockholm area ... Higher levels of stress at the start of the study were associated with a significantly greater likelihood of subsequently being awarded long term disability benefits ... But even those with mild stress were up to 70% more likely to receive disability benefits ... One in four of these benefits awarded for a physical illness, such as high blood pressure, angina, and stroke, and almost two thirds awarded for a mental illness, were attributable to stress" Krill oil may aid fat metabolism: Rat study - Nutra USA, 3/23/11 - "Six weeks of supplementation of diets with 2.5 percent krill oil or 2.5 percent fish oil were associated with cholesterol reduction of 33 and 21 percent, respectively, and liver triglyceride level reductions of 20 and 10 percent, respectively ... These data suggest a higher potency of krill oil in decreasing hepatic lipogenesis when compared to fish oil at relatively short periods of dietary treatment (2–3 weeks). Whether this effect is due to a better bioavailability of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in krill oil, or to a different ratio of EPA to DHA in the two oils is currently unknown" - [Abstract] - See krill oil products at iHerb. Load up on fiber now, avoid heart disease later - Science Daily, 3/22/11 - "adults between 20 and 59 years old with the highest fiber intake had a significantly lower estimated lifetime risk for cardiovascular disease compared to those with the lowest fiber intake ... It's long been known that high-fiber diets can help people lose weight, lower cholesterol and improve hypertension ... In adults 60 to 79 years, dietary fiber intake was not significantly associated with a reduction in lifetime risk of cardiovascular disease. It's possible that the beneficial effect of dietary fiber may require a long period of time to achieve, and older adults may have already developed significant risk for heart disease before starting a high-fiber diet" 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):
Prevalence
of Vitamin D Deficiency in Patients With Acute Myocardial Infarction - Am J
Cardiol. 2011 Mar 23 - "Of the 239 enrolled patients,
179 (75%) were 25(OH)D deficient and 50 (21%)
were insufficient, for a total of 96% of patients with abnormally low 25(OH)D
levels" - See
vitamin D at Amazon.com
Serum
25-Hydroxyvitamin D, Calcium Intake, and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes After 5 Years:
Results from a national, population-based prospective study (The Australian
Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study) - Diabetes Care. 2011 Mar 23 -
"Those who developed
diabetes had lower serum
25OHD (mean 58 vs. 65 nmol/L; P < 0.001) and
calcium intake (mean 881 vs. 923 mg/day; P = 0.03) compared with those who
remained free of diabetes. Each 25 nmol/L increment in serum 25OHD was
associated with a 24% reduced risk of diabetes (odds ratio 0.76 [95% CI
0.63-0.92]) after adjusting for age, waist circumference, ethnicity, season,
latitude, smoking, physical activity, family history of diabetes, dietary
magnesium, hypertension, serum triglycerides, and FPG. Dietary calcium intake
was not associated with reduced diabetes risk. Only serum 25OHD was positively
and independently associated with HOMA-S at 5 years. CONCLUSIONS Higher serum
25OHD levels, but not higher dietary calcium, were associated with a
significantly reduced risk of diabetes in Australian adult men and women"
- See
vitamin D at Amazon.com
Interaction
of BMI with vitamin D and insulin sensitivity - Eur J Clin Invest. 2011 Mar
24 - "The correlation of serum
25OHD with ISI was much stronger in the
overweight group (r = 0.5271, P < 0.0001) than in the normal weight group
(r = 0.2836, P = 0.002). The correlation remained significant in the overweight
group (r = 0.3620, P = 0.002), but not in normal weight group after adjusting
for age, gender, BMI, season of study, ethnicity and exercise. Nonlinear
regression analysis revealed that when serum 25OHD concentration was
> 40 ng mL(-1) , the association between serum 25D concentrations and insulin
sensitivity plateaued. Conclusions We observed stronger associations of serum
25OHD with insulin sensitivity in overweight than normal weight subjects,
suggesting that overweight subjects with hypovitaminosis D may benefit more from
vitamin D replacement than normal weight subjects. Furthermore, the optimal
serum 25OHD concentration for insulin sensitivity is about 40 ng mL(-1) . As
more than 60% of the US population is overweight and hypovitaminosis D is highly
prevalent in overweight subjects, hypovitaminosis D has a large population
attributable risk for type 2 diabetes" - See
vitamin D at Amazon.com A krill oil supplemented diet reduces the activities of the mitochondrial tricarboxylate carrier and of the cytosolic lipogenic enzymes in rats - J Anim Physiol Anim Nutr (Berl). 2011 Feb 25 - "The mitochondrial tricarboxylate carrier supplies cytosol with the carbon units necessary for hepatic lipogenesis. The activities of cytosolic acetyl-CoA carboxylase and fatty acid synthetase are therefore strictly connected to the function of mitochondrial tricarboxylate carrier. Dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) are potent modulators of hepatic lipogenesis. In rats fed with a diet enriched with 2.5% krill oil (KO), a novel source of dietary n-3 PUFA, a time-dependent decrease in the activities of the mitochondrial tricarboxylate carrier and of the lipogenic enzymes was found. The KO induced inhibition of hepatic lipogenesis was more pronounced than that found in fish oil (FO)-fed rats, at least at short feeding times. The decrease in the activity of the mitochondrial tricarboxylate carrier caused by KO was due to a reduced expression of the protein. Furthermore, in the KO-fed animals a greater reduction in the levels of hepatic triglycerides and cholesterol was found in comparison to FO-fed rats" - See krill oil products at iHerb. Diet, vegetarianism, and cataract risk - Am J Clin Nutr. 2011 Mar 23 - "There was a strong relation between cataract risk and diet group, with a progressive decrease in risk of cataract in high meat eaters to low meat eaters, fish eaters (participants who ate fish but not meat), vegetarians, and vegans. After multivariable adjustment, incidence rate ratios (95% CIs) for moderate meat eaters (50-99 g meat/d), low meat eaters (<50 g meat/d), fish eaters, vegetarians, and vegans compared with high-meat eaters (≥100 g meat/d) were 0.96 (0.84, 1.11), 0.85 (0.72, 0.99), 0.79 (0.65, 0.97), 0.70 (0.58, 0.84), and 0.60 (0.38, 0.96), respectively (P < 0.001 for heterogeneity). Associations between cataract risk and intakes of selected nutrients and foods generally reflected the strong association with diet group" Egg consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease in the SUN Project - Eur J Clin Nutr. 2011 Mar 23 - "Egg intake was assessed using a 136-item-validated food-frequency questionnaire. Baseline consumption was categorized into no consumption or <1 egg/week, 1 egg/week, 2-4 eggs/week and >4 eggs/week. The presence of cardiovascular risk factors was assessed by questionnaire at baseline, and the incidence of CVD was assessed using biennial assessments. The median follow-up was 6.1 years. Cox regression models were fitted to estimate multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for CVD (myocardial infarction, revascularization procedures or stroke). Outcomes were confirmed by review of medical records.Results:During a median follow-up of 6.1 years, 91 new confirmed cases of CVD were observed. No association was found between egg consumption and the incidence of CVD (HR: 1.10, 95% confidence interval: 0.46-2.63) for the highest versus the lowest category of egg consumption after adjusting for age, sex, total energy intake, adherence to the Mediterranean food pattern and other cardiovascular risk factors" Total Cholesterol and Cancer Risk in a Large Prospective Study in Korea - J Clin Oncol. 2011 Mar 21 - "Compared with levels less than 160 mg/dL, high total cholesterol (≥ 240 mg/dL) was positively associated with prostate cancer (hazard ratio [HR], 1.24; 95% CI, 1.07 to 1.44; P trend = .001) and colon cancer (HR, 1.12; 95% CI, 1.00 to 1.25; P trend = .05) in men and breast cancer in women (HR, 1.17; 95% CI, 1.03 to 1.33; P trend = .03). Higher total cholesterol was associated with a lower incidence of liver cancer (men: HR, 0.42; 95% CI, 0.38 to 0.45; P trend < .001; women: HR, 0.32; 95% CI, 0.27 to 0.39; P trend < .001), stomach cancer (men: HR, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.82 to 0.93; P trend ≤ .001; women: HR, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.77 to 0.97; P trend = .06), and, in men, lung cancer (HR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.82 to 0.96; P trend < .001). Results for liver cancer were slightly attenuated after additional adjustment for liver enzyme levels and hepatitis B surface antigen status (men: HR, 0.60; P trend < .001; women: HR, 0.46; P trend = .003) and exclusion of the first 10 years of follow-up (men: HR, 0.59; P trend < .001; women: HR, 0.44; P trend < .001). Total cholesterol was inversely associated with all-cancer incidence in both men (HR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.81 to 0.86; P trend < .001) and women (HR, 0.91; 95% CI, 0.87 to 0.95; P trend < .001), but these associations were attenuated after excluding incident liver cancers (men: HR, 0.95; P trend < .001; women: HR, 0.98; P trend = .32)" Vitamin D Status in Patients With Stage IV Colorectal Cancer: Findings From Intergroup Trial N9741 - J Clin Oncol. 2011 Mar 21 - "Vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent among patients with stage IV colorectal cancer receiving first-line chemotherapy, particularly in black and female patients"
Docosahexaenoic acid modulates in vitro the inflammation of celiac disease in
intestinal epithelial cells via the inhibition of cPLA(2) - Clin Nutr. 2011
Mar 19 - "arachidonic acid (AA) ...
Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is a long chain
polyunsaturated fatty acid that counteracts many of the proinflammatory effect
of AA ... The exposure of those cells to PT-gl alone resulted in an increased AA
release, cycloxygenase-2 expression, cPLA(2) activity and prostaglandin E(2) and
interleukin-8 release in culture medium, whereas the simultaneous exposure of
the cells to DHA and PT-gl prevented the above-mentioned increases ... These
results suggest that intestinal epithelial cells sustain the
celiac inflammation, releasing AA when stimulated
with gliadin and that DHA inhibits the AA release by these cells" - See
Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com Mitochondrial dysfunction in the liver of type 2 diabetic Goto-Kakizaki rats: improvement by a combination of nutrients - Br J Nutr. 2011 Mar 22:1-8 - "treatment with a combination of four nutrients, i.e. R-α-lipoic acid, acetyl-l-carnitine, nicotinamide and biotin, just as with pioglitazone, significantly improves glucose tolerance, insulin release, plasma NEFA, skeletal muscle mitochondrial biogenesis and oxidative stress in Goto-Kakizaki (GK) rats ... A 3-month treatment with the four nutrients significantly improved most of these abnormalities in GK rats, and the effects of the nutrient combination were greater than those of pioglitazone for most of these indices. These results suggest that dietary supplementation with nutrients that are thought to influence mitochondrial function may be an effective strategy for improving liver dysfunction in GK diabetic rats"
Antidepressant-like Effects of L-theanine in the Forced Swim and Tail Suspension Tests in Mice - Phytother Res. 2011 Mar 21 - "L-theanine (γ-glutamylethylamide), an amino acid component of green tea, has been shown to reduce mental and physical stress, and to improve memory function. In this study, the antidepressant effect of L-theanine was investigated in mice using the forced swim test, tail suspension test, open-field test and reserpine test. L-theanine produced an antidepressant-like effect, since the administration of L-theanine at doses of 1, 4 and 20 mg/kg for 10 successive days significantly reduced the immobility time in both the forced swim test and tail suspension test, compared with the control group, without accompanying changes in ambulation in the open-field test. Moreover, L-theanine significantly antagonized reserpine-induced ptosis and hypothermia. Taken together, these results indicate that L-theanine possessed an antidepressant-like effect in mice, which may be mediated by the central monoaminergic neurotransmitter system" - See Jarrow Formulas, Theanine 200 at iHerb. Health Focus (Mold): Alternative News:
Other News:
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