Recent Longevity News for the week ending 8/19/15

GABA supplementation improves planning for actions, study shows - Science Daily, 8/18/15 - "30 healthy participants received 800 mg of GABA or placebo ... Compared to when participants received the placebo, the ingestion of the amino-acid GABA enhanced planning performance. Colzato: "Even if preliminary, these results show that food supplements that include GABA, and perhaps foods rich in GABA, are a healthy and cheap way to increase our ability to prioritize planned actions. For instance, people driving a car may benefit from additional GABA."" - See GABA at Amazon.com.

Metformin May Also Lower LDL Cholesterol: Study Suggests How - Medscape, 8/13/15 - "It appears that "metformin intake activates AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and consequently suppresses fatty-acid desaturase (FADS) genes, which leads to reduced levels of lipid metabolites and LDL cholesterol," ... Our study suggests that metformin might indeed have an additional beneficial effect with regard to cardiovascular diseases among the [type 2] diabetes patients" - See metformin at The Antiaging Store.

Abstracts from this week:

EFFECT OF METFORMIN ON BREAST DUCTAL CARCINOMA IN SITU PROLIFERATION IN A RANDOMIZED PRE-SURGICAL TRIAL - Cancer Prev Res (Phila). 2015 Aug 14 - "Metformin is associated with lower breast cancer (BCa) risk in epidemiological studies and showed decreased proliferation in HER2-positive BCa in a pre-surgical trial ... We randomly assigned 200 non-diabetic patients diagnosed with invasive BCa in core biopsies to metformin, 1700 mg or placebo once daily for 28 days prior to surgery ... In tissue samples obtained following 4 weeks of study drug, proliferation was lower in HER2-positive DCIS for women randomized to metformin vs. placebo" - See metformin at The Antiaging Store.

Dietary intake of calcium and magnesium and the metabolic syndrome in the National Health and Nutrition Examination (NHANES) 2001-2010 data - Br J Nutr. 2015 Aug 11:1-12 - "Higher dietary intakes of Mg and Ca, individually, have been associated with a decreased risk for the metabolic syndrome (MetSyn) ... We found an inverse association between the highest (>355 mg/d) v. the lowest (<197 mg/d) quartile of Mg and MetSyn (OR 0·70; 95 % CI 0·57, 0·86). Women who met the RDA for both Mg (310-320 mg/d) and Ca (1000-1200 mg/d) had the greatest reduced odds of MetSyn (OR 0·59; 95 % CI 0·45, 0·76). In men, meeting the RDA for Mg (400-420 mg/d) and Ca (1000-1200 mg/d), individually or in combination, was not associated with MetSyn; however, men with intakes in the highest quartile for Mg (≥386 mg/d) and Ca (≥1224 mg/d) had a lower odds of MetSyn (OR 0·74; 95 % CI 0·59, 0·93). Our results suggest that women who meet the RDA for Mg and Ca have a reduced odds of MetSyn but men may require Ca levels higher than the RDA to be protected against MetSyn" - [Nutra USA] - See Jarrow Formulas, MagMind at Amazon.com.  Maybe I'm just a rare case but my blood calcium is always on the high side of normal even though I don't take calcium supplements.

A High Omega-3 Fatty Acid Multinutrient Supplement Benefits Cognition and Mobility in Older Women: A Randomized, Double-blind, Placebo-controlled Pilot Study - J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2015 Aug 11 - "Mobility is a key determinant of frailty in older persons, and a variety of dietary factors, such as the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), are positively associated with decreased frailty and improved mobility and cognition in older persons ... women (60-84 years). Participants received either Efalex Active 50+ (1g DHA, 160mg eicosapentaenoic acid, 240mg Ginkgo biloba, 60mg phosphatidylserine, 20mg d-α tocopherol, 1mg folic acid, and 20 µg vitamin B12 per day; N = 15) or placebo (N = 12) for 6 months ... In this pilot study, multinutrient supplementation improved cognition and mobility in able older females at clinically relevant levels, suggesting a potential role in reducing the decline to frailty" - See Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.

Quercetin mitigates fenitrothion-induced testicular toxicity in rats - Andrologia. 2015 Aug 11 - "Fenitrothion (FNT) is a widely used organophosphorus pesticide in agriculture. Quercetin (QR), a plant-derived flavonoid, has a free radical scavenging property ... FNT administration caused significant decreases in sperm count, motility and hormonal levels, a significant increase in abnormal sperm morphology and a significant down-regulation of steroidogenic and antioxidant genes in the testis. However, QR administration ameliorated FNT-induced toxic effects. Our results concluded that QR effectively mitigated testicular damage induced by FNT in rats" - See quercetin at Amazon.com.

Lycopene reduces cholesterol absorption through the down-regulation of Niemann-Pick C1-like 1 in Caco-2 cells - Mol Nutr Food Res. 2015 Aug 12 - "This study provides the first evidence that lycopene inhibits cholesterol absorption in the intestinal cells and this inhibitory effect of lycopene is mediated, at least in part, by LXRα-NPC1L1 signaling pathway" - See Jarrow Lyco-Sorb (contains Lyco-O-Mato) at Amazon.com.

Proanthocyanidins Prevent High Glucose-Induced Eye Malformation by Restoring Pax6 Expression in Chick Embryo - Nutrients. 2015 Aug 7 - "Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is one of the leading causes of offspring malformations, in which eye malformation is an important disease ... These results indicated proanthocyanidins might be a promising natural agent to prevent high glucose-induced eye malformation by restoring Pax6 expression" - See OPCs+95 at Amazon.com.

The effect of melatonin on sleep and quality of life in patients with advanced breast cancer - Support Care Cancer. 2015 Aug 11 - "Thirty-two patients with metastatic breast cancer, receiving hormonal or trastuzumab therapy, took 5 mg of melatonin at bedtime for 2 months ... Bedtime melatonin was associated with a significant improvement in a marker of objective sleep quality, sleep fragmentation and quantity, subjective sleep, fatigue severity, global quality of life, and social and cognitive functioning scales. Morning clock gene expression was increased following bedtime melatonin intake" - See melatonin at Amazon.com.  I like the peppermint flavored by Source Naturals.

Pioglitazone treatment and cardiovascular event and death in subjects with type 2 diabetes without established cardiovascular disease (JDDM 36) - Diabetes Res Clin Pract. 2015 Jul 16 - "Baseline use of pioglitazone (n=493) did not show a statistically protective effect on the primary endpoint (n=175), although it tended to reduce the risk (adjusted hazard ratio 0.67 [95% CI: 0.43-1.05]). However, pooled logistic regression analysis indicated a significant protective association of pioglitazone with the primary endpoint (0.58 [0.38 to 0.87] and cardiovascular disease (0.54 [0.33-0.88]), independent of concurrent levels of blood glucose, blood pressure, lipids, albuminuria, and renal function. In particular, this protective association was observed in those with diabetic nephropathy regardless of the daily dose of pioglitazone" 

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