Recent Longevity News for the week ending 3/21/18

Strawberries Number 1 (Again) On the ‘Dirty Dozen’ - Medscape, 4/10/18 - "Strawberries once again top the annual ''Dirty Dozen" list of produce found with the most pesticides"

Sex, Intimacy Improved on Sacubitril/Valsartan in Heart Failure - Medscape, 4/10/18 - "Improvements over 36 months were most pronounced in domains that reflected being able to work, do household chores or recreational activities, climb stairs, and have intimate and sexual relationships."

Physically fit women nearly 90 percent less likely to develop dementia - Science Daily, 3/15/18 - "Women with high physical fitness at middle age were nearly 90 percent less likely to develop dementia decades later, compared to women who were moderately fit ... When the highly fit women did develop dementia, they developed the disease an average of 11 years later than women who were moderately fit, or at age 90 instead of age 79"

Female Babies on Soy Formula Show Estrogenic Effects - Medscape, 3/13/18 - "Exposure to endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs) early in life may affect reproductive development ... In our observational study, when compared to infants who were fed cow’s milk formula, infants who were fed soy formula exclusively since birth demonstrated differences in uterine volume and urogenital epithelial cell characteristics over the first 7 to 9 months of life, consistent with an estrogen response ... These differences were not of clinical concern, and the potential long-term clinical consequences of these changes are unknown ... For mothers who prefer giving formula, AAP does not recommend soy formula for preterm infants, and cites very few indications for use among term infants, including galactosemia, hereditary lactase deficiency, or family preference for a vegetarian diet. Our study provides additional evidence in support of the AAP limited use recommendations"

3-in-1 Pill Shows Promise for High Blood Pressure - WebMD, 3/13/18 - "The pill contains low doses of the three medications -- telmisartan, amlodipine and chlorthalidone ... Among those who took the so-called "triple pill" for six months, 70 percent had achieved their blood pressure targets, compared with 55 percent of those who received their usual care. Usual care meant taking whatever blood pressure medicine their doctor prescribed"

A lifetime of regular exercise slows down aging, study finds - Science Daily, 3/8/18 - "The study showed that loss of muscle mass and strength did not occur in those who exercise regularly. The cyclists also did not increase their body fat or cholesterol levels with age and the men's testosterone levels also remained high, suggesting that they may have avoided most of the male menopause ... More surprisingly, the study also revealed that the benefits of exercise extend beyond muscle as the cyclists also had an immune system that did not seem to have aged either ... An organ called the thymus, which makes immune cells called T cells, starts to shrink from the age of 20 and makes less T cells. In this study, however, the cyclists' thymuses were making as many T cells as those of a young person."

Having children can make women's telomeres seem 11 years older - Science Daily, 3/8/18 - "Their findings were published in Human Reproduction. The authors reported that telomeres among women who had children were the equivalent of 11 years shorter. This was a larger change than has been reported by other research groups for smoking or obesity. Dr. Anna Z. Pollack, lead author of the study, pointed out, "with cross-sectional data, we can't tell if having children is related to shortening of telomeres or merely whether women who have children start out with shorter telomeres." Additional factors to consider include stress and social support, as well as whether similar findings are seen in men."

For Arthritis Pain, Tylenol Works as Well as Opioids - NYT, 3/7/18 - "At the end of 12 months, the opioid group scored an average 3.4 on the function scale, and the nonopioid group 3.3, an insignificant difference. On the pain scale, the nonopioid group did slightly better — 3.5, compared with 4.0 for the opioid group ... Unsurprisingly, there were significantly more medication-related symptoms in the opioid group than in those who took Tylenol or NSAIDs, but there was no difference between the groups in adverse outcomes"

Why the latest shingles vaccine is more than 90 percent effective - Science Daily, 3/7/18 - "Our research shows that the vaccine stimulates your immune system to produce more antibodies and it generates a 24-fold increase in T cells. This is 12 times higher than other less effective shingles vaccines ... The efficacy is approximately 90% for all age groups -- even for those over 70 years of age"

Abstracts from this week:

Positive Association Between Serum 25-Hydroxy-Vitamin D and Liver Enzymes Levels in Healthy Individuals: A Population-Based Study from Iran - Int J Vitam Nutr Res. 2018 Feb 22:1-6 - "According to results, there was a positive association between 25-hydroxy-vitamin D and ALT in individuals without liver diseases" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.

Protein leucine content is a determinant of shorter- and longer-term muscle protein synthetic responses at rest and following resistance exercise in healthy older women: a randomized, controlled trial - Am J Clin Nutr. 2018 Feb 1;107(2):217-226 - "Older women may not be consuming enough protein to maintain muscle mass. Augmentation of protein intake with leucine may enhance the muscle protein synthetic response in older women to aid in maintaining muscle mass ... healthy older women (aged 65-75 y, n = 11/group) consumed a fixed, weight-maintaining diet with protein at 1.0 g · kg-1 · d-1 and were randomly assigned to twice-daily consumption of either 15 g milk protein beverage containing 4.2 g leucine (LEU) or 15 g mixed protein (milk and soy) beverage containing 1.3 g leucine (CON) ... Acute myoPS increased in response to feeding in the rested (CON: 13% ± 4%; LEU: 53% ± 5%) and exercised (CON: 30% ± 4%; LEU: 87% ± 7%) leg in both groups, but the increase was greater in LEU (P < 0.001). Integrated myoPS increased during the supplementation period in both legs (rested: 9% ±1%; exercised: 17% ± 2%; P < 0.001) in LEU, but in the exercised leg only (7% ± 2%; P < 0.001) in CON" - See leucine products at Amazon.com.

Improved Cardiovascular Function in Old Mice after N-Acetyl Cysteine and Glycine Supplemented Diet: Inflammation and Mitochondrial Factors - J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2018 Mar 10 - "Metabolic, inflammatory and functional changes occur in cardiovascular aging which may stem from oxidative stress and be remediable with antioxidants. Glutathione, an intracellular antioxidant, declines with aging, and supplementation with glutathione precursors, N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) and Glycine (Gly), increases tissue glutathione. Thirty month-old mice were fed diets supplemented with NAC or NAC+Gly and, after seven weeks, cardiac function and molecular studies were performed.The NAC+Gly supplementation improved diastolic function, increasing peak early filling velocity, and reducing relaxation time, left atrial volume, and left ventricle end diastolic pressure. By contrast, cardiac function did not improve with NAC alone. Both diet supplementations decreased cardiac levels of inflammatory mediators; only NAC+Gly reduced leukocyte infiltration. Several mitochondrial genes reduced with aging were upregulated in hearts by NAC+Gly diet supplementation. These Krebs cycle and oxidative phosphorylation enzymes, suggesting improved mitochondrial function, and permeabilized cardiac fibers from NAC+Gly fed mice produced ATP from carbohydrate and fatty acid sources, whereas fibers from control old mice were less able to utilize fatty acids" - See glycine products at Amazon.com and n-acetyl cysteine at Amazon.com.

The Effects of Green Tea Extract on Working Memory in Healthy Women - J Nutr Health Aging. 2018;22(3):446-450 - "Subjects received 5.4 g green tea extract (at least 45% epigallocatechin-3-gallate) or placebo (cornstarch) within a 24-hour period ... Green tea extract significantly improved reading span performance in older women, indicated by higher absolute and partial scores of reading span ... Acute supplementation of decaffeinated green tea extract may enhance working memory capacity of women between 50 to 63 years of age" - See green tea extract at Amazon.com.

Oligofructose Provides Laxation for Irregularity Associated with Low Fiber Intake - Nutrients. 2017 Dec 18;9(12) - "The present study is a randomized control trial that included healthy adult participants with ≤3 bowel movements/week and a habitual low dietary fiber intake in a parallel design to evaluate the benefits for laxation by supplementing the daily diet with oligofructose (Orafti® P95; OF), a fermentable source of fiber and established prebiotic (n = 49); maltodextrin was the placebo (n = 48). After a run-in phase, OF was initially provided at 5 g/day, then increased to 10 and 15 g/day with four weeks for each phase. Stool frequency (bowel movements per week) for the OF and maltodextrin (MD) groups were initially similar (3.98 ± 1.49 vs. 4.06 ± 1.48), did not change for the placebo group, but increased for the OF group with the difference significant at 15 g/day (p = 0.023). Stool consistency was similar and remained unchanged at all doses for both groups. Gastrointestinal sensations were low for both groups. Laxation benefits were especially pronounced for participants with >13 g/day habitual dietary fiber intake, with significant laxation at 10 g and 15 g OF/day (p = 0.04 and p = 0.004, respectively)" - [Nutra USA] - See oligofructose at Amazon.com.

Plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D and mortality in patients with suspected stable angina pectoris - J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2018 Jan 9 - "Compared to the first quartile, HRs in the second, third and fourth 25OHD quartiles were 0.64 (0.54, 0.77), 0.56 (0.46, 0.67) and 0.56 (0.46, 0.67) for all-cause mortality and 0.70 (0.53, 0.91), 0.60 (0.45, 0.79) and 0.57 (0.43, 0.75) for cardiovascular mortality, respectively. Threshold analysis demonstrated increased all-cause and CVD mortality in patients with 25OHD concentrations below ~ 42.5 nmol/l. Moreover, analysis suggested increased all-cause mortality at concentrations above 100 nmol/l" - [Nutra USA] - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.

Astaxanthin improves glucose metabolism and reduces blood pressure in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus - Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2018;27(2):341-346 - "Eight milligrams of AST supplementation or a placebo ... The 8-week administration of AST supplementation increased the serum adiponectin concentration and reduced visceral body fat mass (p<0.01), serum triglyceride and very-low-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations, and systolic blood pressure (p<0.05). Furthermore, AST significantly reduced the fructosamine concentration (p<0.05) and marginally reduced the plasma glucose concentration" - [Nutra USA] - See astaxanthin at Amazon.com.

Health Focus (Cataracts):