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Eight essential nutrients make up the suite of B vitamins also known as the B complex. Research has revealed that these B vitamins influence a vast spectrum of human health and disease. "It's hard to study the B vitamins in isolation," says gastroenterologist Joel Mason. "Four of these B-vitamins cooperate as co-factors in many critical activities in cells in what we call 'one carbon metabolism.'" One of the most active areas for B vitamin research is cognitive health. By the age of 75–80, 40% of people have a diminished ability to absorb food-bound B12, says Mason. This deficiency leads to...

A team of health and nutrition specialists has found that people on a ketogenic diet may experience an increase in LDL cholesterol levels, higher apolipoprotein B levels and reductions in certain gut bacteria. In their study, volunteers went on a ketogenic diet for a month so the researchers could study its impact on their bodies. A ketogenic diet consists of a drastic reduction in consumption of carbohydrates, replacing them with fats. In this new effort, the research team suspected that the diet may also lead to increases in LDL cholesterol levels and possibly other problems. To find out if that...

A group of researchers have revealed that adding Vitamin B2 to cells that have been exposed to aging stress increases the mitochondria's ability to produce energy and prevents cell aging. It has previously been shown that the accumulation of old (i.e. senescent) cells in the body causes age-related disorders and whole-body aging. Therefore, there is the potential to prevent and ameliorate age-related disorders and extend people's healthy lifespans using supplements and medicines containing Vitamin B2 to suppress cell senescence. This research group discovered an anti-aging phenomenon whereby the cell's ability to absorb Vitamin B2 is increased in response to stress....

Liver cancer is one of the most frequent cancers in the world, and with the worst prognosis...The most aggressive and frequent form of liver cancer is hepato-cellular carcinoma (HCC); little is known about it and there are relatively few treatment options. Researchers from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), have produced the first mouse model that faithfully reproduces the steps of human HCC development, from the appearance of the first lesions in the liver to the development of metastasis. The results, published in the prestigious journal Cancer Cell, indicate that diets rich in nicotinamide riboside, a derivative of vitamin...

3-year outcomes of clinical trial of collagen crosslinking treatment for keratoconus highlighted at American Academy of Ophthalmology 2011 Annual MeetingORLANDO, Fla. – October 24, 2011 – Patients in the United States who have the cornea-damaging disease keratoconus may soon be able to benefit from a new treatment that is already proving effective in Europe and other parts of the world. The treatment, called collagen crosslinking, improved vision in almost 70 percent of patients treated for keratoconus in a recent three-year clinical trial in Milan, Italy. The treatment is in clinical trials in the United States and is likely to receive...

WASHINGTON - B vitamin deficiencies can cause a range of serious health effects, including spinal defects in children born to women with below-normal levels of folic acid and anemia in people not getting enough B12. That‘s why a two-step method of diagnosing those deficiencies that three medical school doctors patented in 1990 has become so widely used. It‘s performed tens of millions of times a year, at a cost of just a dollar or two, by laboratory testing companies nationwide. Even more surprising is that the Supreme Court may dredge up a bombshell question not asked when the lower...

Vitamin B supplements may help people to fight depression, research suggests. Scientists found that people with depression responded better to treatment if they had high levels of vitamin B12 in their blood. They suggest taking vitamin B supplements may be a way to boost the effectiveness of anti-depressants. The research, by Kuopio University in Finland, is published in the journal BMC Psychiatry. As many as three in four cases of depression are neither recognized nor treated. Amelia Mustapha The researchers monitored 115 outpatients who were receiving treatment for depression over a six-month period. They measured vitamin B12 levels in the...