Vitamin E and Alpha Lipoic Acid combo may help fatty liver

A combination of vitamin E and alpha lipoic acid (ALA) can improve the inflammatory and steatosis scores in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease or nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, according to the results of a study presented here at the American College of Gastroenterology 2011 Annual Scientific Meeting and Postgraduate Course.

Researchers sought to examine the effects of antioxidant combination therapy on patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Inflammation and steatosis scores improved from baseline to 6 months in patients receiving the antioxidants, compared with placebo.

Compared with placebo, combination therapy resulted in a 70% difference in change in tumor necrosis factors-alpha levels from baseline.

ALA alone or vitamin E alone were not as effective. Findings revealed a 47% difference in change between ALA monotherapy and placebo and a 49% difference in change between vitamin E monotherapy and placebo.

"ALA and vitamin E should be considered as therapy in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis to reduce inflammation and the profibrogenic effect on the liver to preclude end-stage liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma," said P. Patrick Basu, MD, MRCP, AGAF, FACG, assistant clinical professor of medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons in New York City, clinical professor at Hofstra University Medical School, and division chief of the Department of Gastroenterology and Gastrointestinal Endoscopy at North Shore University Hospital in Hempstead, New York.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is the most common liver disease in the world, and a global epidemic, Dr. Basu noted. In the United States, 20% of the general population and 75% to 92% of the morbidly obese population suffer from the disease.

In the disease, excess carbohydrates and lipids can affect metabolic pathways, increasing fatty acid levels in the liver, which can lead to liver damage, according to Dr. Basu.

Factors linked to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease include obesity, hyperlipidemia, and inflammation. The disease spectrum associated with it ranges from simple steatosis to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, cirrhosis associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and end-stage liver disease.

This study builds on earlier studies that tied individual antioxidant treatments, such as vitamin E and ALA, to improved liver pathology and diagnostic end points. Dr. Basu chose ALA because of its panantioxidant effect, he said.

The trial was a randomized, placebo-controlled, open-label, prospective clinical trial that involved 155 patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease or nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and a body mass index from 28 to 33 kg/m². Patients were excluded from the study if they had diabetes, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, hypothyroidism, or syndromes with known insulin resistance; consumed more than 30 g of alcohol per day; or took any other medications, including herbs and supplements. The patients followed 1 of 4 daily regimens for 6 months: 300 mg ALA; 700 IU vitamin E; 300 mg ALA + 700 IU vitamin E; or placebo.

Levels of various markers were assessed at baseline and at 6 months. Combination therapy for 6 months reduced triglycerides to reference levels (<160 mg/dL). Compared with placebo, combination therapy also resulted in a 43% difference in change of triglyceride levels from baseline, a 71% difference in change of steatosis scores from baseline, a 51% difference in change of retinol binding protein 4 (RBP4) from baseline, and a 63% difference in change of homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) scores from baseline.

The only scores that remained unchanged with antioxidant combination therapy were fibrosis scores. In all the other cases, the combination of ALA plus vitamin E was more effective than ALA or vitamin E alone.

"In conclusion, no matter what you do, how you squeeze the data, this trial is statistically significant, and this is [using] over-the-counter, very inexpensive drugs," he told Medscape Medical News. The regimen should have no adverse effects, he added.

The most impressive effects in the study appeared in the group that received vitamin E plus ALA, noted Paul Kwo, MD, FACG, professor of medicine at Indiana University in Indianapolis, who comoderated the liver session at the conference.

Dr. Kwo also predicted a trend toward more combinations of antioxidants and other novel approaches to reduce liver injury through slightly different pathways.

Although many single studies have come out, he expects to see more research on combination therapies in the future. "Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is a very heterogeneous disorder," said Dr. Kwo, "so it makes sense that therapies that address different pathways in the mechanism injury might be more beneficial."

Dr. Basu reports relationships with BMS, Gilead, Otsuka, Salix Pharmaceuticals, Takeda, Genentech, and Romark. Dr. Kwo reports financial relationships with BMS, Gilead, Merck, Roche, and Vertex.
American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) 2011 Annual Scientific Meeting and Postgraduate Course: Abstract 38. Presented November 3, 2011.


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Source: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/753034?sssdmh=dm1.732339&src=nldne



Alpha Lipoic Acid formulas are available here at $5 off first order:

Some probiotics effectively reduce common GI symptoms

November 8, 2011 (National Harbor/Washington, DC) — Mounting evidence is building a strong case for the use of probiotics, or "good" bacteria, to alleviate common gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, such as diarrhea, bloating, and inflammation, according to several studies highlighted during a press briefing here at the American College of Gastroenterology 2011 Annual Scientific Meeting and Postgraduate Course.

In one meta-analysis, researchers from the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, found that in 22 studies of more than 3000 patients, probiotic prophylaxis significantly reduced the odds of developing antibiotic-associated diarrhea and Clostridium difficile–associated diarrhea by about 60%.

In another meta-analysis, researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, in Boston, Massachusetts, analyzed 28 randomized controlled trials in which more than 3000 patients received a single or a combination of antibiotics for various indications. In adult and pediatric populations, the preventive effect of probiotic use was significant, regardless of the species used and regardless of the antibiotic administered.

In the largest study to date on probiotics in a nonpatient population, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill evaluated the efficacy of Bifidobacterium infantis 35624, a probiotic that has relieved symptoms in patients with irritable bowel syndrome, to see how well it relieved abdominal discomfort and bloating in nonpatients.

The double-blind randomized placebo controlled study involved a 2-week placebo phase followed by a 4-week intervention phase, and was conducted at 10 clinical centers in the United States. More than 300 nonpatients who had experienced abdominal discomfort and bloating more than twice weekly, on average, for at least 3 months were included in the study. They had not seen a physician or received prescribed medication for their symptoms in the previous 12 months.

In contrast to previous clinical studies of irritable bowel syndrome patients, the researchers saw no statistically significant improvement in mean severity of abdominal discomfort or bloating after the nonpatient population took B infantis 35624.

However, an Irish group found that a nonpatient population receiving B infantis 35624 experienced significantly more bloat-free days.

The researchers hypothesized that microbial imbalance could explain the increased incidence of a wide range of inflammatory disorders. To test whether altering the balance between good and bad bacteria in the gut raises the immune regulatory response, which could lower inflammation, researchers from the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre at University College Cork, and Alimentary Health Ltd in Cork, Ireland, conducted a double-blind placebo controlled study. Their goal was to see if B infantis affects systemic proinflammatory biomarkers in patients with inflammatory disease.

The results of their study suggest that probiotics exert anti-inflammatory effects.

"By giving a specific probiotic orally, we could actually reduce the levels of these proinflammatory cytokines and actually enhance the production of an anti-inflammatory cytokine, which is the exact replication of what we identified in animal models and more basic models," said principal investigator Eamonn Quigley, MD, FACG, professor of medicine at the National University of Ireland in Cork.

Plasma levels of the anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin (IL)-10 rose significantly in healthy volunteers and patients with psoriasis, but not in those who took the placebo for 8 weeks.

Plasma levels of 2 proinflammatory cytokines — tumor necrosis factor-alpha and IL-6 — dropped in all patients who received B infantis. C-reactive protein levels were also significantly lower in patients with psoriasis, ulcerative colitis, and chronic fatigue after treatment with the bacterium than after treatment with placebo.

Although not everybody who takes an antibiotic should also take a probiotic, the institutionalized elderly should, to minimize the chance of getting something like antibiotic-associated diarrhea or antibiotic-associated C difficile, said Fergus Shanahan, MD, FACG, a researcher involved in the Irish B infantis 35624 study, and professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at University College Cork.

Certain subsets of patients, such as those with cystic fibrosis or chronic urinary infections, who must take recurring courses of antibiotics might benefit from taking probiotics to minimize antibiotic-associated diarrhea.

"It's ironic that we would worry about taking an organism when we've got billions of organisms in the GI tract" and the amount is relatively small, Dr. Shanahan observed. Instead of worrying about drug toxicity in that population, "we're worried about something that has vanishingly low side effects. It can't be zero, but it is very, very low."

"If we paid more attention to prescribing antibiotics, we wouldn't have a lot of these problems," added Dr. Quigley.

According to Mark Mellow, MD, FACG, director of the Digestive Health Center at INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, physicians aren't the only ones to blame for the indiscriminate use of antibiotics. Edicts from hospital compliance committees often establish rules that patients who come in with community-acquired pneumonia be placed on antibiotics soon after admission. These rules can have unintended consequences.

"Someone comes in with a fever and a cough and because there's not enough time to sort it out, they get put on an antibiotic," he said, whether or not they have a bacterial infection.

Dr. Quigley reports financial relationships with Alimentary Health, Norgine, Merck, Procter and Gamble, Movetis/Shire, Shire, Yakult, and Ironwood/Almirall. Dr. Shanahan reports a financial relationship with Alimentary Health Ltd. Dr. Mellow has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) 2011 Annual Scientific Meeting and Postgraduate Course: Abstracts P650, P120, P60, P283. Presented November 1, 2011.


Source: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/753108?sssdmh=dm1.732339&src=nldne

Creativity and mental disorders are linked

Photo Credit: Stuart Miles

Creative individuals have a disproportionately higher rate of mental illness, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and they and their relatives are more likely to work in artistic and scientific occupations, according to new research published in the November 2011 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry.

"Creativity has long been associated with mental disorder, epitomized by Aristotle's claim that 'no great genius has ever existed without a strain of madness,' " lead author Simon Kyaga, MD, from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, told Medscape Medical News.

"Working as a psychiatrist, I have many times encountered patients who, despite severe psychiatric disorder, were able to create in artistic and scientific areas, as well as being successful entrepreneurs," Dr. Kyaga said. "I was therefore intrigued by the idea of a connection between creativity and madness, and together with my supervisors, we initiated the study, trying to provide answers to this old question."

Dr. Kyaga and colleagues performed a nested case-control study using a variety of sources to obtain information on the association between creativity and mental illness.

These data sources included the Hospital Discharge Register, which provided discharge diagnoses for all in-patient treatment episodes for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and unipolar depression in Sweden between 1973 and 2003; the Multi-Generation Register, which identified biological relatives of patients; and national censuses for 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1990, which provided information on professions in the entire Swedish population.

More Visual Artists
Subjects' professions were categorized using the Nordic Classification of Occupations. Creative professions included both scientific jobs, such as university teachers, and artistic jobs, including designers, performing artists, musicians, and authors.

Accountants and auditors were defined as less-creative professions.

The researchers compared 300,000 patients who had received inpatient treatment for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or depression and their relatives who did not have a diagnosis of mental disorder with a control group.

They found that those patients with bipolar disorder were significantly overrepresented in creative professions compared with control patients (odds ratio [OR], 1.35; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.22 - 1.48), mainly as a result of their presence in visual (OR, 1.42; 95% CI, 1.23 - 1.64) and nonvisual (OR, 1.44; 95% CI, 1.20 - 1.73) artistic occupations.

In addition, first-degree relatives of people with bipolar disorder were more likely than those in the control group to have a creative profession, especially scientific professions.

People with schizophrenia had no increased rate of overall creative professions compared with control patients, but they did have an increased rate of visual artistic occupations (OR, 1.30; 95% CI, 1.13 - 1.49).

Unipolar depression was not associated with an increased likelihood of having a creative profession.

Maintaining Creativity
"I think the study stresses the importance of treating all patients individually, and with the aim of finding the optimal treatment with regards to effectiveness, while minimizing the adverse effects that medication can have on positive aspects of psychiatric disorders," Dr. Kyaga said.

"We often encounter the suggestion that lithium reduces creativity in patients with bipolar disorder and that adherence therefore is difficult. Now we can say that it is true that bipolar disorder is in fact associated with increased creativity, but we also know from previous research that terminating treatment with lithium in bipolar disorder will, in the long run, disrupt creative behavior," he continued.

"We therefore need to pay close attention to what patients tell us while being treated, so that we can find a regimen that will work for them to prevent the disastrous consequences of severe psychiatric disorder, while providing them opportunities to uphold their creative behaviors in the long run," Dr. Kyaga said.

In an accompanying editorial, Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD, the Dalio Family Professor in Mood Disorders and professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, writes that Dr. Kyaga and colleagues give support to accumulating evidence showing a disproportionately high rate of mental illness among creative individuals.

She agrees that it is essential to develop treatments that minimize the adverse effects of medication on the positive effects of mood disorders.

"Bipolar illness is devastating and this should remain the central focus of our scientific and clinical work," Dr. Jamison writes. "But while doing so, we need to keep in mind the anciently observed thin partition between disease and imagination."

Dr. Kyaga and Dr. Jameson have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
 
Br J Psychiatry. 2011;199:351-352, 373-379. Abstract, Editorial


Source: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/753286?sssdmh=dm1.733024&src=nldne

Coffee consumption could reduce risk for skin cancer

Drinking more than three cups of coffee a day could significantly reduce a person's risk for basal cell carcinoma (BCC), suggest study findings.


"Given the nearly 1 million new cases of BCC diagnosed each year in the United States, daily dietary factors with even small protective effects may have great public health impact," explained study author Fengju Song, from Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, in a press statement.

"Our study indicates that coffee consumption may be an important option to help prevent BCC," he said.

The researchers analyzed data for 72,921 people in the Nurses' Health Study and 39,976 from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study who were followed up from 1984-2008 and 1986-2008, respectively, to assess links between coffee consumption and skin cancer.

Across both cohorts, 25,480 cases of incident skin cancer were reported over the follow-up periods. Of these, 22,786 were BCC, 1953 were squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), and 741 were melanoma.

Presenting the data at the 10th American Association for Cancer Research International Conference, Song reported that coffee consumption was significantly inversely associated with BCC in women, but not in men.

More specifically, compared with women who drank less than one cup of coffee a month (lowest consumption), those who drank more than three cups a day (highest consumption) had a 20% lower relative risk for BCC.
There was a trend for a decreased risk for BCC in men in the highest versus the lowest category for coffee consumption, but it was not statistically significant.

When caffeine consumption was considered separately, both women and men in the highest consumption category had significantly reduced risk for BCC compared with those in the lowest category, with relative risk reductions of 18% and 13%, respectively.

Given the further finding that no significant reduction in risk for BCC was seen in people drinking higher versus lower amounts of decaffeinated coffee, the researchers conclude that the observed protective effect is likely to be due to increased caffeine consumption rather than coffee consumption per se.

"Mouse studies have shown that oral or topical caffeine promotes elimination of Ultraviolet-damaged keratinocytes via apoptosis (programmed cell death) and markedly reduces subsequent SCC development," Song said.

"However, in our cohort analysis, we did not find any inverse association between coffee consumption and the risk for SCC."

He concluded that additional studies are needed to investigate the underlying mechanism of the protective effect of coffee consumption in more detail.


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Source: http://www.medwire-news.md/66/95455/Dermatology/Coffee_consumption_could_reduce_risk_for_basal_cell_carcinoma.html

More evidence chocolate lowers stroke risk

Chocolate lovers may have another reason to indulge. A new study shows that consuming chocolate on a regular basis may decrease stroke risk by 20%.

New data on women studied in the Swedish Mammography Cohort found an inverse association between chocolate consumption and total stroke, as well as a trend to reduction in both hemorrhagic stroke and cerebral infarction subtypes.

"Even consuming a relatively small amount of chocolate had quite a large impact on stroke risk," lead investigator Susanna Larsson, PhD, from the National Institute of Environmental Medicine in Stockholm, Sweden, said in a news release. "But women reporting the highest amount of chocolate consumption [66.5 g] — equivalent to about 2 chocolate bars a week — had a significantly reduced risk of stroke, suggesting that higher intakes are necessary for a potentially protective effect."

The results appear in the October 18 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Asked by Medscape Medical News to comment on the findings, Philip Gorelick, MD, from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago, called the work "provocative."

"Interestingly, women with hypertension had a reduction of stroke risk with chocolate consumption that was not statistically significant, whereas those without hypertension had a statistically significant risk reduction for stroke," he noted. "Higher chocolate consumption seemed to be most beneficial in relation to stroke reduction."

The study included 33,372 women enrolled in the population-based Swedish Mammography Cohort. Using a validated food-frequency questionnaire, the researchers asked participants to disclose how often on average they consumed chocolate and a variety of other foods during the previous year.

Investigators then stratified the women into categories ranging from never eating chocolate to those who indulged 3 or more times a week and examined the risk for stroke during a mean follow-up of 10 years, adjusting for major risk factors associated with stroke.

The researchers identified 1549 strokes. Of these, 1200 were cerebral infarctions, 224 were hemorrhagic strokes, and 125 were unspecified. Chocolate consumption was inversely associated with risk for total stroke, cerebral infarction, and hemorrhagic stroke.

"The difference between stroke subtypes was not significant, and deserves further study," Dr. Larsson said. "It does appear from the data that the association between chocolate consumption and stroke is expected to be stronger with higher concentration of cocoa in the chocolate."

Chocolate is thought to have cardiovascular benefits resulting from the flavonoids in cocoa that have antioxidant properties. Antioxidants protect the body from damage caused by free radicals and can suppress oxidation of low-density lipoprotein. Dark chocolate consumption has also been shown to reduce blood pressure, which is a strong risk factor for stroke, as well as improve endothelial and platelet function and heighten insulin resistance.

Indulgence in chocolate in moderation remains a reasonable approach.

Still, Dr. Larsson cautions that chocolate, and especially chocolate bars, are high in sugar, fat, and calories and should therefore be consumed in moderation. "Choose dark chocolate," she said, "which is usually lower in sugar and has higher flavonoid content."

On the surface, the results may be good news for women who are chocolate lovers, as they may be protected from stroke, Dr. Gorelick noted.

"One must keep in mind, however, that food-frequency studies focus on individual food components and provide useful information, but may not account for the totality of dietary experience." Overall, scores reflecting many dietary components may be a better indicator of risk for cardiovascular disease and other chronic disease, he suggests.

"For the time being, it is prudent to eat a heart-healthy diet, such as that recommended by the American Heart Association, and not get caught up in overeating chocolates in hopes of warding off strokes," he added. "Diets rich in fruits and vegetables and low in fats such as saturated fats are likely to be the best bet. Indulgence in chocolate in moderation remains a reasonable approach."

This study was supported by the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research, the Swedish Research Committee for Infrastructure, and a research fellow grant from the Karolinska Institutet. The investigators and outside commentators have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.


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Source: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/752446?sssdmh=dm1.729594&src=nldne


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An egg a day raises risk of diabetes

Photo Credit: zole4

People who eat eggs every day may substantially increase their risk of type 2 diabetes, researchers here said.

Men with the highest level of egg consumption -- at seven or more per week -- were 58% more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who did not eat eggs, and women were 77% more likely to become diabetic if they ate at least an egg a day, Luc Djoussé, M.D., D.Sc., of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard, and colleagues reported online in Diabetes Care.

Levels of egg intake above one a week also incrementally increased diabetes risk in both men and women (both P<0.0001 for trend), the researchers said.

Eggs are a major source of dietary cholesterol (about 200 mg per egg) and add about 1.5 g of saturated fat each to the diet, both of which would be expected to increase diabetes risk, they said.

But each egg also contributes about 0.7 g of polyunsaturated fat, which may confer a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, the researchers noted.

The limited, primarily animal model, evidence for an effect of eggs or dietary cholesterol on glucose metabolism has been inconsistent, they added.

To sort out the effects, the researchers analyzed two large prospective trials that included food frequency questionnaires.

Their analysis included 20,703 male physicians without baseline diabetes from the Physicians' Health Study I (1982-2007) and 36,295 similarly diabetes-free female health professionals from the Women's Health Study (1992-2007).

Both studies were originally designed as randomized trials of vitamin supplementation and aspirin for prevention of heart disease.

Over a mean follow-up of 20.0 years in men and 11.7 years in women, 1,921 men and 2,112 women developed type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes was more common in men and women who reported eating more than the average one egg a week.

After adjustment for traditional diabetes risk factors and compared with no egg consumption at the 95% confidence interval, the hazard ratios for type 2 diabetes in men were:

9% for less than one egg a week (hazard ratio 1.09, 0.87 to 1.37)
9% for one egg a week (HR 1.09, 0.88 to 1.34)
18% for two to four eggs a week (HR 1.18, 0.95 to 1.45)
46% for five to six eggs per week (HR 1.46, 1.14 to 1.86)
58% for seven or more eggs each week (HR 1.58, 1.25 to 2.01)

Updating egg consumption with longer follow-up among men strengthened the associations to an almost twofold risk for those in the near daily or higher intake groups (HR 1.77, 95% CI 1.39 to 2.26, and HR 1.99, 95% CI 1.23 to 3.23, respectively).

For women, the multivariate-adjusted risks, also at the 95% confidence interval, compared with no egg intake were:

6% for less than one egg per week (HR 1.06, 0.92 to 1.22)
-3% for one egg a week (HR 0.97, 0.83 to 1.12)
19% for two to four eggs per week (HR 1.19, 1.03 to 1.38)
18% for five to six eggs a week (HR 1.18, 0.88 to 1.58)
77% for seven or more per week (HR 1.77, 1.28 to 2.43)

Data on dietary cholesterol available in the female health professional study showed higher diabetes risk with rising dietary cholesterol with hazard ratios increasing to 1.28 (95% CI 1.10 to 1.50) in the highest quintile (P<0.0001 for trend).

Adjustment for dietary cholesterol attenuated the association between diabetes and egg consumption, whereas saturated fat was not associated with type 2 diabetes and did not alter the diabetes-egg link.

The effects did not appear to be limited to those with high carbohydrate diets, hypercholesterolemia, or high body mass index.

However, the researchers acknowledged that the data did not include repeat fasting glucose, fasting insulin, and other biomarkers of glucose metabolism to "comprehensively examine possible physiologic mechanisms."

The observational studies may also have been limited by self-reporting and residual confounding, they noted.

The generalizablity may have been limited as well by the homogeneous, primarily Caucasian health professional population, which may have different behaviors than the general population, Dr. Djoussé's group said.

"Given the societal burden of type 2 diabetes," they concluded, "confirmation of these findings in other populations and exploration of possible underlying biological mechanisms are warranted."

The study was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

The researchers reported no conflicts of interest.

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Source: http://www.medpagetoday.com/cardiology/diabetes/11883?xid=ob_cc_Diabetes

Vitamin E tocotrienols protect the heart and prevent metabolic syndrome

Photo credit: Kittikun Atsawintarangkul

Few people pay attention to the importance of vitamin E, much less to the multi-fractioned mirror image versions of the vitamin known as isomers (consisting of tocotrienols and tocopherols).

Vitamin E has long been known as a nutrient that may play a role in maintaining heart health, but extensive new research explains that the vitamin in all its potent forms is required to dramatically lower the risk of heart disease and heart attack.

Recent studies also confirm that the nutrient family may play a crucial role in thwarting the effects of metabolic syndrome, precursor to the diabetes epidemic. Health-minded individuals may need to supplement with a full spectrum form of the vitamin to obtain the sufficient quantities needed to avert the multitude of chronic killer diseases that plaque millions today.

An ever expanding detailed body of evidence is mounting to support the importance of the tocotrienol fraction of vitamin E. While all eight isomers are required for optimal health and disease prevention, the four tocotrienols have emerged as critical components shown to influence LDL cholesterol particle size and oxidation rate. Researchers publishing the result of a study in the journal Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry explain that tocotrienols protect the heart against adverse gene signaling that is a consequence of elevated cholesterol.


Study Found Vitamin E Tocotrienols Lowered Damage to Heart Muscle by 75%A study was designed using rabbits placed on a high cholesterol diet for a period of 60 days. The test animals were supplemented with alpha, gamma, or delta tocotrienols for 30 days, and then subjected to experimentally induced heart attack.

Measures of serum cholesterol were cut in half in the rabbits on gamma tocotrienol and nearly in half on those receiving the alpha tocotrienol isomer. The delta tocotrienol form did not exert any effect on cholesterol. Additionally, gamma tocotrienol reduced damage to the heart by 77% and alpha tocotrienol resulted in 67% less damage to the critical heart muscle.

Metabolic syndrome is a group of symptoms closely associated with the development of diabetes. People exhibiting metabolic syndrome characteristics run more than twice the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Researchers from the University of Southern Queensland in Australia found "Tocotrienols improved lipid profiles and reduced atherosclerotic lesions, decreased blood glucose and glycated hemoglobin concentrations, normalized blood pressure, and inhibited adipogenesis."

Researchers determined that a variety of different receptors or genetic signaling mechanisms are involved that can prevent the dangerous systemic inflammation known to precipitate heart disease and diabetes.

Natural sources of vitamin E tocotrienols include most varieties of nuts and seeds as well as coconut oil in its unrefined state. Most people will want to ensure adequate intake of this critical nutritional fraction by including a full-spectrum supplement to improve heart health and prevent metabolic syndrome.

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Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/033922_vitamin_E_metabolic_syndrome.html#ixzz1bJlIwEd7