Recent Longevity News for the week ending 5/16/18

7 Mistakes That Boost Your Blood Pressure Reading - WebMD, 5/11/18 - "Having a full bladder can add 10 to 15 points to a blood pressure reading. Always try to use the bathroom before getting a reading ... Poor support for your feet or back while seated can raise your blood pressure reading by 6 to 10 points. You should sit in a chair with your back supported and feet flat on the floor or a footstool ... Crossing your legs can add 2 to 8 points to your reading ... If your arm hangs by your side or you must hold it up while getting a reading, your blood pressure numbers may be 10 points higher than the actual figure. Your arm should be on a chair or counter so that the blood pressure cuff is level with your heart ... Having the cuff placed over clothing can add 5 to 50 points to your reading. The cuff should be on a bare arm ... A too-small cuff can add 2 to 10 points to a reading ... Talking can add 10 points to your reading. Remain still and silent while your blood pressure is taken"

Heart disease severity may depend on nitric oxide levels - Science Daily, 5/14/18 - "GPCRs, short for G protein-coupled receptors. The receptors sit on cell surfaces and are targets for nearly one-third of FDA-approved medications ... "The mice had classic features of heart failure," Stamler said. "Without nitric oxide signaling, they could not increase heart rate or pump function." The researchers confirmed their findings in human tissue samples, collected from hearts involved in transplants. In nearly two-thirds of failing heart samples, the researchers found that nitric oxide determined signaling balance to the arrestin pathway. Many hearts showed evidence of nitric oxide deficiency (arrestin activation) ... The results suggest heart failure severity could vary based on nitric oxide levels in the body. Low levels could cause GPCRs to primarily activate the arrestin side of their signaling pathways -- leaving out the other half that helps the heart respond to stressors. "Without nitric oxide, heart rate and contractility can't increase, and thus hearts fail," Stamler said." - See my nitric oxide page for ways to increase it.

Taurine deficiency in sperm causes male infertility - Science Daily, 5/11/18 - "The researchers keyed in on one telling clue, an unusual "kink" in the tail of the sperm. Sperm cells in CDO-deficient mice were nearly twice as likely to have a wrongly-angled tail when placed in an environment like that of a uterus. Strikingly, the defect disappeared when the sperm were supplied with extra taurine. These observations led the authors to conclude that, by controlling osmosis, taurine helped to maintain the right shape of sperm during fertilization" - See taurine at Amazon.com.

Vitamin D Supplementation May Help Ease Depression - Medscape, 5/10/18 - "An 8-week study published in 2013 found that daily supplementation with 1500 IU vitamin D3 plus 20 mg fluoxetine was superior to fluoxetine alone in controlling depressive symptoms in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) ... A 3-month study found that two single intramuscular injections of 150,000 or 300,000 IU vitamin D improved depression ratings in depressed adults with vitamin D deficiency ... An 8-week study found that weekly supplementation with 50,000 IU oral vitamin D improved depression scores in patients with MDD ... A 52-week study found that weekly supplementation with 50,000 IU vitamin D3 did not significantly lower depressive symptoms in depressed dialysis patients" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.

Oral Antibiotics May Increase Risk for Kidney Stones - Medscape, 3/10/18 - "Looking at 12 classes of antibiotics, the investigators found an association between nephrolithiasis risk and five types taken 3 to 12 months before the index kidney stone date. The excess relative risk ranged from 27% for broad-spectrum penicillins to 133% for sulfa drugs"

Probiotics Effective for Primary Prevention of C. Diff - Medscape, 5/7/18 - "Probiotic prophylaxis reduced the odds of CDI by 63% in unadjusted analyses" - See probiotic products at Amazon.com.

It’s Time for a New Discussion of Marijuana’s Risks - NYT, 5/7/18 - "Cancer ... Heart disease ... Lung function ... Impaired driving ... Pregnancy effects ... Memory and concentration ... Mental health ... Secondhand smoke" - Like I've been saying, for every condition that it MIGHT help it gives you 20 other problems.  So one step forward and 20 steps back.  A doctor on the news this morning (Fox5, San Diego, 5/15/18) said pot causes "neurological damage that's permanent".

• Cannabis use up among parents with children in the home - Science Daily, 5/14/18 - Who couldn't see things like this coming?
• Most Dispensaries Recommend Marijuana for Morning Sickness - Medscape, 5/14/18 - All about the money.  They couldn't care less about the offspring's health:
• Prenatal marijuana use can affect infant size, behavior, study finds - Science Daily, 5/10/18 - "Eiden found that infants who had been exposed to both tobacco and marijuana, especially into the third trimester, were smaller in length, weight and head size, and were more likely to be born earlier, compared to babies who were not exposed to anything. They also were more likely to be smaller in length and weight compared to babies exposed only to tobacco in the third trimester. The results were stronger for boys compared to girls ... "We also found that lower birth weight and size predicted a baby's behavior in later infancy," Eiden says. "Babies who were smaller were reported by their mothers to be more irritable, more easily frustrated and had greater difficulty calming themselves when frustrated. Thus, there was an indirect association between co-exposure to tobacco and marijuana and infant behavior via poor growth at delivery.""

Eggs not linked to cardiovascular risk, despite conflicting advice - Science Daily, 5/7/18 - "participants aimed to maintain their weight while embarking on a high-egg (12 eggs per week) or low-egg (less than two eggs per week) diet, with no difference in cardiovascular risk markers identified at the end of three months"

Hydrochlorothiazide and Skin Cancer: Raise the Red Flag - Medscape, 5/4/18 - "The antihypertensive drug hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) is a potent photosensitizer, associated with phototoxic and photoallergic skin reactions as well as drug-induced lupus.[4] HCTZ has also been shown to enhance UVA-induced DNA damage in an experimental model[5] and to increase the incidence of SCC of the lip up to sevenfold in a recent Danish case-control study"

Gut microbiome plays an important role in atherosclerosis - Science Daily, 5/2/18 - "patients with unexplained atherosclerosis had significantly higher blood levels of these toxic metabolites that are produced by the intestinal bacteria ... "The finding, and studies we have performed since, present us with an opportunity to use probiotics to counter these compounds in the gut and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease," said Gregor Reid, PhD, professor at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry, scientist at Lawson" - See probiotic products at Amazon.com.

Saunas May Reduce Stroke Risk - NYT, 5/2/18 - "After adjusting for other variables, they found that compared with people who took saunas once a week, those who took them two to three times weekly were 12 percent less likely to have a stroke. People who took saunas four to seven times a week reduced their risk for stroke by 62 percent" - See JNH Lifestyle saunas at Amazon.com.

Substance in Chinese medicine can cause cardiac arrhythmia - Science Daily, 5/2/18 - "A medicinal plant frequently used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) -- Evodia rutaecarpa -- contains substances that can cause cardiac arrhythmia ... investigated the effect of Evodia extracts in collaboration with pharmacologists and toxicologists from the University of Vienna. The natural substances dehydroevodiamine (DHE) and hortiamine isolated from the plant in Basel proved to be very potent inhibitors of potassium channels in the heart muscle. If these channels are blocked, the excitation processes in the heart muscle change, which can trigger severe heart rhythm disturbances -- so-called Torsade de pointes (TdP) -- and ventricular fibrillation and lead to sudden cardiac death" - But if you search Amazon for Evodia extracts, it doesn't look like a popular product.

Brain's window for language learning open until adulthood - Science Daily, 5/1/18 - "the window for language learning is open approximately a decade longer than previously thought -- until the age of 17.4 years of age"

Abstracts from this week:

Robuvit®: improvement of fatigue in medical convalescence - J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2018 May;58(5):678-683 - "Weakness and heart rate were significantly reduced with Robuvit® in comparison with the controls (P<0.05) at 10 days and at 3 weeks; Attention and sleep patterns improved significantly at 3 weeks with Robuvit® (P<0.05) in comparison to controls. Recovery after efforts was normalized at 10 days in the supplement group, significantly better versus controls (P<0.05). O2 saturation increased significantly with Robuvit® at 10 days in comparison to controls (P<0.05). The alterations in working/concentration capacity were better improved with the supplement (P<0.05). Oxidative stress was significantly decreased (P<0.05) in comparison to controls. The improvement of health according to the Karrnofsky Scale was significantly more pronounced in the Robuvit® group (P<0.05). The supplement was well tolerated" - See Robuvit® at Amazon.com.

Creatine monohydrate supplementation during eight weeks of progressive resistance training increases strength in as little as two weeks without reducing markers of muscle damage - J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2018 May 2 - "Cr increased muscular strength in as little as two weeks during a resistance training program; however, this was not accompanied by decreased muscle damage. Greater muscle damage with Cr may be due to a greater training intensity enabled by Cr supplementation. This might lead to greater protein turnover and enhanced muscle adaptation" -See creatine at Amazon.com.

Association of 25-hydroxyvitamin D with liver cancer incidence and chronic liver disease mortality in Finnish male smokers of the ATBC study - Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2018 May 2 - "Our results suggest a possible preventive role for vitamin D against liver cancer and CLD, although the importance of the liver for vitamin D metabolism and the lack of information about underlying liver disease makes reverse causality a concern" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.

Metformin and risk of developing nasopharyngeal cancer in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus - Metabolism. 2018 May 2 - "Metformin use is associated with a significantly lower risk of NPC" - See metformin at the Antiaging Store.

The influence of resting blood pressure on muscle strength in healthy adults - Blood Press Monit. 2018 May 5 - "Contrary to our hypothesis, adults with high BP displayed greater muscle strength than adults with normal BP. Reasons for our findings are unclear, but may be because of shifts in muscle fiber type from type I to type IIb/x and oxidative to glycolytic metabolism; alterations may result in a more strength-adapted phenotype among adults with high BP such as we observed"

Aged garlic extract supplementation modifies inflammation and immunity of adults with obesity: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial - Clin Nutr ESPEN. 2018 Apr;24:148-155 - "At the end of study, serum IL-6 (p = 0.04) and TNF-α (p = 0.05) of participants consuming AGE were significantly lower than those consuming the placebo capsules. PBMC flow cytometry results showed that participants from the AGE group had a higher proportion of γδ-T cells (p = 0.03) and a lower proportion of NKT cells (p = 0.02) in the total population of lymphocytes. There was no difference in percentage of NK cells between the two groups. A significant difference in blood LDL concentration was also observed" - [Nutra USA] - See aged garlic at Amazon.com.

Effect of probiotic and prebiotic vs placebo on psychological outcomes in patients with major depressive disorder: A randomized clinical trial - Clin Nutr. 2018 Apr 24 - "Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) ... major depressive disorder (MDD) ... From baseline to 8 weeks, probiotic supplementation resulted in a significant decrease in BDI score (17.39-9.1) compared to the placebo (18.18-15.55) and prebiotic (19.72-14.14) supplementation" - See See probiotic products at Amazon.com.

Changes of Blood Pressure and Hemodynamic Parameters after Oral Magnesium Supplementation in Patients with Essential Hypertension-An Intervention Study - Nutrients. 2018 May 8;10(5) - "The participants were asked to consume (daily at home) 300 mg of oral magnesium-oxide supplementation product for one month and to have their blood pressure and hemodynamic parameters (thoracic fluid content, stroke volume, stroke index, cardiac output, cardiac index, acceleration index, left cardiac work index and systemic vascular resistance index, heart rate) measured in the hospital before and after the intervention. Measurements were performed with impedance cardiography. After magnesium supplementation, systolic and diastolic pressures were significantly decreased (mean &plusmn; standard deviation (SD)/mmHg/from 139.7 &plusmn; 15.0 to 130.8 &plusmn; 13.4 and from 88.0 &plusmn; 10.4 to 82.2 &plusmn; 9.0, respectively; both p < 0.001). The two significant hemodynamic changes were the decrease of systemic vascular resistance index (dyn s m²/cm⁵) and left cardiac work index (kg m/m&sup2;)/mean &plusmn; SD from 2319.3 &plusmn; 753.3 to 2083.0 &plusmn; 526.9 and from 4.8 &plusmn; 1.4 to 4.4 &plusmn; 0.9, respectively; both p < 0.05). The observed hemodynamic changes may explain lowering blood pressure after magnesium supplementation" - See magnesium oxide at Amazon.com.

Coffee Drinking and the Risk of Endometrial Cancer: An Updated Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies - Nutr Cancer. 2018 May-Jun;70(4):513-528 - "The summary RR for highest compared with lowest coffee intake was 0.74"

Creatine-electrolyte supplementation improves repeated sprint cycling performance: A double blind randomized control study - j int sp nutr, May 2, 18 - "A supplement-time interaction showed a 4% increase in overall peak power (pre: 734 ± 75 W; post: 765 ± 71 W; p = 0.040; ηp2 = 0.187) and a 5% increase in overall mean power (pre: 586 ± 72 W; post: 615 ± 74 W; p = 0.019; ηp2 = 0.234) from pre- to post-supplementation for the CE group" - [Nutra USA] - See Albion Laboratories Creatine at Amazon.com.

Myoprotective Potential of Creatine Is Greater than Whey Protein after Chemically-Induced Damage in Rat Skeletal Muscle - Nutrients. 2018 Apr 30 - "Creatine supplementation appears to offer an element of myoprotection which was not observed following whey protein supplementation" - [Nutra USA] -See creatine at Amazon.com.

Neat Tech Stuff / "How to's":

TCL 6 series (2018 Roku TV) review: Awesome picture for the price, and Roku TV seals the deal - CNET, 5/8/18 - "With superb picture quality that rivals TVs costing twice as much, TCL's 6 series is the best TV value we've ever reviewed" - See TCL series 6 at Amazon.com.

Health Focus (Tinnitus):