Recent Longevity News for the two weeks ending 12/13/17

Canola oil linked to worsened memory and learning ability in Alzheimer's - Science Daily, 12/7/17 - "In that study, they found that Alzheimer mice fed a diet enriched with extra-virgin olive oil had reduced levels of amyloid plaques and phosphorylated tau and experienced memory improvement. For their latest work, they wanted to determine whether canola oil is similarly beneficial for the brain ... Most significantly, mice that had consumed canola oil over a period of six months suffered impairments in working memory ... Examination of brain tissue from the two groups of mice revealed that canola oil-treated animals had greatly reduced levels of amyloid beta 1-40. Amyloid beta 1-40 is the more soluble form of the amyloid beta proteins. It generally is considered to serve a beneficial role in the brain and acts as a buffer for the more harmful insoluble form, amyloid beta 1-42 ... The findings suggest that long-term consumption of canola oil is not beneficial to brain health"

Taurine lends hand to repair cells damaged in multiple sclerosis - Science Daily, 12/8/17 - "taurine helps spark a process called remyelination, which is crucial to repairing the nerve cells damaged in multiple sclerosis" - See taurine at Amazon.com.

Homemade Yogurt Resolves Irritable Bowel Symptoms - Medscape, 12/7/17 - "We had 189 patients in the study, and 169 had remission within 6 months ... And some of the participants had lived with symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome for 9 or 10 years ... Complete remission — defined as the relief of pre-existing irritable bowel syndrome symptoms and one or two normal bowel movements daily — was achieved by 89% of the study participants" - Note:  I've had yogurt made the way indicated in this article many times made by different people.  It's not palatable.   Try the recipe on my yogurt page.

Proton Pump Inhibitors, Nephropathy, and Cardiovascular Disease in Type 2 Diabetes - Medscape, 12/7/17 - "the association between PPI initiation and both worsening nephropathy and increasing 5-year CVD risk has potential clinical implications in type 2 diabetes"

Working memory positively associated with higher physical endurance, better cognitive function - Science Daily, 12/5/17 - "They found that cohesiveness in the working memory brain map was positively associated with higher physical endurance and better cognitive function. Physical traits such as high body mass index, and suboptimal lifestyle choices including binge alcohol drinking and regular smoking, had the opposite association"

Popular blood pressure medicine linked with increased risk of skin cancer - Science Daily, 12/4/17 - "We knew that hydrochlorothiazide made the skin more vulnerable to damage from the sun's UV rays, but what is new and also surprising is that long-term use of this blood pressure medicine leads to such a significant increase in the risk of skin cancer"

Lithium chloride blunts brain damage linked to fetal alcohol syndrome - Science Daily, 12/5/17 - "giving the drug to newborn mice 15 minutes after "binge" alcohol consumption eliminated the hyperactivity and sleep deficits seen when rodents exposed to alcohol became adults. Moreover, the researchers report, lithium chloride-treated mice were much less likely to show the 25 percent drop in memory and cognitive test scores seen in untreated mice given the same amount of alcohol ... Among the study's key findings was that mice given lithium chloride after alcohol consumption and mice that never consumed alcohol had the same duration of undisrupted sleep of about 10 hours per day, while untreated mice given alcohol woke up as many as 50 times per hour. Sleep disturbances in animals and humans have long been linked to cognitive and emotional damage ... the team next plans to investigate if lithium chloride can blunt other forms of neurological damage, such as that resulting from trauma and stroke, both of which can kill large groups of brain cells" - See lithium supplements at Amazon.com.

Trace elements of lithium in drinking water linked to longer life in Alzheimer's patients - Science Daily, 12/5/17 - "We found counties that had above the median level of lithium in tap water (40 micrograms per litre) experienced less increases in Alzheimer's disease mortality over time, whereas counties below that median level had even higher increases in Alzheimer's deaths over time ... The frequency of obesity and Type 2 diabetes also went down when the drinking water contained similar lithium levels ... Previous studies have demonstrated lithium's ability to protect against Alzheimer's disease, obesity and diabetes ... The Brock research comes on the heels of an August study from the University of Copenhagen linking high lithium levels in drinking water to decreases in dementia rates" - See lithium supplements at Amazon.com.

Marijuana use may not aid patients in opioid addiction treatment - Science Daily, 12/4/17 - "frequent marijuana use seems to strengthen the relationship between pain and depression and anxiety, not ease it"

Fish oil component preconditions vision cells to survive future injury or disease - Science Daily, 11/30/17 - "a component of fish oil not only protects cells critical to vision from potentially lethal initial insults, but also from those that occur in the future. The study showed that the omega-3 fatty acid, DHA, and its derivatives "precondition" photoreceptor and retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells to survive" - See docosahexaenoic acid at Amazon.com.

FDA Warns Biotin Can Distort Lab Tests - WebMD, 11/29/17 - "Doctors sometimes prescribe high doses of biotin to treat nerve pain called neuropathy; it is also being studied as a treatment for multiple sclerosis ... The FDA says a patient who was taking high levels of biotin died when a troponin test failed to show he was having a heart attack ... Too much biotin in lab tests for thyroid hormones has led doctors to diagnose Graves’ disease in children and adults ... If I can control what my patients are doing, I tell them to stop biotin for 1 week"

Low vitamin D levels at birth linked to higher autism risk - Science Daily, 11/29/17 - "When the 310 children with ASDs were compared with 1,240 control subjects, the risk of ASDs was significantly increased in each of the three lower quartiles of vitamin D level at birth, when compared with the highest quartile: an increased risk of ASDs by 260 percent in the lowest quartile, 150 percent in the second quartile, and 90 percent in the third quartile"

Preventing psoriasis with vanillia extract - Science Daily, 11/29/17 - "Mice treated with 50- or 100-milligram/kilograms of body weight doses had reduced psoriatic symptoms compared to those receiving smaller or no doses of vanillin. In all mice treated with vanillin, IL-17 and IL-23 protein levels were decreased. The researchers say that vanillin was an effective compound against psoriatic skin inflammation in this animal model"

Abstracts from this week:

The effects of chamomile extract on sleep quality among elderly people: A clinical trial - Complement Ther Med. 2017 Dec;35:109-114 - "The treatment group received chamomile extract capsules (200mg) twice a day for 28 consecutive days ... The use of chamomile extract can significantly improve sleep quality among elderly people. Thus, it can be used as a safe modality for promoting elderly people's sleep" - [Nutra USA] - See chamomile extract at Amazon.com.

The Big Vitamin D Mistake - J Prev Med Public Health. 2017 - "A statistical error in the estimation of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for vitamin D was recently discovered; in a correct analysis of the data used by the Institute of Medicine, it was found that 8895 IU/d was needed for 97.5% of individuals to achieve values ≥50 nmol/L. Another study confirmed that 6201 IU/d was needed to achieve 75 nmol/L and 9122 IU/d was needed to reach 100 nmol/L. The largest meta-analysis ever conducted of studies published between 1966 and 2013 showed that 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels <75 nmol/L may be too low for safety and associated with higher all-cause mortality, demolishing the previously presumed U-shape curve of mortality associated with vitamin D levels. Since all-disease mortality is reduced to 1.0 with serum vitamin D levels ≥100 nmol/L, we call public health authorities to consider designating as the RDA at least three-fourths of the levels proposed by the Endocrine Society Expert Committee as safe upper tolerable daily intake doses. This could lead to a recommendation of 1000 IU for children <1 year on enriched formula and 1500 IU for breastfed children older than 6 months, 3000 IU for children >1 year of age, and around 8000 IU for young adults and thereafter" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.  See vitamin D conversion (ng/nl vs. nmol/l).  Note:  That's not too far off from what I said in my 3/18/15 newsletter:

• http://www.qualitycounts.com/newsletter15/150318.htm - "My blood vitamin D level is 61 ng/ml which is 152 nmol/L. That same blood test claims it should be between 30 and 100 ng/ml (55 to 249 nmol/L). The average of that range is 65 ng/ml (162 nmol/L) so I’m still in the lower half. It took 7,000 IU’s of vitamin D per day for years to get that to 61. I’ve even increased it to 10,000 IU per day to get it in the upper half of normal regardless of what one study claims"

Mortality Associated with Metformin Versus Sulfonylurea Initiation: A Cohort Study of Veterans with Diabetes and Chronic Kidney Disease - J Gen Intern Med. 2017 Nov 27 - "Initiation of metformin versus a sulfonylurea among individuals with type 2 diabetes and CKD was associated with a substantial reduction in mortality, in terms of both relative and absolute risk reduction" - See metformin at the Antiaging Store.

Testosterone and sexual function - Curr Opin Urol. 2017 Nov;27(6):516-518 - "The limited and inconsistent benefits of testosterone therapy for sexual function argue against use of this therapy in aging men, including those with 'low testosterone'"

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of The Effect of Low Vitamin D on Cognition - J Am Geriatr Soc. 2017 Oct;65(10):2161-2168 - "Observational evidence demonstrates low vitamin D is related to poorer cognition; however, interventional studies are yet to show a clear benefit from vitamin D supplementation. From the evidence to date, there is likely a therapeutic age window relevant to the development of disease and therefore vitamin D therapy. Longitudinal lifespan studies are necessary to depict the optimal timing and duration in which repletion of vitamin D may protect against cognitive decline and dementia in aging, to better inform trials and practice towards a successful therapy" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.

Towards natural mimetics of metformin and rapamycin - Aging (Albany NY). 2017 Nov 15 - "The analysis revealed many novel candidate metformin and rapamycin mimetics, including allantoin and ginsenoside (metformin), epigallocatechin gallate and isoliquiritigenin (rapamycin), and withaferin A (both)" - [Nutra USA] - See ginseng at Amazon.com and ashwagandha at Amazon.com.  See metformin at the Antiaging Store.

• Withaferin A - wikipedia.org - "Withaferin A is a steroidal lactone, derived from Acnistus arborescens,[1] Withania somnifera[2] (Indian Winter cherry or Ashwagandha in Sanskrit) and other members of Solanaceae family"
• Isoliquiritigenin - wikipedia.org - "Isoliquiritigenin is a phenolic chemical compound found in licorice"

Bioactive Components in Moringa Oleifera Leaves Protect against Chronic Disease - Antioxidants (Basel). 2017 Nov 16;6(4) - "Moringa Oleifera leaves are the most widely studied and they have shown to be beneficial in several chronic conditions, including hypercholesterolemia, high blood pressure, diabetes, insulin resistance, non-alcoholic liver disease, cancer and overall inflammation. In this review, we present information on the beneficial results that have been reported on the prevention and alleviation of these chronic conditions in various animal models and in cell studies. The existing limited information on human studies and Moringa Oleifera leaves is also presented. Overall, it has been well documented that Moringa Oleifera leaves are a good strategic for various conditions associated with heart disease, diabetes, cancer and fatty liver" - [Nutra USA] - See Moringa Oleifera Leaves at Amazon.com.

Enhanced aerobic exercise performance in women by a combination of three mineral Chelates plus two conditionally essential nutrients - J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2017 Nov 13 - "For 1 mo, aerobically fit, young adult women took either a combination of 3 mineral glycinate complexes (daily dose: 36 mg iron, 15 mg zinc, and 2 mg copper) + 2 CENs (daily dose: 2 g carnitine and 400 mg phosphatidylserine), or the same combination with generic mineral complexes, or placebo (n = 14/group) ... In Trial 1, the mineral glycinates + CENs decreased 3 mile run time (25.6 ± 2.4 vs 26.5 ± 2.3 min, p < 0.05, paired t-test) increased stationary bike distance after 25 min (6.5 ± 0.6 vs 6.0 ± 0.8 miles, p < 0.05, paired t-test), and increased steps in the step test (43.8 ± 4.8 vs 40.3 ± 6.4 steps, p < 0.05, paired t-test). The placebo significantly affected only the biking distance, but it was less than for the glycinates-CENs treatment (0.2 ± 0.4. vs 0.5 ± 0.1 miles, p < 0.05, ANOVA + Tukey). The generic minerals + CENs only significantly affected the step test (44.1 ± 5.2 vs 41.0 ± 5.9 steps, p < 0.05, paired t-test) In Trial 2, 3 mile run time was decreased for the mineral glycinates + CENs (23.9 ± 3.1 vs 24.7 ± 2.5, p < 0.005, paired t-test), but not by the placebo" - [Nutra USA] - See Jarrow Zinc Balance, Bulksupplements Pure L-Carnitine L-Tartrate Powder (500 grams), iron supplements and Extra Strength Phosphatidyl Serine 300 mg Now Foods 50 Softgel at Amazon.com.

Health Focus (Potassium):