Recent Longevity News for the week ending 7/29/15

Insulin resistance increases risk for Alzheimer's disease, study finds - Science Daily, 7/27/15 - "examined brain scans in 150 late middle-aged adults, who were at risk for Alzheimer's disease, but showed no sign of memory loss. The scans detected if people with higher levels of insulin resistance used less blood sugar in areas of the brain most susceptible to Alzheimer's. When that happens, the brain has less energy to relay information and function ... If you don't have as much fuel, you're not going to be as adept at remembering something or doing something ... this is important with Alzheimer's disease, because over the course of the disease there is a progressive decrease in the amount of blood sugar used in certain brain regions. Those regions end up using less and less" - See metformin at The Antiaging Store.

• Diabetes medication reduces dementia risk: Analysis of health insurance data suggests preventive effect - Science Daily, 6/23/15 - "Treatment with pioglitazone showed a remarkable side benefit. It was able to significantly decrease the risk of dementia ... The longer the treatment, the lower the risk ... Risk reduction was most noticeable when the drug was administered for at least two years ... Metformin -- another frequently prescribed antidiabetic drug -- also lowered the risk of developing dementia. However, the effect was lower than that of pioglitazone" - See metformin at The Antiaging Store.  Pioglitazone is harder to find.  I've been taking both in low dose for years for various anti-aging advantages.

DNA damage seen in patients undergoing CT scanning, study finds - Science Daily, 7/22/15 - "A CT scan, which is used for imaging and diagnostic procedures throughout the body, exposes patients to at least 150 times the amount of radiation from a single chest X-ray ... Researchers examined the blood of 67 patients undergoing cardiac CT angiograms ... Results showed an increase in DNA damage and cell death, as well as increased expression of genes involved in cell repair and death ... Although most cells damaged by the scan were repaired, a small percentage of the cells died ... radiation exposure from cardiac CT angiography may cause DNA damage that can lead to mutations if damaged cells are not repaired or eliminated properly ... It is important to note that we did not detect any DNA damage in patients receiving the lowest doses of radiation and who were of average weight and had regular heart rates"

Current dietary protein recommendations need updating, experts say: New research techniques help to uncover the best ways to consume dietary protein to optimize health outcomes - Science Daily, 7/22/15 - "Protein helps people stay full longer, preserve muscle mass, and when combined with adequate physical activity, has the potential to serve as a key nutrient for important health outcomes and benefits ... including a moderate amount of high-quality protein at each meal may offer an effective strategy for optimising muscle protein synthesis and potentially protecting muscle mass ... Protein continues to be the right choice for weight loss management"

Examination of use of diabetes drug pioglitazone and risk of bladder cancer - Science Daily, 7/21/15 - "There was no statistically significant increased risk of bladder cancer associated with pioglitazone use. However, a small increased risk, as previously observed, could not be excluded. The increased prostate and pancreatic cancer risks associated with ever use of pioglitazone merit further investigation to assess whether the observed associations are causal or due to chance, residual confounding, or reverse causality"

M.D. Anderson Is Top Cancer Hospital, Once Again - Medscape, 7/21/15 - See the table with the "top 20" list.

Diabetes drug may protect against Parkinson's disease: A type of drug used to treat diabetes may reduce the risk of developing Parkinson's disease - Science Daily, 7/21/15 - "diabetes patients taking glitazone antidiabetes drugs (either rosiglitazone or pioglitazone) had a 28% lower incidence of Parkinson's disease than people taking other treatments for diabetes who had never taken glitazones ... Glitazones are a class of drug that activate the peroxisome proliferation-activated gamma (PPARγ) receptor, which is found inside cells in many different body organs. PPARγ activation by glitazones leads to reduced insulin resistance, which has been useful for treating people with diabetes, but the receptor has many other functions that have not been studied as thoroughly in humans"

Abstracts from this week:

Relationship Between Prehypertension/Hypertension and Periodontal Disease: A Prospective Cohort Study - Am J Hypertens. 2015 Jul 23 - "In the short-term prospective cohort study, a significant association between presence of periodontal disease and hypertension was observed in Japanese university students"

Iodine Supplementation Decreases Hypercholesterolemia in Iodine-Deficient, Overweight Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial - J Nutr. 2015 Jul 22 - "Our findings suggest that moderate to severe iodine deficiency in overweight women elevates serum TSH and produces a more atherogenic lipid profile and that iodine supplementation in this group reduces the prevalence of hypercholesterolemia. Thus, iodine prophylaxis may reduce cardiovascular disease risk in overweight adults" - See iodine at Amazon.com.

Tea consumption and mortality of all cancers, CVD and all causes: a meta-analysis of eighteen prospective cohort studies - Br J Nutr. 2015 Jul 23 - "The dose-response analysis indicated that one cup per d increment of green tea consumption was associated with 5 % lower risk of CVD mortality and with 4 % lower risk of all-cause mortality. Green tea consumption was significantly inversely associated with CVD and all-cause mortality, whereas black tea consumption was significantly inversely associated with all cancer and all-cause mortality"

Treatment With Metformin Improves Erectile Dysfunction in a Murine Model of Obesity Associated With Insulin Resistance - Urology. 2015 Jul 18 - "Treatment with metformin restored the erectile function in obese mice, through improvement of in vitro endothelial and nitrergic cavernosal relaxations. Therefore, use of metformin may be a good pharmacologic approach to treat insulin resistance-associated erectile dysfunction" - See metformin at The Antiaging Store.

The Antipsychotic Effects of Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Rats - Am J Med Sci. 2015 Jul 21 - "This study shows that omega-3 fatty acids, "similar to antipsychotics," reversed the psychotic like effects, increase of oxidants and decrease of antioxidants that are composed experimentally in rats" - See fish oil supplements at Amazon.com.

Vitamin E has a beneficial effect on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials - Nutrition. 2015 Jul-Aug;31(7-8):923-30 - "According to a random effect model analysis of the five studies, vitamin E significantly reduced aspartate transaminase (AST) by -19.43 U/L, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) by -28.91 U/L, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) by -10.39 U/L, steatosis by -0.54 U/L, inflammation by -0.20 U/L, and hepatocellular ballooning by -0.34 U/L compared with the control group. Vitamin E treatment with NASH adult patients showed obvious reductions in not only AST of -13.91 U/L, ALT by -22.44 U/L, steatosis of -0.67 U/L, inflammation of -0.20 U/L, but also fibrosis of -0.30 U/L compared to the control treatment" - [Nutra USA] - See Jarrow FamilE (contains all eight members of the vitamin E family, includes Tocomin) at Amazon.com.

Eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acid-enriched high fat diet delays the development of fatty liver in mice - Lipids Health Dis. 2015 Jul 22 - "Dietary EPA and DHA counteracted development of HFD-induced fatty liver. The liver transcriptome data implicate that the quality of dietary fat could modulate Ppar-related gene expression that in turn affects hepatic lipid storage and maintenance of metabolic health" - See fish oil supplements at Amazon.com.

Impact of daily supplementation of Spirulina platensis on the immune system of naïve HIV-1 patients in Cameroon: a 12-months single blind, randomized, multicenter trial - Nutr J. 2015 Jul 21 - "The significant increase of CD4 count cells (596.32-614.92 cells count) and significant decrease of viral load levels (74.7 × 103-30.87 × 103 copies/mL) of the patients who received a supplementation of S. platensis was found after 6 months of treatment. Haemoglobin level was also significantly higher in the same group while the fasting blood glucose concentration decreased after 12 months compared to control" - See spirulina at Amazon.com. 

Health Focus (Gallstones):