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Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 8/11/10. You should consult your doctor if you are taking any medications.
Resveratrol May Slow Aging in Humans - Medscape, 8/6/10 -
"the popular plant extract has been shown to prolong
life and reduce the rate of aging in roundworms, fruit flies, and yeast,
apparently because resveratrol affects a gene associated with longevity ...
resveratrol suppressed the generation of
“free radicals” -- unstable molecules known to cause oxidative stress and
release pro-inflammatory substances into the blood, resulting in damage to the
blood vessel lining ... resveratrol also showed suppression of the inflammatory
protein tumor necrosis factor, or TNF, and other compounds that increase blood
vessel inflammation and interfere with insulin action, causing insulin
resistance and the risk of developing diabetes" - See
resveratrol products at Amazon.com Laser may reduce prostate surgery's sexual side effects - Science Daily, 8/5/10 - "The precision of movement available through robotic surgery is already helping reduce the risk of sexual side effects, and the early evidence is that CO2 lasers will help us be even more accurate -- especially when preserving the sensitive nerve areas necessary for sexual function and urinary continence" Can vitamin D compete with bone drugs? (ATOM) 0 betterbones.com, 8/4/10 - "At the end of the day, vitamin D was shown to reduce more fractures than the popular bisphosphonate drugs" Sperm may be harmed by exposure to BPA, study suggests - Science Daily, 8/3/10 - "We found that if we compare somebody in the top quartile of exposure with the lowest quartile of exposure, sperm concentration was on average about 23 percent lower in men with the highest BPA ... Results also suggested a 10 percent increase in sperm DNA damage" Pancreatic cancers use fructose, common in the Western diet, to fuel their growth - Science Daily, 8/2/10 - "The bottom line is the modern diet contains a lot of refined sugar including fructose and it's a hidden danger implicated in a lot of modern diseases, such as obesity, diabetes and fatty liver ... the pancreatic cancer cells could easily distinguish between glucose and fructose even though they are very similar structurally, and contrary to conventional wisdom, the cancer cells metabolized the sugars in very different ways. In the case of fructose, the pancreatic cancer cells used the sugar in the transketolase-driven non-oxidative pentose phosphate pathway to generate nucleic acids, the building blocks of RNA and DNA, which the cancer cells need to divide and proliferate" Abstracts from this week's Doctor's Guide Nutrition/Dietetics plus abstracts from my RSS feeds (Click here for the journals, the PubMed ones at the top): Sugar Sweetened Beverages and Risk of Metabolic Syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes: A Meta-analysis - Diabetes Care. 2010 Aug - "sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), which include soft drinks, fruit drinks, iced tea, energy and vitamin water drinks ... Based on data from these studies, including 310,819 participants and 15,043 cases of T2DM, individuals in the highest quantile of SSB intake (most often 1-2 servings/day) had a 26% greater risk of developing T2DM than those in the lowest quantile (none or < 1 serving/month) (RR:1.26 (95% CI: 1.12, 1.41)). Among studies evaluating MetSyn, including 19,431 participants and 5,803 cases, the pooled RR was 1.20 (95% CI: 1.02, 1.42)"
Interactions
of dietary whole grain intake with fasting glucose- and insulin-related genetic
loci in individuals of European descent: a meta-analysis of 14 cohort studies
- Diabetes Care. 2010 Aug 6 - "Greater
whole grain
food intake was associated with lower fasting glucose and insulin concentrations
independent of demographics, other dietary and lifestyle factors, and BMI (beta
[95% CI] per 1-serving greater whole grain intake: -0.009 mmol/L glucose
[-0.013, -0.005], p <0.0001 and -0.011 pmol/L (ln) insulin [-0.015, -0.007], p
=0.0003) ... Our results support the favorable association of whole grain intake
with fasting glucose and insulin and suggest potential interaction between
variation in GCKR and whole grain intake in influencing fasting insulin
concentrations" - See brown rice pasta at Amazon.com
Vitamin C
requirement in surgical patients - Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2010 Aug
4 - "Blood vitamin C
concentration falls after uncomplicated surgery
and further decreases in surgical intensive care unit patients. The decline may
be owing to increased demand caused by increased oxidative stress. To normalize
plasma vitamin C concentration, much higher doses than the recommended daily
allowance or doses recommended in parenteral nutrition guidelines are needed in
these patients. In uncomplicated surgical patients, more than 500 mg/day of
vitamin C may be required, with much higher doses in surgical intensive care
unit patients. In uncomplicated gastrointestinal surgery, continuous parenteral
administration of 500 mg/day of vitamin C reduced postoperative oxidative stress
as manifested by reduced urinary excretion of isoprostane. In some studies,
postoperative atrial fibrillation was prevented after cardiac surgery by
perioperative vitamin C supplementation. In critically ill patients, some
prospective randomized controlled trials support parenteral supplementation of
high doses of vitamin C, E and trace elements" - See
vitamin C products at Amazon.com
Role of zinc
in the development and treatment of mood disorders - Curr Opin Clin Nutr
Metab Care. 2010 Aug 4 - "Not only has
zinc deficiency been shown to induce
depression-like and anxiety-like behaviors, supplementation has been used as a
treatment for major depression. Zinc
administration improves the efficacy of antidepressant drugs in depressed
patients and may have a particular role to play in treatment-resistant patients.
Recent investigations into the molecular mechanisms responsible for these
observations suggest a role for zinc in the regulation of neurotransmitter
systems, antioxidant mechanisms, neurotrophic factors, and neuronal precursor
cells" - See
Jarrow Zinc Balance at Amazon.com
Vitamin D
deficiency is associated with sudden cardiac death, combined cardiovascular
events, and mortality in haemodialysis patients - Eur Heart J. 2010 Aug 5 -
"sudden cardiac death (SCD) ... Patients with severe
vitamin D deficiency [25(OH)D of</= 25 nmol/L]
had a 3-fold higher risk of SCD compared with those with sufficient 25(OH)D
levels >75 nmol/L [HR: 2.99, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.39-6.40].
Furthermore, CVE and all-cause mortality were strongly increased (HR: 1.78, 95%
CI: 1.18-2.69, and HR: 1.74, 95% CI: 1.22-2.47, respectively), all persisting in
multivariate models. There were borderline non-significant associations with
stroke and fatal infection while MI and deaths due to heart failure were not
meaningfully affected. Conclusion Severe vitamin D deficiency was strongly
associated with SCD, CVE, and mortality, and there were borderline associations
with stroke and fatal infection" - See
vitamin D at Amazon.com Carbohydrate quantity and quality and risk of type 2 diabetes in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition-Netherlands (EPIC-NL) study - Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 Aug 4 - "glycemic load (GL), glycemic index (GI) ... During a mean follow-up of 10 y, 915 incident diabetes cases were documented. Dietary GL was associated with an increased diabetes risk after adjustment for age, sex, established diabetes risk factors, and dietary factors [hazard ratio (HR) per SD increase: 1.32; 95% CI: 1.14, 1.54; P lt 0.001]. GI tended to increase diabetes risk (HR: 1.08; 95% CI: 1.00, 1.17; P equals 0.05). Dietary fiber was inversely associated with diabetes risk (HR: 0.92; 95% CI: 0.85, 0.99; P lt 0.05), whereas carbohydrate intake was associated with increased diabetes risk (HR: 1.15; 95% CI: 1.01, 1.32; P lt 0.05). Of the carbohydrate subtypes, only starch was related to increased diabetes risk [HR: 1.25 (1.07, 1.46), P lt 0.05]. All associations became slightly stronger after exclusion of energy misreporters. CONCLUSIONS: Diets high in GL, GI, and starch and low in fiber were associated with an increased diabetes risk. Both carbohydrate quantity and quality seem to be important factors in diabetes prevention. Energy misreporting contributed to a slight attenuation of associations" Dietary intake of saturated fatty acids and mortality from cardiovascular disease in Japanese: the Japan Collaborative Cohort Study for Evaluation of Cancer Risk Study? - Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 Aug 4 - "The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that SFA intake is associated with the risk of cardiovascular disease mortality in Japanese whose average SFA intake is low ... We observed inverse associations of SFA intake with mortality from total stroke [n = 976; multivariable hazard ratio (95% CI) for highest compared with lowest quintiles: 0.69 (0.53, 0.89); P for trend = 0.004], intraparenchymal hemorrhage [n = 224; 0.48 (0.27, 0.85); P for trend = 0.03], and ischemic stroke [n = 321; 0.58 (0.37, 0.90); P for trend = 0.01]. No multivariable-adjusted associations were observed between SFA and mortality from subarachnoid hemorrhage [n = 153; 0.91 (0.46, 1.80); P for trend = 0.47] and heart disease [n = 836; 0.89 (0.68, 1.15); P for trend = 0.59]. CONCLUSION: SFA intake was inversely associated with mortality from total stroke, including intraparenchymal hemorrhage and ischemic stroke subtypes, in this Japanese cohort" - Guess I can stop feeling guilty about my yoghurt being 50% whole milk powder and 50% skim. Effect of increased consumption of whole-grain foods on blood pressure and other cardiovascular risk markers in healthy middle-aged persons: a randomized controlled trial - Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 Aug 4 - "randomly allocated volunteers to a control (refined diet), wheat, or wheat + oats group for 12 w ... Systolic blood pressure and pulse pressure were significantly reduced by 6 and 3 mm Hg, respectively, in the whole-grain foods groups compared with the control group ... Daily consumption of 3 portions of whole-grain foods can significantly reduce cardiovascular disease risk in middle-aged people mainly through blood pressure-lowering mechanisms. The observed decrease in systolic blood pressure could decrease the incidence of coronary artery disease and stroke by ge 15% and 25%, respectively"
Effects of
Early Maternal Docosahexaenoic Acid Intake on Neuropsychological Status and
Visual Acuity at Five Years of Age of Breast-Fed Term Infants - J Pediatr.
2010 Jul 22 - "Children whose mothers received
DHA versus placebo performed significantly better on
the Sustained Attention Subscale of the Leiter International Performance Scale
(46.5 +/- 8.9 vs 41.9 +/- 9.3, P < .008) but there were no statistically
significant differences between groups on other neuropsychological domains.
CONCLUSIONS: Five-year-old children whose mothers received modest DHA
supplementation versus placebo for the first 4 months of
breastfeeding performed better on a test of
sustained attention. This, along with the previously reported better performance
of the children of DHA-supplemented mothers on a test of psychomotor development
at 30 months of age, suggests that DHA intake during early infancy confers
long-term benefits on specific aspects of neurodevelopment" - See
Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com
Intake of
n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: a
cross-sectional study in Japanese men and women - Eur J Clin Nutr. 2010 Aug
4 - "The prevalence of
NAFLD was 45.3% in men and 17.5% in women.
In comparison with the first tertile, multivariate adjusted odds ratios (95%
confidence intervals) for the presence of NAFLD in the second and third tertiles
for men taking eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) were 0.59 (0.31-1.14) and 0.45
(0.23-0.90), respectively, (P for linear trend=0.024), and the multivariate
adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) for the presence of NAFLD in the
second and third tertiles for men taking
EPA+docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) were 0.44 (0.23-0.86) and 0.48 (0.24-0.95),
respectively, (P for linear trend=0.035). However, there was no significant
relation between NAFLD and each of these nutrients in women.Conclusions:Dietary
EPA and EPA+DHA may be independent and preventive nutrients for NAFLD in
Japanese men" - See
Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com
Bilberry
anthocyanin-rich extract alters expression of genes related to atherosclerosis
development in aorta of apo E-deficient mice - Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis.
2010 Jul 31 - "bilberry
anthocyanin-rich extract (BE) ... BE supplementation significantly improved
hypercholesterolemia whereas the plasmatic antioxidant status remained
unchanged. Nutrigenomic analysis identified 1261 genes which expression was
modulated by BE in the aorta. Bioinformatic analysis revealed that these genes
are implicated in different cellular processes such as oxidative stress,
inflammation, transendothelial migration and angiogenesis, processes associated
with atherosclerosis development/protection. Some of the most significantly
down-regulated genes included genes coding for AOX1, CYP2E1 or TXNIP implicated
in the regulation of oxidative stress, JAM-A coding for adhesion molecules or
VEGFR2 implicate in regulation of angiogenesis. Other genes were up-regulated,
such as CRB3, CLDN14 or CDH4 potentially associated with increased cell-cell
adhesion and decreased paracellular permeability. These results provide a global
integrated view of the mechanisms involved in the preventive action of bilberry
anthocyanin-rich extract against
atherosclerosis"
- See
bilberry at Amazon.com
Reduction of
Postprandial Glycemia by the Novel Viscous Polysaccharide PGX, in a
Dose-Dependent Manner, Independent of Food Form - J Am Coll Nutr. 2010
Apr;29(2):92-8 - "The objective of the study therefore
was to determine palatability and effectiveness of escalating doses of
PGX, a novel viscous polysaccharide (NVP), in reducing postprandial glycemia
when added to a liquid and a solid meal ... Addition of NVP to the meal reduced
blood glucose incremental areas under the curve irrespective of dose, reaching
significance at the 7.5 g dose when added to glucose (p < 0.01), and at the 5
and 7.5 g doses when added to WB + Marg (p < 0.001). The GI values of glucose
with 0, 2.5, 5, or 7.5 g of NVP were (mean +/- standard error of the mean [SEM])
100.0 +/- 0.0, 83.7 +/- 9.0, 77.7 +/- 8.2, and 72.5 +/- 5.9, respectively; the
GI of the WB alone, or of WB + Marg, with 0, 2.5, 5, or 7.5 g of NVP was 71.0
+/- 0.0, 66.8 +/- 3.0, 47.5 +/- 5.9, 37.3 +/- 5.9, and 33.9 +/- 3.6,
respectively. CONCLUSION: Addition of NVP to different food matrices is highly
effective in lowering the
glycemic index of a food in a dose-responsive
manner" - See PGX at Amazon.com
Magnesium
Intake and Risk of Self-Reported Type 2 Diabetes among Japanese - J Am Coll
Nutr. 2010 Apr;29(2):99-106 - "Dietary intake of
magnesium was inversely associated with age-
and body mass index (BMI)-adjusted
diabetes incidence in both sexes. In
multivariable analysis that adjusted further for cardiovascular risk factors,
the association was weakened in both sexes, but the association in total
participants remained statistically significant. The odds ratios of diabetes
with reference to the lowest quartile of magnesium intake were 0.83 (95%
confidence interval [CI], 0.69 to 1.09) for the second quartile, 0.79 (95% CI,
0.59 to 1.07) for the third quartile, and 0.64 (95% CI, 0.44 to 0.94) for the
highest quartile of magnesium intake (p for trend = 0.04). CONCLUSIONS: Dietary
intake of magnesium was associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes in
Japanese populations" - See
magnesium supplements at Amazon.com
Effects of
acetyl-L-carnitine and oxfenicine on aorta stiffness in diabetic rats - Eur
J Clin Invest. 2010 Jul 29 - "Oxfenicine, but not
acetyl-L-carnitine, increased total peripheral
resistance in diabetes, which paralleled its elevation in plasma levels of free
fatty acids. By contrast, acetyl-L-carnitine, but not oxfenicine, resulted in a
significant increase in wave transit time and a decrease in wave reflection
factor, suggesting that acetyl-L-carnitine may attenuate the diabetes-induced
deterioration in systolic loading condition for the left ventricle. This was in
parallel with its lowering of MDA/TBARS content in plasma and aortic walls in
diabetes. Acetyl-L-carnitine therapy also prevented the diabetes-related cardiac
hypertrophy, as evidenced by the reduction in ratio of the left ventricular
weight to body weight. Conclusion Acetyl-L-carnitine, but not oxfenicine,
attenuates aortic stiffening and
cardiac hypertrophy, possibly through its decrease of lipid oxidation-derived
MDA/TBARS in the rats with insulin deficiency" - See
acetyl l-carnitine products at Amazon.com Nutrient dietary patterns and the risk of colorectal cancer: a case-control study from Italy - Cancer Causes Control. 2010 Aug 1 - "Direct associations were observed between the Starch-rich pattern and both cancer of the colon (OR = 1.68) and of the rectum (OR = 1.74). Inverse relationships were found between the Vitamins and fiber pattern and rectal cancer (OR = 0.61), between the Unsaturated fats (animal source) and the Unsaturated fats (vegetable source) and cancer of the colon (OR = 0.80 and OR = 0.79, respectively) ... The Starch-rich pattern is potentially an unfavorable indicator of risk for both colon and rectal cancer, whereas the Vitamins and fiber pattern is associated with a reduced risk of rectal cancer and the Unsaturated fats patterns with a reduced risk of colon cancer" Adiposity and Insulin Resistance Correlate with Telomere Length in Middle-aged Arabs: The Influence of Circulating Adiponectin - Eur J Endocrinol. 2010 Aug - "Studies in obesity have implicated adipocytokines in the development of insulin resistance, which in turn may lead to accelerated aging ... HOMA-IR was the most significant predictor for TL in males, explaining 35% of the variance (p = 0.01). In females, adiponectin, accounted for 28% of the variance in TL (p = 0.01). Conclusion: Obesity and insulin resistance are associated with chromosomal TL among adult Arabs. Evidence of causal relations needs further investigation. The positive association of adiponectin to TL has clinical implications as to the possible protective effects of this hormone from accelerated aging" - Note: HOMA-IR = (glucose x insulin)/405 for glucose in mass units (US units) mg/dL. See my adiponectin page for ways to increase it. Also see my Insulin and Aging page. Metformin is associated with improved left ventricular diastolic function measured by tissue Doppler imaging in patients with diabetes - Eur J Endocrinol. 2010 Aug 2 - "use of metformin was associated with a shorter IVRT (parameter estimate -9.9 ms, p=0.049), and higher e' (parameter estimate +0.52 cm/s, p=0.03), compared to no use of metformin. The effects of metformin were not altered by concomitant use of sulfonylureas or insulin (p for interactions >0.4). Conclusions: Use of metformin is associated with improved left ventricular relaxation, as compared with no use of metformin" Health Focus (Surgery): Alternative News:
News & Research:
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