Recent Longevity News for the week ending 11/29/17

Three to four cups of coffee a day linked to longer life - Science Daily, 11/22/17 - "Drinking coffee was consistently associated with a lower risk of death from all causes and from heart disease, with the largest reduction in relative risk of death at three cups a day, compared with non-coffee drinkers. Increasing consumption to above three cups a day was not associated with harm, but the beneficial effect was less pronounced ... Coffee was also associated with a lower risk of several cancers, including prostate, endometrial, skin and liver cancer, as well as type 2 diabetes, gallstones and gout. The greatest benefit was seen for liver conditions, such as cirrhosis of the liver ... there seemed to be beneficial associations between coffee consumption and Parkinson's disease, depression and Alzheimer's disease"

• To the K-Cup and beyond: Single serve coffee makers reviewed - CNET Reviews, 9/8/13 - "what really stood out for us was the differences in flavor between each unit, even using the same kind of coffee ... The sturdy Bunn MyCafe MCU is our favorite brewer so far, for its sturdy construction, retro design, and, most importantly because it makes the most flavorful cup of coffee" - See BUNN MCU Single Cup Multi-Use Brewer at Amazon.com.  It takes both pods and coffee grounds which isn't clear until you get toward the end of the full review

Male Triathletes May Be Harming Their Hearts - WebMD, 11/21/17 - "18 percent of the men had evidence of scarring of the heart, known as myocardial fibrosis"

Decongestant revealed as 'highly effective' in starving cancer cells - Science Daily, 11/20/17 - "Patients taking high dosages of NAC saw their levels of the 'transporter' protein fall by more than 80%, drastically reducing the ability of the cancer cells to feed off neighbouring cells" - See n-acetyl cysteine at Amazon.com.

Gut microbes can protect against high blood pressure - Science Daily, 11/15/17 - "a high-salt diet shrinks the population of a certain type of beneficial bacteria. As a result, pro-inflammatory immune cells called Th-17 cells grow in number ... treatment with a probiotic could reverse these effects ... When subjects were given a commercially available probiotic for a week before going on a high-salt diet, their gut lactobacillus levels and blood pressure remained normal" - See probiotic products at Amazon.com.

Gut bacteria are sensitive to salt: Link to autoimmune disease and hypertension - Science Daily, 11/15/17  - "When the animals were given probiotic lactobacilli in addition to the high-salt diet, however, the frequency of TH17 helper cells decreased once again and blood pressure dropped. The probiotics also alleviated the clinical symptoms of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, a disease model for MS"

How to Lower Your Blood Pressure - NYT, 11/15/17 - "Among overweight people, blood pressure can drop by a point for every kilogram (2.2 pounds) of weight lost ... Diets are a more problematic remedy. One, called DASH, has been shown to lower blood pressure by as much as 11 points ... a typical low-salt diet does not alter blood pressure very much ... Aerobic exercise for 90 to 150 minutes a week can lead to a drop of 5 to 8 points in people with high blood pressure. But if patients stop the program, the benefit disappears"

High Thyroid-Hormone Levels Linked to Increased CVD Mortality - Medscape, 11/14/17 - "High and high-normal levels of the thyroid hormone free thyroxine (FT4) were associated with atherosclerotic cardiovascular morbidity and mortality among middle-aged and elderly individuals, independently of cardiovascular risk factors ... increasing FT4 levels were associated with: ... More than twice the odds of having high CAC scores (odds ratio [OR] 2.28 ... An 87% greater risk of suffering an atherosclerosis-related cardiovascular event (hazard ratio [HR] 1.87 ... More than double the risk of atherosclerosis-related cardiovascular death, which increased in a linear manner with higher FT4 levels (HR 2.41, 95% CI 1.68–3.47 per 1 ng/dL) and lower TSH levels (HR 0.92"

Exercise increases brain size, new research finds - Science Daily, 11/13/17 - "Brain health decreases with age, with the average brain shrinking by approximately five per cent per decade after the age of 40 ... while exercise had no effect on total hippocampal volume, it did significantly increase the size of the left region of the hippocampus in humans ... When you exercise you produce a chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which may help to prevent age-related decline by reducing the deterioration of the brain"

Abstracts from this week:

Vitamin E improves testicular damage in streptozocin-induced diabetic rats, via increasing vascular endothelial growth factor and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 - Andrologia. 2017 Nov 21 - "Reduced VEGF and PARP-1 immunostaining were associated with decreased Johnsen score in diabetic rats. Vitamin E administration was protective against oxidative stress-associated damage evidenced by lower MDA levels, improved testicular weight, spermatogenesis and higher immunostaining for VEGF and PARP-1. Testicular VEGF and PARP-1 might therefore be helpful biomarkers for diabetic testicular damage. Administration of vitamin E may have a protective role against diabetes-induced testicular damage" - See vitamin E products at Amazon.com.

The Effects of Coenzyme Q10 Supplementation on Glucose Metabolism, Lipid Profiles, Inflammation, and Oxidative Stress in Patients With Diabetic Nephropathy: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial - J Am Coll Nutr. 2017 Nov 7:1-6 - "Taken together, our study demonstrated that CoQ10 supplementation for 12 weeks among DN patients had favorable effects on glucose metabolism, MDA, and AGEs levels, but unchanged FPG, lipid profiles, and MMP-2 concentrations" - See ubiquinol products at Amazon.com.

Pterostilbene enhances TRAIL-induced apoptosis through the induction of death receptors and downregulation of cell survival proteins in TRAIL-resistance triple negative breast cancer cells - J Agric Food Chem. 2017 Nov 22 - "Tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-induced ligand (TRAIL) is nontoxic to normal cells and preferentially cytotoxic to cancer cells. However, recent data suggest that malignant breast cancer cells tend to be resistant to TRAIL. Pterostilbene (PTER), a natural dimethylated analog of resveratrol, is known to have diverse pharmacologic activities, including anticancer properties ... Overall, our results show that PTER can potentiate TRAIL-induced apoptosis through the ROS and CHOP upregulation leading to DR4, DR5 expression" - See pterostilbene at Amazon.com.

Folic Acid Supplementation for Stroke Prevention in Patients With Cardiovascular Disease - Am J Med Sci. 2017 Oct;354(4):379-387 - "Folic acid supplementation was associated with a significant benefit in reducing the risk of stroke in patients with CVD (RR = 0.90; 95% CI: 0.84-0.97; P = 0.005). In the stratified analysis, greater beneficial effects were observed in participants with a decrease in homocysteine concentrations of 25% or greater (RR = 0.85; 95% CI: 0.74-0.97; P = 0.03), those with a daily folate dose of less than 2mg (RR = 0.78; 95% CI: 0.68-0.89; P = 0.01), and populations in regions with no or partly fortified grain (RR = 0.87; 95% CI: 0.81-0.94; P = 0.04)" - See methylfolate at Amazon.com.

Dietary Iodine Exposure and Brain Structures and Cognition in Older People. Exploratory Analysis in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 - J Nutr Health Aging. 2017;21(9):971-979 -"In this large Scottish older cohort, the proportion of individuals reporting extreme (low vs. high)/medium iodine consumption is small. In these individuals, low iodine-rich food intake was associated with increased brain volume shrinkage, raising an important hypothesis worth being explored for designing appropriate guidelines" - See Lugol's Iodine Solution(2 oz.) Twin Pack(2 bot.) at Amazon.com.

Association Between Metformin Adherence and All-Cause Mortality Among New Users of Metformin: A Nested Case-Control Study - Ann Pharmacother. 2017 Nov 1 - "Analyses revealed decreased mortality risks after long-term adherence to metformin. Specifically, RRs were 0.84 (95% CI = [0.71-0.98]) and 0.69 [0.57-0.85] after 4 to 6 and ≥6 years of adherence to metformin, respectively. Survival benefits of long-term adherence (≥4 years) were also observed across most subgroups and particularly in patients using neither antihypertensive/cardiovascular drugs nor statins (0.57 [0.41-0.77])" - See metformin at the Antiaging Store.

The short-term effect of high versus moderate protein intake on recovery after strength training in resistance-trained individuals - J Int Socty of Sports Nutr Nov 21 2017 - "Fourteen resistance-trained individuals underwent two 10-day isocaloric dietary regimes with a protein content of 1.8 g.kg−1.d−1 (PROMOD) or 2.9 g.kg−1.d−1 (PROHIGH) ... No significant differences were reported between conditions for any of the performance repetition count variables (p > 0.05). However, within PROMOD only, squat performance total repetition count was significantly lower at T3 (19.7 ± 6.8) compared to T1 (23.0 ± 7.5; p = 0.006)" - [Nutra USA] - Note:  Strange that it only improved squat performance.  That said, I have my own protein cocktail consisting of leucine, arginine, citrulline, creatine, hydrolyzed protein and beta-arginine and it makes a big difference in my swim times.  See Athletic Elite 10, GoPro 100% Hi-Protein Whey Protein Powder, Dietary Supplement (Milk Chocolate, 5LB) at Amazon.com. 

Health Focus (Insulin and Aging):