A dietary supplement leads to remarkable regression in atherosclerotic lesions

Routine dietary supplementation with tricaprin results in coronary artery plaque regression and resolution of symptoms in patients with triglyceride deposit cardiomyovasculopathy

Osaka University (Japan), January 4, 2023

When we were little, our parents told us to take our vitamins so we could grow big and strong. Now, researchers from Japan find that one particular supplement may even fix a broken heart.

In a study that published recently in European Heart Journal, researchers from Osaka University have revealed that a dietary supplement can dramatically reverse the signs of heart disease in a subset of patients.

Coronary artery disease (CAD), which involves narrowing or even closing of the arteries of the heart and often leads to heart attack, is a major cause of death worldwide. Despite the existence of treatments such as cholesterol-lowering drugs and drug-eluting stents—a new stent technology for local drug delivery—death from this condition is still common, and some patients appear to be resistant to treatment.

“Almost 15 years ago we identified a new type of CAD called triglyceride deposit cardiomyovasculopathy (TGCV), in which the coronary arteries are occluded by triglyceride deposits generated by defective intracellular breakdown of triglycerides in vascular smooth muscle cells,” says lead author of the study Ken-ichi Hirano. “This mechanism makes TGCV distinct from classic cholesterol-induced atherosclerosis, and accounts for patients who are resistant to standard remedies for CAD.”

The researchers had developed diagnostic criteria for TGCV, and shown that this condition is especially prevalent in patients with diabetes mellitus and those who have undergone hemodialysis. Despite the ability to diagnose this condition, however, an effective treatment for these patients remained elusive.

“Now we report a remarkable regression of diffuse coronary atherosclerosis in two patients with TGCV,” states Ken-ichi Hirano. “Both had suffered from refractory chest pain and diabetes until diagnosis with TGCV, and subsequent dietary intake of tricaprin led to symptom relief.”

Tricaprin is a commercially available food supplement that promotes lipid breakdown by heart muscle cells. In addition to relieving these patients’ troublesome and painful symptoms, tricaprin also resulted in remarkable regression of the triglyceride build-up in the blood vessels of the heart.

“While atherosclerosis regression following decreased serum lipid levels is well-described, this is the first report of regression due to increased triglyceride lipolysis within cells, and as such is a conceptually novel treatment for coronary atherosclerosis,” says Ken-ichi Hirano.

Given that not all patients respond to current treatments for CAD, the findings from this study pave the way toward establishing a multi-faceted approach to CAD treatment. The dramatic results achieved by administering a readily available dietary supplement hold promise for patients who would otherwise continue to suffer the debilitating effects of this disease.

Fish oil improves body composition, strength, performance in older individuals

Southeast University (China), January 4 2023. 

The December 2022 issue of Age and Ageing published a secondary analysis of findings from a randomized, double-blind trial that found improvements in body composition, muscle strength and physical performance among older men and women who consumed a supplement containing fish oil compared to a placebo.

The six-month trial included 187 men and women aged 60 and older. Ninety participants received 4 grams fish oil per day that provided 1.34 grams of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and 1.07 grams docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) while the remainder received placebo capsules. Waist, hip and thigh circumferences; height, weight, blood pressure, body composition (total skeletal muscle mass, appendicular skeletal muscle mass, body fat mass and fat free mass), muscle strength, physical performance and blood chemistry values were measured before and after the treatment period.

Compared to the placebo group, thigh circumference increased among those who received fish oil, while waist and hip circumferences remained relatively the same. Total skeletal muscle mass, appendicular skeletal muscle mass, muscle strength (as evaluated by hand grip strength measurement) and physical performance (which was demonstrated by the ability to rise from a chair and walk) also improved among fish oil-supplemented participants compared with the placebo group. 

The supplemented group additionally experienced a decrease in serum triglycerides and an increase in HDL cholesterol. 

“Despite the critical role of resistance training and supplementation of anabolic agent (e.g., testosterone and GH) in the management of skeletal muscle mass and function, nutritional supplements might be a preferred method to prevent the declines in muscle mass, strength and physical performance,” Dengfeng Xu and colleagues at Southeast University in China suggested. 

“Our present trial demonstrated that a 6-month fish oil-derived omega-3 PUFA supplementation could beneficially affect the body composition, muscle strength, physical performance and serum lipid profiles in older people,” they concluded.

Gut bacteria may play a role in diabetes

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, January 4, 2023

One type of bacteria found in the gut may contribute to the development of Type 2 diabetes, while another may protect from the disease, according to early results from an ongoing, prospective study led by investigators at Cedars-Sinai.

The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Diabetes, found people with higher levels of a bacterium called Coprococcus tended to have higher insulin sensitivity, while those whose microbiomes had higher levels of the bacterium Flavonifractor tended to have lower insulin sensitivity. 

For years, investigators have sought to understand why people develop diabetes by studying the composition of the microbiome, which is a collection of microorganisms that include fungi, bacteria and viruses that live in the digestive tract. The microbiome is thought to be affected by medications and diet. Studies have also found that people who don’t process insulin properly have lower levels of a certain type of bacteria that produce a type of fatty acid called butyrate. 

For the most recent study to come out of this ongoing trial, investigators analyzed data from 352 people without known diabetes who were recruited from the Wake Forest Baptist Health System in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Study participants were asked to attend three clinic visits and collect stool samples prior to the visits. Investigators analyzed data collected at the first visit. They conducted genetic sequencing on the stool samples, for example, to study the participants’ microbiomes, and specifically look for bacteria that earlier studies have found to be associated with insulin resistance. Each participant also filled out a diet questionnaire and took an oral glucose tolerance test, which was used to determine ability to process glucose.

Investigators found 28 people had oral glucose tolerance results that met the criteria for diabetes. They also found that 135 people had prediabetes, a condition in which a person’s blood-sugar levels are higher than normal but not high enough to meet the definition of diabetes. 

The research team analyzed associations between 36 butyrate-producing bacteria found in the stool samples and a person’s ability to maintain normal levels of insulin. They controlled for factors that could also contribute to a person’s diabetes risk, such as age, sex, body mass index and race. Coprococcus and related bacteria formed a network of bacteria with beneficial effects on insulin sensitivity. Despite being a producer of butyrate, Flavonifractor was associated with insulin resistance; prior work by others have found higher levels of Flavonifractor in the stool of people with diabetes. 

Intermittent fasting can alter expression of genes which influence health and longevity

Salk Institute, January 4, 2023

Studies have consistently shown that time-restricted eating patterns increase lifespan, which explains why intermittent fasting is all the rave in the dieting world. Despite this, the in-depth molecular and systemic explanation for this has remained unclear. Now, Salk Institute researchers have cracked the code on how intermittent fasting affects gene expression across several regions in the body and brain.

“We found that there is a system-wide, molecular impact of time-restricted eating in mice,” says Professor Satchidananda Panda, the study’s senior author. “Our results open the door for looking more closely at how this nutritional intervention activates genes involved in specific diseases, such as cancer.”

To conduct this work, two groups of mice were fed high-calorie diets, but one group could only eat within a nine-hour window. The other had access to food at any time. After seven weeks, the team collected samples from 22 organ groups and the brain throughout different times of the day or night to analyze them for genetic changes. They included a variety of samples from places like the liver, stomach, lungs, heart, adrenal gland, hypothalamus, kidney, and intestines. They ultimately found that 70 percent of the genes responded to time-restricted eating patterns.

“By changing the timing of food, we were able to change the gene expression not just in the gut or in the liver, but also in thousands of genes in the brain,” says Panda.

Additionally, time-restricted eating affected almost 40 percent of genes within the adrenal gland, hypothalamus, and pancreas — which are all areas important for proper hormone regulation. Maintaining proper hormone balance has consistently been shown to be key in preventing diabetes and stress disorders. Thus, these findings support the notion that time-restricted eating might help manage these conditions better.

Within the digestive system, the diet did not affect every area in the same way. Genes in the upper part of the small intestine were activated by time-restricted eating, but the lower portion was not.

“Circadian rhythms are everywhere in every cell,” Panda concludes. “We found that time-restricted eating synchronized the circadian rhythms to have two major waves: one during fasting, and another just after eating. We suspect this allows the body to coordinate different processes.”

Procrastinators may delay all the way to worse health

DePaul University, January 4 ,2023

College students who routinely cram at the last minute may not only see their grades suffer, but their health, too, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that of more than 3,500 college students they followed, those who scored high on a procrastination scale were more likely to report certain health issues nine months later. The list included body aches, poor sleep, and depression and anxiety symptoms.

“Everyone procrastinates, but not everyone is a procrastinator,” said Joseph Ferrari, a psychology professor at DePaul University in Chicago, who has been studying the subject since the 1980s.

Dragging your feet on doing your taxes, or something equally unpleasant, is normal. Chronic procrastination is different, and it’s not just a benign personality quirk, said Ferrari, who was not involved in the new study.

It’s also common: In his own research, Ferrari has found that about 20% of adults qualify as chronic procrastinators—making it more prevalent than mental health disorders like depression and phobias.

And studies have suggested there are health consequences in the long run: Chronic procrastination has been linked to higher risks of depression and anxiety, as well as physical conditions like high blood pressure and heart disease.

His team wanted to see whether students who ranked high on the procrastination scale were at any greater risk of subsequent mental or physical symptoms than their peers.

Overall, the study found, students at the high end of the procrastination scale were in worse shape nine months later. Compared with their non-procrastinating peers, they reported more problems with depression and anxiety, as well as more upper-body pain. 

They also gave lower ratings to their sleep quality, got less exercise and reported more loneliness than other students did, the findings showed.

Midnight munchies mangle memory 

University of California-Los Angeles, December 23, 2022 

An occasional late-night raid on turkey leftovers might be harmless but new research with mice suggests that making a habit of it could alter brain physiology.

Eating at times normally reserved for sleep causes a deficiency in the type of learning and memory controlled by the hippocampal area of the brain, according to findings in the journal eLife.

Researchers from the Semel Institute in the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) became interested in the cognitive effects of eating at inappropriate hours because it is already known to have an impact on metabolic health, for example leading to a pre-diabetic state.

“We have provided the first evidence that taking regular meals at the wrong time of day has far-reaching effects for learning and memory,” says first author Dawn Loh from the UCLA Laboratory of Circadian and Sleep Medicine.

The current study shows that some learned behaviours are more affected than others. The team tested the ability of mice to recognise a novel object. Mice regularly fed during their sleep-time were significantly less able to recall the object. Long-term memory was also dramatically reduced, demonstrated during a fear conditioning experiment.

Both long-term memory and the ability to recognise a novel object are governed by the hippocampus. The hippocampus plays an important role in our ability to associate senses and emotional experiences with memory and our ability to organise and store new memories.

During an experience, nerve impulses are activated along specific pathways and, if we repeat the experience, the same pathways increase in strength. However, this effect was reduced when food was made available to mice during a six-hour window in the middle of their normal sleep time instead of a six-hour daytime window when the mice were active.

“Modern schedules can lead us to eat around the clock so it is important to understand how the timing of food can impact cogitation.  For the first time, we have shown that simply adjusting the time when food is made available alters the molecular clock in the hippocampus and can alter the cognitive performance of mice.”

Eating at the wrong time also disrupted sleep patterns. The inappropriate feeding schedule resulted in the loss of the normal day/night difference in the amount of sleep although the total time spent asleep over 24 hours was not changed. Sleep became fragmented, with the mice catching up on sleep by grabbing more short naps throughout the day and night.