Mitoquinone vs Heart Disease

…and other items from this week’s health news:

Reverse the signs of metabolic stress with this supplement

Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disorder that not only kills a lot of people directly, but also brings with it comorbidities that kill even more. One of the comorbidities high on the list is an increased risk of heart disease (another metabolic disorder—or rather, group of metabolic disorders, since heart disease is an umbrella term), including a 5x increased risk of heart failure.

In a recent study, participants with type 2 diabetes who took daily 40mg mitoquinone (an over-the-counter antioxidant supplement) along with their regular diabetes treatments not only had healthier heart function after four months compared to those who did not, but also, it reversed early signs of heart failure by improving how the heart processes energy and relaxes between beats.

Specifically, those taking mitoquinone had better heart energy efficiency both at rest and during exercise.

Read in full: Over-the-counter supplement could prevent heart disease in type 2 diabetes patients

Related: The Many Benefits Of Taking PQQ ← this one’s a research review we did for a different quinone supplement; in this case, pyrroloquinoline quinone, which is also very good

Cervical cancer screening still not fun, but much more tolerable by post than in a clinic

Getting a pap smear test is not usually on many people’s lists of “fun things to do”. However, a recent study in the US found that mail-in self-collection tests more than doubled cervical cancer screening participation among never- and under-screened US women:

❝41% of those who received self-collection tests and a telephone reminder participated in cervical cancer screening, compared to just 17% of those who received only a telephone reminder. Adding patient navigation support to self-collection tests and the telephone reminder further increased participation rates to 47%.❞

So, while this should probably not become the only method available (i.e. clinic tests should still remain an option; the point of at-home test kits is to remove barriers to participation, but some people may be unable to safely receive a test kit at their home, and/or unable to safely do the self-test, and the option of an in-clinic test removes those barriers), this would, if rolled out on a larger scale (remember, this was just a study, with 2,474 participants, which suffice to say, is not the entirety of the female population of the US), greatly reduce cervical cancer deaths.

Read in full: Mailed self-collection HPV tests more than double cervical cancer screening rates, study shows

Related: Everything You Need To Know About Cervical Cancer

A biological axis of age-related social isolation?

Social engagement is a critical factor in developing and maintaining not just good mental health on an emotional level, but also in maintaining brain health, and also not dying early. It’s been shown in many studies that social isolation is a strong risk factor in cognitive decline and all-cause mortality.

It’s generally been assumed that the reason older people tend to have less of a social life than younger people is circumstantial, for example due to more similarly-aged friends dying, and also because disabilities, something that becomes more likely as we get older, may keep us from getting out and about, and/or keep our less mobile friends from visiting us.

However, researchers have found there may be a biological component too. They analyzed data from 196 healthy adults (aged 20–77) using sociability questionnaires and resting-state fMRI scans, and found interesting associations in two key brain networks:

• Age-Positive Network (APN): connectivity increases with age and this increase is linked to lower sociability. It includes limbic-insular and ventral attention–somatomotor connections.
• Age-Negative Network (ANN): connectivity decreases with age and this decrease is also linked to lower sociability. It includes frontoparietal–default mode and subcortical–parietal connections.

This suggests that aging itself alters brain connectivity in a way that diminishes the brain faculties essential for sustaining relationships.

That’s not a cheery note to finish on, but it can be taken as an extra reason to look after our brain health, and keep our brains young!

Read in full: Age-related brain changes reduce social-engagement behaviors, research finds

Related: How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation

Take care!