Recent Longevity News for the week ending 2/10/16

Magnesium and Prediabetes -Medscape, 2/9/16 - "Magnesium intake in clinical studies has been around 400 mg/day, which is the recommended dietary allowance of magnesium for men. For women, 300-310 mg/day is the recommended dietary allowance.[8] Only about 50% of Americans aged 1 year or older receive the recommended amount of dietary magnesium.[9] Thus, it may be reasonable to advise patients who are at risk for diabetes to increase magnesium intake" - See Jarrow Formulas, MagMind at Amazon.com.

Bit of Chocolate in Pregnancy May Help Mom, Baby - WebMD, 2/4/16 - "Pregnant women who nibble just a small piece of chocolate each day may improve the circulatory health of their unborn child ... The tiny treat may also reduce the risk for preeclampsia ... All were instructed to consume 30 grams of chocolate (a little more than one ounce) each day over a 12-week period. That's equivalent to about one small square of chocolate per day ... Half of the women consumed high-flavanol chocolate, while the other half were given low-flavanol chocolate ... simply consuming a small amount of chocolate -- no matter what the flavanol content -- was associated with notable improvements in all blood circulation and velocity measures compared to the general population" - See Ghirardelli Chocolate Intense Dark Squares, Midnight Reverie, 4.12 oz., 86% Cacao (Pack of 4) at Amazon.com.

Long-term marijuana use associated with worse verbal memory in middle age - Science Daily, 2/1/16 - "Past exposure to marijuana was associated with worse verbal memory but does not appear to affect other domains of cognitive function. For every five years of past exposure, lower verbal memory corresponded to an average of 1 of 2 participants remembering one word fewer from a list of 15 words"

Abstracts from this week:

Dietary consumption of advanced glycation end products and risk of metabolic syndrome - Int J Food Sci Nutr. 2016 Feb 5:1-7 - "Subjects in the highest (>10 506 kU/d) compared to the lowest (<6673 kU/d) quartile category of AGEs had higher risk of abdominal obesity (OR: 1.19, 95% CI: 1.01-1.39) and hypertriglyceridemia (OR: 1.26, 95% CI: 1.07-1.49). Therefore, recommendation on restriction of AGEs intake could be a practical approach to prevent metabolic abnormalities"

Dietary total antioxidant capacity is inversely associated with prostate cancer aggressiveness in a population-based study - Nutr Cancer. 2016 Feb 4:1-11 - "total antioxidant capacity (TAC) ... African Americans (AA) ... European Americans (EA) ... In both minimally and fully adjusted logistic regression models, TAC from diet and supplements combined was associated with a reduced odds of high aggressive prostate cancer in all men, AA and EA: odds ratios for highest vs. lowest level (>1500 vs. <500 mg vitamin C equivalent/day): 0.31 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.15, 0.67; P-trend < 0.01], 0.28 (95% CI: 0.08, 0.96; P-trend < 0.001), and 0.36 (95% CI: 0.15, 0.86; P-trend = 0.58), respectively. These associations did not appear to differ between AA and EA. These data suggest that greater intake of antioxidants is associated with less aggressive prostate cancer"

The Colonic Microbiome and Epithelial Transcriptome Are Altered in Rats Fed a High-Protein Diet Compared with a Normal-Protein Diet - J Nutr. 2016 Feb 3 - "A high-protein diet (HPD) can produce hazardous compounds and reduce butyrate-producing bacteria in feces, which may be detrimental to gut health ... Our findings suggest that the HPD altered the colonic microbial community, shifted the metabolic profile, and affected the host response in the colons of rats toward an increased risk of colonic disease"

Association of Seafood Consumption, Brain Mercury Level, and APOE ε4 Status With Brain Neuropathology in Older Adults - JAMA. 2016 Feb 2;315(5):489-497 - "In cross-sectional analyses, moderate seafood consumption was correlated with lesser Alzheimer disease neuropathology. Although seafood consumption was also correlated with higher brain levels of mercury, these levels were not correlated with brain neuropathology"

Combination chemoprevention with grape antioxidants - Mol Nutr Food Res. 2016 Feb 1 - "Antioxidant ingredients present in grape have been extensively investigated for their cancer chemopreventive effects. However, much of the work has been done on individual ingredients, especially focusing on resveratrol and quercetin. Phytochemically, whole grape represents a combination of numerous phytonutrients. Limited research has been done on the possible synergistic/additive/antagonistic interactions among the grape constituents. Among these phytochemical constituents of grapes, resveratrol, quercetin, kaempferol, catechin, epicatechin, and anthocyanins (cyanidin and malvidin) constitute more than 70% of the grape polyphenols ... While a wealth of information is available individually on cancer chemopreventive/anti-proliferative effects of resveratrol and quercetin, limited information is available regarding the other major constituents of grape ... Based on strong rationale emanating from published studies, it seems probable that a combination of multiple grape-ingredients alone or together with other agents could impart 'additive synergism' against cancer" - See grape seed extract at Amazon.com. 

Health Focus (Aromatization/Gynecomastia):