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Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 6/13/12.  You should consult your doctor if you are taking any medications.

New skin patch treatment kills most common form of skin cancer - Science Daily, 6/11/12 - "There are two main types of skin cancer: melanoma, which forms deep in the cells that produce pigment in skin, and nonmelanoma cancer, such as basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. Basal cell carcinoma is the most common type of skin cancer that affects the surface layer of the skin. Researchers have developed a treatment called a phosphorus-32 (P-32) skin patch, a radiation spot-treatment in the form of a patch that can safely and easily kill skin tumors with a few easy outpatient appointments. This therapy is ideal for patients with skin cancers that are very difficult to operate"

Kill the germs, spare the ears: Encouraging study shows how - Science Daily, 6/11/12 - "a team from Switzerland, England and the University of Michigan show apramycin's high efficacy against bacteria, and low potential for causing hearing loss, through a broad range of tests in animals ... The research aims to overcome a serious limitation of aminoglycoside antibiotics, a class of drugs which includes the widely used kanamycin, gentamicin and amikacin ... While great at stopping bacterial infections, these drugs also cause permanent partial hearing loss in 20 percent of people who take them for a short course, and up to 100 percent of people who take them over months or years ... the drugs produce damaging free radicals inside the hair cells of the inner ear ... The research also lends more evidence to support the use of antioxidants to protect the hearing of patients taking current aminoglycoside antibiotics. Schacht has already led a clinical trial in China that showed a major reduction in hearing loss if aspirin was given at the same time as aminoglycoside antibiotics"

Top risk of stroke for normal-weight adults: Getting under 6 hours of sleep - Science Daily, 6/11/12 - "Habitually sleeping less than six hours a night significantly increases the risk of stroke symptoms among middle-age to older adults who are of normal weight and at low risk for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) ... After adjusting for body-mass index (BMI), they found a strong association with daily sleep periods of less than six hours and a greater incidence of stroke symptoms for middle-age to older adults, even beyond other risk factors"

Breakfast Decreases Type 2 Diabetes Risk - Medscape, 6/9/12 - "an analysis of the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study, which is a longitudinal study of 5115 black and white women between the ages of 18 and 30 years who were initially examined in 1985 through 1986. To date, participants have been reexamined at year 2, year 5, year 7, year 10, year 15, and year 20 (2005 - 2006) ... For each additional day/week of breakfast intake, there was a 5% decrease in risk of developing T2D ... Compared with participants who ate breakfast between 0 and 3 times per week, those who ate breakfast 5 times or more had a 31% reduction in T2D risk (HR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.54 - 0.88). They also gained less weight (0.5 kg/m2 less weight gain; P = .01) ... Those with higher diet quality had lower incidences of T2D, but breakfast frequency was more important, as it predicted T2D risk across diet quality score quartiles"

Mothers' teen cannabinoid exposure may increase response of offspring to opiate drugs - Science Daily, 6/5/12 - "The rats with mothers who had adolescent exposure to WIN-55,212-2 were significantly more likely to opt for the morphine-paired chamber than those with mothers who abstained. The results suggest that these animals had an increased preference for opiate drugs ... We acknowledge that we are using rodent models, which may not fully translate to the human condition. Nevertheless, the results suggest that maternal drug use, even prior to pregnancy, can impact future offspring"

Type 2 diabetes linked to increased blood cancer risk - Science Daily, 6/5/12 - "Patients with type 2 diabetes have a 20 percent increased risk of developing blood cancers, such as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia and myeloma ... the study did not identify a cause for any of these associations"

Air pollution linked to chronic heart disease - Science Daily, 6/5/12 - "Compared to patients who lived in areas with the lowest recorded levels of pollution, those in the most polluted environment were 43 percent more likely to have a second heart attack or suffer congestive heart failure and 46 percent more likely to suffer a stroke. The study also found that patients exposed to air pollution were 35 percent more likely to die in the almost 20 year period following their first heart attack than those who were exposed to lower levels of pollution"

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):

Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages in relation to stroke: a case-control study - Int J Food Sci Nutr. 2012 Jun 14 - "No statistically significant association was found between habitual intakes of SSBs and stroke"

Fish consumption, omega-3 fatty acids and risk of heart failure: A meta-analysis - Clin Nutr. 2012 Jun 6 - "Using random effect model, the pooled relative risk for heart failure comparing the highest to lowest category of fish intake was 0.85 (95% CI; 0.73-0.99), p = 0.04; corresponding value for marine omega-3 fatty acids was 0.86 (0.74-1.00), p = 0.05 ... there was no evidence for publication bias" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com and Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.

Body iron is associated with cognitive executive planning function in college women - Br J Nutr. 2012 Jun 7:1-8 - "The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between body Fe, in the absence of Fe-deficiency anaemia, and neuropsychological function in young college women. Healthy, non-anaemic undergraduate women (n 42) provided a blood sample and completed a standardised cognitive test battery consisting of one manual (Tower of London (TOL), a measure of central executive function) and five computerised (Bakan vigilance task, mental rotation, simple reaction time, immediate word recall and two-finger tapping) tasks. Women's body Fe ranged from - 4.2 to 8.1 mg/kg. General linear model ANOVA revealed a significant effect of body Fe on TOL planning time (P = 0.002). Spearman's correlation coefficients showed a significant inverse relationship between body Fe and TOL planning time for move categories 4 (r - 0.39, P = 0.01) and 5 (r - 0.47, P = 0.002). Performance on the computerised cognitive tasks was not affected by body Fe level. These findings suggest that Fe status in the absence of anaemia is positively associated with central executive function in otherwise healthy college women" - See iron supplements at Amazon.com.

Effect of (R)-α-Lipoic Acid Supplementation on Serum Lipids and Antioxidative Ability in Patients with Age-Related Macular Degeneration - Ann Nutr Metab. 2012 Jun 1;60(4):293-297 - "A total of 62 patients (50-75 years old) with early and intermediate dry form of AMD were randomly assigned to two groups, i.e. LA administration (n = 32) and placebo (n = 30) ... The apparent increase in SOD activity caused by LA supplementation indicates that LA may have a possible preventive effect in the development of AMD through an antioxidant mechanism" - See alpha lipoic acid at Amazon.com.

Relationship between HbA(1c) levels and risk of cardiovascular adverse outcomes and all-cause mortality in overweight and obese cardiovascular high-risk women and men with type 2 diabetes - Diabetologia. 2012 May 26 - "The median HbA(1c) concentration was 7.2% (3.8-15.9%) (55 mmol/l [18-150 mmol/l]) and median diabetes duration was 7 years (0-57 years). For each 1 percentage point HbA(1c) increase, the adjusted HR for the primary endpoint was 1.17 (95% CI 1.11, 1.23); no differential sex effect was observed (p = 0.12 for interaction). In contrast, the risk of all-cause mortality was found to be greater in women than in men: HR 1.22 (1.10, 1.34) vs 1.12 (1.04, 1.20) for each 1 percentage point HbA(1c) increase (p = 0.02 for interaction). There was no evidence of increased risk associated with HbA(1c) ≤6.4% (≤46 mmol/l). Glucose-lowering treatment regimens, diabetes duration or a history of cardiovascular disease did not modify the associations"

The use of pioglitazone and the risk of bladder cancer in people with type 2 diabetes: nested case-control study - BMJ. 2012 May 30;344:e3645 - "Overall, ever use of pioglitazone was associated with an increased rate of bladder cancer (rate ratio 1.83, 95% confidence interval 1.10 to 3.05). The rate increased as a function of duration of use, with the highest rate observed in patients exposed for more than 24 months (1.99, 1.14 to 3.45) and in those with a cumulative dosage greater than 28 000 mg (2.54, 1.05 to 6.14)"

Habitual physical exercise has beneficial effects on telomere length in postmenopausal women - Menopause. 2012 Jun 4 - "Habitual physical exercise was defined as combined aerobic and resistance exercise performed for at least 60 minutes per session more than three times a week for more than 12 months ... The mean age of all participants was 58.11 +/- 6.84 years, and participants in the habitual exercise group had been exercising more than three times per week for an average of 19.23 +/- 5.15 months. Serum triglyceride levels (P = 0.01), fasting insulin concentrations (P < 0.01), and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (P < 0.01) were significantly lower and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels (P < 0.01), circulating adiponectin (P < 0.01), mitochondrial DNA copy number (P < 0.01), and telomere length (P < 0.01) were significantly higher in the habitual exercise group than in the sedentary group. In a stepwise multiple regression analysis, habitual exercise (β = 0.522, P < 0.01) and adiponectin levels (β = 0.139, P = 0.03) were the independent factors associated with the telomere length of PBMCs in postmenopausal women"

Zyflamend, a Combination of Herbal Extracts, Attenuates Tumor Growth in Murine Xenograft Models of Prostate Cancer - Nutr Cancer. 2012 Jun 4 - "Prostate cancer (PrC) is the second deadliest cancer of males in the United States Hormone deprivation therapy (HDT), a common therapy for advanced forms of the disease, results in tumor regression; unfortunately, tumors inevitably become castrate-resistant ... Zyflamend® is a combination of extracts from multiple herbs, each with reported anticancer properties. Zyflamend can inhibit growth of various PrC cell lines, but no studies have investigated its potential use in vivo using a model of castrate-resistant PrC. In this study, oral doses of Zyflamend at human equivalent doses inhibited androgen-dependent and castrate-resistant tumor growth in a mouse model that mimics advanced stages of the disease, and reduced the expression of a number of biomarkers linked to PrC progression including pAKT, prostate specific antigen, histone deacetylases, and androgen receptor. In summary, this is the first article to report that Zyflamend, when provided at human equivalent doses, can potentiate the effects of hormone deprivation on tumor regression and growth inhibition of androgen-dependent and castrate-resistant PrC tumors in vivo" - See Zyflamend at Amazon.com.

Health Focus (Silica):

Specific Recommendations:

News & Research:

  • Beer is a rich source of silicon and may help prevent osteoporosis - Science Daily, 2/8/10 - "Silicon is present in beer in the soluble form of orthosilicic acid (OSA), which yields 50% bioavailability, making beer a major contributor to silicon intake in the Western diet. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), dietary silicon (Si), as soluble OSA, may be important for the growth and development of bone and connective tissue, and beer appears to be a major contributor to Si intake. Based on these findings, some studies suggest moderate beer consumption may help fight osteoporosis, a disease of the skeletal system characterized by low bone mass and deterioration of bone tissue" - See Jarrow BioSil at Amazon.com (it says "Reduces Fine Lines and Wrinkles by 19%").  I put ten drops of it in my coffee every morning.
  • Moderate beer intake may cut Alzheimer's risk: study - Nutra USA, 12/17/07 - "After three months the researchers report that animals receiving the supplementary silicon, whether from beer or the silicic acid, had significantly lower blood aluminium levels, and higher faecal excretion of aluminium ... The lower blood levels resulted in slower accumulation of aluminium in the tissue, including the brain, which could have benefits for the prevention of Alzheimer's"
  • Silicon may boost calcium/vitamin D bone benefits - Nutra USA, 11/23/05 - "Jarrow Formulas ... The effect was particularly pronounced in the PINP, the most sensitive bone formation marker. In the groups receiving six and 12mg of silicon, the improvements were “significant""
  • Silicon May Play Important Role in Bone Health - Doctor's Guide, 9/27/05 - "Silicon, taken as choline-stabilized orthosilicic acid (ch-OSA) supplementation, might help improve bone health and type I collagen synthesis ... the benefits were especially apparent when evaluating changes in PINP, the most sensitive bone formation marker, and resulted in significant improvements after 12 months amongst the subjects in the six and 12 mg silicon groups"
  • Silica for Bone Strength? - Dr. Weil, 9/16/04
  • Antiaging Products for Skin, Hair and Nails - Nutrition Science News, 10/00 - "stabilized orthosilic acid is the only form of supplemental silicon that has been shown conclusively to be bioavailable for humans" - BioSil is the only product that I know of that has this form of silica - Ben

Abstracts: