Recent Longevity News for the week ending 11/4/15

Early contact with dogs linked to lower risk of asthma - Science Daily, 11/2/15 - "children who grew up with dogs had about 15 percent less asthma than children without dogs"

Vitamin D pill a day may improve exercise performance and lower risk of heart disease - Science Daily, 11/1/15 - "Previous studies suggest that vitamin D can block the action of enzyme 11-βHSD1, which is needed to make the "stress hormone" cortisol. High levels of cortisol may raise blood pressure by restricting arteries, narrowing blood vessels and stimulating the kidneys to retain water. As Vitamin D may reduce circulating levels of cortisol, it could theoretically improve exercise performance and lower cardiovascular risk factors ... gave 13 healthy adults matched by age and weight 50μg of vitamin D per day or a placebo over a period of two weeks ... Adults supplementing with vitamin D had lower blood pressure compared to those given a placebo, as well as having lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their urine. A fitness test found that the group taking vitamin D could cycle 6.5km in 20 minutes, compared to just 5km at the start of the experiment. Despite cycling 30% further in the same time, the group taking vitamin D supplements also showed lower signs of physical exertion" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.

• Converting between IU and mg/mcg - 50 mcg = 2000 IU of vitamin D. 
• While on the subject of cortisol, I was ordering a supply of deprenyl a.k.a. selegiline the other day that I've been taking for years for anti-aging and an article said that it also reduced cortisol as an additional benefit.  I researched it and came up with this:
  • Cortisol is higher in parkinsonism and associated with gait deficit - Acta Neurol Scand. 1998 Feb;97(2):77-85 - "Selegiline was associated with a lower cortisol" - See Deprenyl (selegiline) at International Anti-aging Systems.

Telomere Shortening a Cause of Alzheimer's Disease? - Medscape, 10/30/15 - "A new study provides evidence for the first time of a causal relationship between telomere length (TL) and Alzheimer's disease (AD)"

Dairy Consumption and Risk of Frailty in Older Adults: A Prospective Cohort Study - Medscape, 10/29/15 - "Participants consuming seven or more servings per week of low-fat milk and yogurt had lower incidence of frailty (OR = 0.52; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.29–0.90; P for trend = .03) than those consuming less than one serving per week. Specifically, consumers of seven or more servings per week of low-fat milk and yogurt had less risk of slow walking speed (OR = 0.64, 95% CI = 0.44–0.92, P trend = .01) and of weight loss (OR = 0.54, 95% CI = 0.33–0.87, P trend = .02). Consuming seven or more servings per week of whole milk or yogurt (OR = 1.53, 95% CI = 0.90–2.60, P trend = .10) or of cheese (OR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.52–1.61; P trend = .61) was not associated with incident frailty"

Does Exercise Slow the Aging Process? - NY Times, 10/28/15 - "As a cell ages, its telomeres naturally shorten and fray. But the process can be accelerated by obesity, smoking, insomnia, diabetes and other aspects of health and lifestyle ... For every point someone gained from any type of exercise, his or her risks of having unusually short telomeres declined significantly ... That risk declined more substantially if someone exercised more. People who reported two types of exercise were 24 percent less likely to have short telomeres; three types of exercise were 29 percent less likely; and those who had participated in all four types of activities were 59 percent less likely to have very short telomeres"

Restoring testosterone rather than replacing it helps safeguard a man's fertility - Science Daily, 10/27/15 - "One of the basic tenets in medicine is to do no harm. As this study has shown in a randomized, double-blind, double-dummy, placebo-controlled manner, exogenous testosterone therapy with Androgel can clearly decrease sperm production and potentially impact fertility ... This study confirmed that Enclomiphene can maintain spermatogenesis while restoring testosterone levels to normal" - Note:  It just seems like Femara (letrozole) is a better way to go but I'm not a doctor.

Abstracts from this week:

Low circulating vitamin D levels are associated with increased arterial stiffness in prediabetic subjects identified according to HbA1c - Atherosclerosis. 2015 Oct 9;243(2):395-401 - "Subjects with pre-diabetes (HbA1c 5.7-6.4% and NFG/NT) had significantly reduced 25(OH)D levels compared with controls. Reduction of 25(OH)D levels is inversely associated with arterial stiffness independently of classical risk factors and inflammatory markers" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.

Folate, vitamin B6, vitamin B12 and methionine intakes and risk for nasopharyngeal carcinoma in Chinese adults: a matched case-control study - Br J Nutr. 2015 Oct 30:1-8 - "nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) ... A higher dietary folate or vitamin B6 intake was associated with a lower NPC risk after adjusting for potential confounders. The adjusted OR of NPC for quartiles 2-4 (v. 1) were 0.66 (95 % CI 0.48, 0.91), 0.52 (95 % CI 0.37, 0.74) and 0.34 (95 % CI 0.23, 0.50) (P trend<0.001) for folate and 0.72 (95 % CI 0.52, 1.00), 0.55 (95 % CI 0.39, 0.78) and 0.44 (95 % CI 0.30, 0.63) (P trend<0.001) for vitamin B6"

Effects of 6-Month Folic Acid Supplementation on Cognitive Function and Blood Biomarkers in Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Randomized Controlled Trial in China - J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2015 Oct 27 - "oral folic acid (400 µg/day) and (b) those treated via conventional treatment ... Folic acid supplementation improved Full Scale IQ (p = .031; effect size d = 0.168), Digit Span (p = .009; d = 0.176), and Block Design (p = .036; effect size d = 0.146) scores at 6 months in comparison to the control" - See folic acid products at Amazon.com.

The Effects of Rhodiola rosea L. Extract on Anxiety, Stress, Cognition and Other Mood Symptoms - Phytother Res. 2015 Oct 27 - "Rhodiola rosea L (2 × 200 mg dose Vitano®, 1 tablet taken before breakfast and 1tablet before lunch) or a control condition (no treatment) ... Relative to the controls, the experimental group demonstrated a significant reduction in self-reported, anxiety, stress, anger, confusion and depression at 14 days and a significant improvements in total mood" - See Rhodiola rosea at Amazon.com.

Long-Term Effect of Docosahexaenoic Acid Feeding on Lipid Composition and Brain Fatty Acid-Binding Protein Expression in Rats - Nutrients. 2015 Oct 22 - "Arachidonic (AA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) brain accretion is essential for brain development ... DHA supplementation during lactation maintains high DHA levels in the brains of pups even when they are fed a DHA-deficient diet for three weeks after weaning. We show that boosting dietary DHA levels for three weeks after weaning compensates for a maternal DHA-deficient diet during lactation. Finally, our data indicate that brain fatty acid binding protein (FABP7), a marker of neural stem cells, is down-regulated in the brains of six-week pups with a high DHA:AA ratio. We propose that elevated levels of DHA in developing brain accelerate brain maturation relative to DHA-deficient brains" - See Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com. 

Health Focus (Rhodiola rosea):