Diabetes drug metformin proves useful for other problems
Karen Weintraub
USA TODAY
July 30, 2013
Early research suggests the decades-old diabetes drug metformin can slow cancer, reduce heart disease and perhaps limit the ravages of Alzheimer's. A new study shows it can extend lifespan in mice.
Could metformin, the most widely used diabetes drug in the world, be useful for fighting a number of health problems?
Early research suggests the decades-old drug can slow cancer, reduce heart disease and maybe even limit the ravages of Alzheimer's. Now, a new study in mice finds that it can extend life by a number of weeks — the human equivalent of 3-4 years.
It's far too soon for healthy people to consider taking the drug, researchers say, but the findings are provocative, and suggest science is getting closer to a day when it may be possible to pop a pill to live healthier longer.
Diseases of aging, like cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and dementia are all linked along a biological pathway, researchers say. Eating less food appears to trigger that cascade, significantly extending life in animals, probably by slowing down metabolism.
Metformin is the third drug shown in early research to affect the same pathway, along with rapamycin, a powerful medication used to prevent rejection of transplanted organs; and resveratrol, a compound found in red wine.
"It's clear that we are edging toward developing a pharmaceutical intervention that is going to be able to delay or postpone aging," said Rafael de Cabo, a biogerontologist at the National Institute of Aging, who conducted the new mouse study, published today in Nature Communications. "For how much and how long I have no idea."
Brian Kennedy, CEO of The Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, Calif., said he envisions a day when, instead of giving people drugs after they get sick, healthy people will be able to take pills to avoid illness. Such a pill wouldn't prevent all aging, he said, but by delaying the deadliest diseases for even a few years, it could have a dramatic benefit on an individual's quality of life and the nation's economy.
Despite their optimism, both Kennedy and de Cabo said that healthy people should not be taking metformin at this point. While mice are a good model for diseases, they do not respond exactly as people do; and they live a totally controlled life inside a cage, de Cabo said.
Metformin caused severe kidney problems in mice taking a high dose, suggesting that researchers need to proceed with caution when testing the drug in people, de Cabo said. Even the low dose used in his study left mice with more drug in their bloodstream than diabetics get on their metformin regimen, so it's not yet clear what dose to use in healthy people.
The drug is also known to cause diarrhea, because it affects the metabolism of sugars in the digestive system.
So far, those two side effects have kept researchers from trying the drug on themselves. David Sinclair, a genetics professor at Harvard Medical School who has done extensive research on resveratrol, said he took metformin along with his resveratrol for a short time. He stopped when he saw the toxic effects in this mouse study, which he co-authored. He said he wouldn't take rapamycin because of its side effects.
A new drug will eventually be developed, he predicted, that will amplify the benefits of these drugs and minimize their side effects.
"In terms of history, we're still at the very early stages of understanding how to slow aging in a safe way," said Sinclair.
Even if it turns out not to extend life, metformin has shown powerful results in other areas of research:
• Kevin Struhl, a molecular and cancer biologist at Harvard Medical School, said he has been impressed by early studies showing metformin's effectiveness at treating cancer and stopping cells from turning cancerous in the first place.
• At the University of Pennsylvania, Alzheimer's expert Steven Arnold is studying the drug's ability to slow or prevent mental decline.
• And other work has shown that metformin can help stop pre-diabetes before it turns into type 2 diabetes, said Karin Hehenberger, a molecular biologist, diabetes expert and chief medical officer at Coronado Biosciences, a Massachusetts biotech company focused on autoimmune diseases.
In terms of aging, we already know enough to help people until a pill can be developed, Kennedy said.
"There's a huge secret to (combating) aging right now," he said. "That's eat right and exercise."
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Tall women have higher cancer risk
Tall women have higher cancer risk; are smoking, drinking to blame?
By Monte Morin
LA Times
July 25, 2013
The taller a postmenopausal woman is, the greater risk she faces of developing cancer, according to a new study.
In a paper published Thursday in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, researchers concluded that a woman's cancer risk increased 13% with every 4 inches of height.
The study is the latest of several to report an association between women's height and cancer, according to lead study author Geoffrey Kabat, a cancer epidemiologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
While it is unlikely that height in and of itself promotes cancer, the multitude of factors that influence growth -- such as nutrition, genetics and environment -- are likely responsible.
"Height was significantly positively associated with risk of all cancers, [including] cancers of the thyroid, rectum, kidney, endometrium, colorectum, colon, ovary, and breast, and with multiple myeloma and melanoma," the authors concluded.
The study was based on data from 144,701 women, aged 50 to 79, who particiapted in the Womens's Health Initiative study in the 1990s. Researchers adjusted for other potential cancer risks, such as weight, smoking, alcohol consumption and hormone therapy, as well as for frequency of cancer screening.
When researchers examined the study cohort, they found that the women's average age and body mass index decreased as their height increased, whereas their average weight, rate of smoking and alcohol intake increased with height.
"As anticipated, younger women and women with higher income had greater mean height compared to older women and women with lower income, respectively," authors wrote.
Researchers offered a number of possible explanations for the connection between height and cancer risk.
Height is associated with increased milk intake in childhood, and higher levels of insulin-like growth factor, which promotes cell growth and inhibits programmed cell death, the authors noted.
Increased height might also be the result of exposure to steroid hormones. Authors noted too that taller women might have larger organs and skin surface area, which may put more cells at risk of malignant growth.
"Height should thus be thought of as a marker for one or more exposures that influence cancer risk rather than a risk factor itself," the authors wrote.
But because the study did not include men or premenopausal women, the conclusions about height are limited.
Also, the study data did not include information on leg length and sitting height -- known biomarkers of growth hormone exposure.
By Monte Morin
LA Times
July 25, 2013
The taller a postmenopausal woman is, the greater risk she faces of developing cancer, according to a new study.
In a paper published Thursday in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, researchers concluded that a woman's cancer risk increased 13% with every 4 inches of height.
The study is the latest of several to report an association between women's height and cancer, according to lead study author Geoffrey Kabat, a cancer epidemiologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
While it is unlikely that height in and of itself promotes cancer, the multitude of factors that influence growth -- such as nutrition, genetics and environment -- are likely responsible.
"Height was significantly positively associated with risk of all cancers, [including] cancers of the thyroid, rectum, kidney, endometrium, colorectum, colon, ovary, and breast, and with multiple myeloma and melanoma," the authors concluded.
The study was based on data from 144,701 women, aged 50 to 79, who particiapted in the Womens's Health Initiative study in the 1990s. Researchers adjusted for other potential cancer risks, such as weight, smoking, alcohol consumption and hormone therapy, as well as for frequency of cancer screening.
When researchers examined the study cohort, they found that the women's average age and body mass index decreased as their height increased, whereas their average weight, rate of smoking and alcohol intake increased with height.
"As anticipated, younger women and women with higher income had greater mean height compared to older women and women with lower income, respectively," authors wrote.
Researchers offered a number of possible explanations for the connection between height and cancer risk.
Height is associated with increased milk intake in childhood, and higher levels of insulin-like growth factor, which promotes cell growth and inhibits programmed cell death, the authors noted.
Increased height might also be the result of exposure to steroid hormones. Authors noted too that taller women might have larger organs and skin surface area, which may put more cells at risk of malignant growth.
"Height should thus be thought of as a marker for one or more exposures that influence cancer risk rather than a risk factor itself," the authors wrote.
But because the study did not include men or premenopausal women, the conclusions about height are limited.
Also, the study data did not include information on leg length and sitting height -- known biomarkers of growth hormone exposure.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Florida's Radioactive Fountain of Youth May Prolong Life
Florida's Radioactive Fountain of Youth May Prolong Life
Five hundred years after Ponce de Leon explored the area, locals swear by an artesian well with unusual properties.
Jackie Snow
National Geographic
July 23, 2013
...Beneficial Magnesium?
But radium isn't the only thing that turns up in the water. In fact, a much more humdrum ingredient might hold the secret of its appeal. The water from the aquifer is high in magnesium, the second most common mineral in the body after calcium.
More than 80 percent of Americans are deficient in magnesium, which helps the body regulate heart muscles and control high blood pressure. The World Health Organization recommends that drinking water contain at least 25 milligrams of magnesium per liter, and a U.S. Academy of Science study from 1977 found that 150,000 deaths a year in the United States could be prevented with additional magnesium in water.
According to Carolyn Dean, author of The Magnesium Miracle, the fountain's 46 ppm of magnesium puts it on par with other mineral waters like San Pellegrino.
The compound magnesium sulfate also makes an appearance in the water. It's better known as Epsom salt, which has been used in baths to ease aches and pains for years.
Magnesium is regularly removed from many bottled waters by a process known as reverse osmosis. And the fluoride added to many public water supplies counteracts magnesium, too.
Magnesium is especially good for older people: Magnesium deficiency increases with age as the body stops being as efficient in absorption, and many drugs senior citizens take interfere with the body's ability to digest magnesium.
"Water Bill" Harper has noticed that the fountain is especially popular among Punta Gorda's older folk.
"One of the problems with city water is we have to maintain a chloride disinfection. It makes everything taste funny," he said. "The people have learned they can go down and take that water, which is not chlorinated, and let it sit in the refrigerator.
"It's tasty; it has no reaction with any of their medication. Also, [magnesium sulfate] keeps you regular."...
Five hundred years after Ponce de Leon explored the area, locals swear by an artesian well with unusual properties.
Jackie Snow
National Geographic
July 23, 2013
...Beneficial Magnesium?
But radium isn't the only thing that turns up in the water. In fact, a much more humdrum ingredient might hold the secret of its appeal. The water from the aquifer is high in magnesium, the second most common mineral in the body after calcium.
More than 80 percent of Americans are deficient in magnesium, which helps the body regulate heart muscles and control high blood pressure. The World Health Organization recommends that drinking water contain at least 25 milligrams of magnesium per liter, and a U.S. Academy of Science study from 1977 found that 150,000 deaths a year in the United States could be prevented with additional magnesium in water.
According to Carolyn Dean, author of The Magnesium Miracle, the fountain's 46 ppm of magnesium puts it on par with other mineral waters like San Pellegrino.
The compound magnesium sulfate also makes an appearance in the water. It's better known as Epsom salt, which has been used in baths to ease aches and pains for years.
Magnesium is regularly removed from many bottled waters by a process known as reverse osmosis. And the fluoride added to many public water supplies counteracts magnesium, too.
Magnesium is especially good for older people: Magnesium deficiency increases with age as the body stops being as efficient in absorption, and many drugs senior citizens take interfere with the body's ability to digest magnesium.
"Water Bill" Harper has noticed that the fountain is especially popular among Punta Gorda's older folk.
"One of the problems with city water is we have to maintain a chloride disinfection. It makes everything taste funny," he said. "The people have learned they can go down and take that water, which is not chlorinated, and let it sit in the refrigerator.
"It's tasty; it has no reaction with any of their medication. Also, [magnesium sulfate] keeps you regular."...
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Modern Wheat Is The ‘Perfect Chronic Poison’ Says Expert
Modern Wheat Is The ‘Perfect Chronic Poison’ Says Expert
NATASHA LONGO
preventdisease.com
May 23, 2013
...Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn’t the wheat your grandma had: “It’s an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the ’60s and ’70s,” he said on “CBS This Morning.” “This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there’s a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It’s not gluten. I’m not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I’m talking about everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the gliadin protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year.”
Asked if the farming industry could change back to the grain it formerly produced, Davis said it could, but it would not be economically feasible because it yields less per acre. However, Davis said a movement has begun with people turning away from wheat – and dropping substantial weight.
“If three people lost eight pounds, big deal,” he said. “But we’re seeing hundreds of thousands of people losing 30, 80, 150 pounds. Diabetics become no longer diabetic; people with arthritis having dramatic relief. People losing leg swelling, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, and on and on every day.”
To avoid these wheat-oriented products, Davis suggests eating “real food,” such as avocados, olives, olive oil, meats, and vegetables. “(It’s) the stuff that is least likely to have been changed by agribusiness,” he said. “Certainly not grains. When I say grains, of course, over 90 percent of all grains we eat will be wheat, it’s not barley… or flax. It’s going to be wheat...
Wheat-Free Options
* Note that many of the wheat-free options still contain gluten and many people sensitive to wheat may still experience digestive problems and bloating. Experiment in see what works best for you. Caution is advised with cereal grains if you have diagnosed with gluen intolerance.
1. Cereal Grains: Barley, millet, oats, rice, rye, sorghum, tef and wild rice are all in the same cereal grain family as is wheat. All flours ground from cereal grains may be used as a wheat substitute. Commonly available are barley, buckwheat, rice and rye flour. The less utilized flours may be purchased online or from natural food stores. Note: people with a gluten allergy must also avoid barley, oats and rye.
2. Non-Cereal Grains: Amaranth, quinoa and buckwheat are three grain-like seeds unrelated to cereal grains. (Despite its name, buckwheat is not a wheat-relative.) It is rare for anyone to develop a sensitivity to these non-cereal grains. Amaranth, quinoa and buckwheat are gluten-free and therefore not suitable for making leavened bread; however, they make excellent quick breads and cookies.
3. Nut Meal: Ground nuts such as almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts make the richest flour substitute for cookies and cakes. Because their fragile fatty acid content gives them a brief shelf life, it’s preferable to grind your own nuts in a food processor just prior to use. Nut meal requires a binding agent such as eggs. Because chestnuts are lower in fat than other nuts, chestnut flour has a longer shelf life. It is available online.
4. Bean Flour: Dried beans, such as navy, pinto and chickpeas may be milled and used, in combination with other flours, as a wheat alternative. Bean flour is, however, not always recommended. It tastes like beans and makes baked goods dense and hard to digest.
5. Other Flour Substitutes: Potato starch, arrowroot powder, and tapioca are thickening agents that substitute for wheat in sauces and gravy. In baked goods these starchy ingredients serve as a binding agent.
NATASHA LONGO
preventdisease.com
May 23, 2013
...Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn’t the wheat your grandma had: “It’s an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the ’60s and ’70s,” he said on “CBS This Morning.” “This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there’s a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It’s not gluten. I’m not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I’m talking about everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the gliadin protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year.”
Asked if the farming industry could change back to the grain it formerly produced, Davis said it could, but it would not be economically feasible because it yields less per acre. However, Davis said a movement has begun with people turning away from wheat – and dropping substantial weight.
“If three people lost eight pounds, big deal,” he said. “But we’re seeing hundreds of thousands of people losing 30, 80, 150 pounds. Diabetics become no longer diabetic; people with arthritis having dramatic relief. People losing leg swelling, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, and on and on every day.”
To avoid these wheat-oriented products, Davis suggests eating “real food,” such as avocados, olives, olive oil, meats, and vegetables. “(It’s) the stuff that is least likely to have been changed by agribusiness,” he said. “Certainly not grains. When I say grains, of course, over 90 percent of all grains we eat will be wheat, it’s not barley… or flax. It’s going to be wheat...
Wheat-Free Options
* Note that many of the wheat-free options still contain gluten and many people sensitive to wheat may still experience digestive problems and bloating. Experiment in see what works best for you. Caution is advised with cereal grains if you have diagnosed with gluen intolerance.
1. Cereal Grains: Barley, millet, oats, rice, rye, sorghum, tef and wild rice are all in the same cereal grain family as is wheat. All flours ground from cereal grains may be used as a wheat substitute. Commonly available are barley, buckwheat, rice and rye flour. The less utilized flours may be purchased online or from natural food stores. Note: people with a gluten allergy must also avoid barley, oats and rye.
2. Non-Cereal Grains: Amaranth, quinoa and buckwheat are three grain-like seeds unrelated to cereal grains. (Despite its name, buckwheat is not a wheat-relative.) It is rare for anyone to develop a sensitivity to these non-cereal grains. Amaranth, quinoa and buckwheat are gluten-free and therefore not suitable for making leavened bread; however, they make excellent quick breads and cookies.
3. Nut Meal: Ground nuts such as almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts make the richest flour substitute for cookies and cakes. Because their fragile fatty acid content gives them a brief shelf life, it’s preferable to grind your own nuts in a food processor just prior to use. Nut meal requires a binding agent such as eggs. Because chestnuts are lower in fat than other nuts, chestnut flour has a longer shelf life. It is available online.
4. Bean Flour: Dried beans, such as navy, pinto and chickpeas may be milled and used, in combination with other flours, as a wheat alternative. Bean flour is, however, not always recommended. It tastes like beans and makes baked goods dense and hard to digest.
5. Other Flour Substitutes: Potato starch, arrowroot powder, and tapioca are thickening agents that substitute for wheat in sauces and gravy. In baked goods these starchy ingredients serve as a binding agent.
Friday, July 5, 2013
Imbalances in the microbial community in your intestines may lead to metabolic syndrome, obesity, and diabetes.
Are Happy Gut Bacteria Key to Weight Loss?
Imbalances in the microbial community in your intestines may lead to metabolic syndrome, obesity, and diabetes. What does science say about how to reset our bodies?
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff
Mother Jones
Apr. 22, 2013
A few years before Super Size Me hit theaters in 2004, Dr. Paresh Dandona, a diabetes specialist in Buffalo, New York, set out to measure the body's response to McDonald's—specifically breakfast. Over several mornings, he fed nine normal-weight volunteers an egg sandwich with cheese and ham, a sausage muffin sandwich, and two hash brown patties.
Dandona is a professor at the State University of New York-Buffalo who also heads the Diabetes-Endocrinology Center of Western New York, and what he observed has informed his research ever since. Levels of a C-reactive protein, an indicator of systemic inflammation, shot up "within literally minutes." "I was shocked," he recalls, that "a simple McDonald's meal that seems harmless enough"—the sort of high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal that 1 in 4 Americans eats regularly—would have such a dramatic effect. And it lasted for hours.
Inflammation comes in many forms. The swelling of a sprained ankle indicates repairing torn muscle and tendon. The redness and pain around an infected cut signifies the body's repulsion of microbes. The fever, aches, and pains that accompany the flu represent a body-wide seek-and-destroy mission directed against an invading virus. They're all essential to survival, the body's response to a perceived threat or injury. But inflammation can also cause collateral damage, especially when the response is overwhelming—like in septic shock—or when it goes on too long.
Chronic, low-grade inflammation has long been recognized as a feature of metabolic syndrome, a cluster of dysfunctions that tends to precede full-blown diabetes and that also increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, certain cancers, and even dementia—the top killers of the developed world. The syndrome includes a combination of elevated blood sugar and high blood pressure, low "good" cholesterol, and an abdominal cavity filled with fat, often indicated by a "beer belly." But recently, doctors have begun to question whether chronic inflammation is more than just a symptom of metabolic syndrome: Could it, in fact, be a major cause?
For Dandona, who's given to waxing grandiloquent about the joys of a beer on the porch in his native Delhi, or the superb ice wines from the Buffalo region, the results presented a quandary. Food was a great pleasure in life. Why would Nature be so cruel, he wondered, and punish us just for eating?
Over the next decade he tested the effects of various foods on the immune system. A fast-food breakfast inflamed, he found, but a high-fiber breakfast with lots of fruit did not. A breakthrough came in 2007 when he discovered that while sugar water, a stand-in for soda, caused inflammation, orange juice—even though it contains plenty of sugar—didn't.
The Florida Department of Citrus, a state agency, was so excited it underwrote a subsequent study, and had fresh-squeezed orange juice flown in for it. This time, along with their two-sandwich, two-hash-brown, 910-calorie breakfast, one-third of his volunteers—10 in total—quaffed a glass of fresh OJ. The non-juice drinkers, half of whom drank sugar water, and the other half plain water, had the expected response—inflammation and elevated blood sugar. But the OJ drinkers had neither elevated blood sugar nor inflammation. The juice seemed to shield their metabolism. "It just switched off the whole damn thing," Dandona says. Other scientists have since confirmed that OJ has a strong anti-inflammatory effect...
Imbalances in the microbial community in your intestines may lead to metabolic syndrome, obesity, and diabetes. What does science say about how to reset our bodies?
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff
Mother Jones
Apr. 22, 2013
A few years before Super Size Me hit theaters in 2004, Dr. Paresh Dandona, a diabetes specialist in Buffalo, New York, set out to measure the body's response to McDonald's—specifically breakfast. Over several mornings, he fed nine normal-weight volunteers an egg sandwich with cheese and ham, a sausage muffin sandwich, and two hash brown patties.
Dandona is a professor at the State University of New York-Buffalo who also heads the Diabetes-Endocrinology Center of Western New York, and what he observed has informed his research ever since. Levels of a C-reactive protein, an indicator of systemic inflammation, shot up "within literally minutes." "I was shocked," he recalls, that "a simple McDonald's meal that seems harmless enough"—the sort of high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal that 1 in 4 Americans eats regularly—would have such a dramatic effect. And it lasted for hours.
Inflammation comes in many forms. The swelling of a sprained ankle indicates repairing torn muscle and tendon. The redness and pain around an infected cut signifies the body's repulsion of microbes. The fever, aches, and pains that accompany the flu represent a body-wide seek-and-destroy mission directed against an invading virus. They're all essential to survival, the body's response to a perceived threat or injury. But inflammation can also cause collateral damage, especially when the response is overwhelming—like in septic shock—or when it goes on too long.
Chronic, low-grade inflammation has long been recognized as a feature of metabolic syndrome, a cluster of dysfunctions that tends to precede full-blown diabetes and that also increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, certain cancers, and even dementia—the top killers of the developed world. The syndrome includes a combination of elevated blood sugar and high blood pressure, low "good" cholesterol, and an abdominal cavity filled with fat, often indicated by a "beer belly." But recently, doctors have begun to question whether chronic inflammation is more than just a symptom of metabolic syndrome: Could it, in fact, be a major cause?
For Dandona, who's given to waxing grandiloquent about the joys of a beer on the porch in his native Delhi, or the superb ice wines from the Buffalo region, the results presented a quandary. Food was a great pleasure in life. Why would Nature be so cruel, he wondered, and punish us just for eating?
Over the next decade he tested the effects of various foods on the immune system. A fast-food breakfast inflamed, he found, but a high-fiber breakfast with lots of fruit did not. A breakthrough came in 2007 when he discovered that while sugar water, a stand-in for soda, caused inflammation, orange juice—even though it contains plenty of sugar—didn't.
The Florida Department of Citrus, a state agency, was so excited it underwrote a subsequent study, and had fresh-squeezed orange juice flown in for it. This time, along with their two-sandwich, two-hash-brown, 910-calorie breakfast, one-third of his volunteers—10 in total—quaffed a glass of fresh OJ. The non-juice drinkers, half of whom drank sugar water, and the other half plain water, had the expected response—inflammation and elevated blood sugar. But the OJ drinkers had neither elevated blood sugar nor inflammation. The juice seemed to shield their metabolism. "It just switched off the whole damn thing," Dandona says. Other scientists have since confirmed that OJ has a strong anti-inflammatory effect...
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