EGCG Green Tea Extract has some specific benefits for people with Down Syndrome, so we use it with our daughter (GABA antagonist and blocks the same GABA receptor -recombinant alpha1beta2gamma2L GABA(A) receptor- as
Bilobalide. It also according to one study at Pubmed, normalizes impaired long term potentiation to normal values in Ts65Dn Down Syndrome mouse model. P.S. people with Down syndrome usually show Alzheimer’s like changes in the brain in teen years, and dementia in 20′s and above…we hope to prevent this and alter her life’s course.)

Just wanted to share the Non DS info I have saved about EGCG

1) Preventative against Parkinsons’s and Alzheimer’s brain changes. From an article about the study: “ECGC binds directly to unfolded proteins at a very early stage and thus prevents their conversion into toxic aggregates [Amyloid Plaque]. Instead non-toxic, unstructured round aggregates of a new type are formed, presumably by an alternative folding cascade.”
http://www.nature.com/nsmb/journal/v15/n6/full/nsmb.1437.html and
http://www.amazing-green-tea.com/green-tea-and-alzheimers-disease-egcg-turn-plague-harmless.html

2) Treatment potential for Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, and Parkinson’s when combined with another drug
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091203091856.htm

3) FISH OIL enhances the anti amyloid effects of EGCG in mice
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20096749

I take fish oil capsules daily to keep my blood pressure under control. If I stop taking it for a few days, my blood pressure soars.

For me, fish oil is the only vitamin/mineral/supplement that I have seen tangible results from.

he gives several suggestions above

did you try them yet, and have they helped??

[...] are higher than Shanghai’s, and it’s PM2.5 levels are likely to be too. The reason is geographical: Shanghai is by the sea, which helps to rapidly clear the air, while Beijing lies in a valley [...]

Steven, you keep me on my toes! Yes, my “2 years” was a bit too casual. This was from a too-casual interpretation of my informal correspondence with Dr Pope, but his actual message was what you said above: about 2.5-3 years of lost life (depending on age) when the relative risk is 1.25. Remember how Beijing’s RR were 1.32 and 1.49, a bit higher, so it’s safe to say the years lost are slightly higher than that — but by exactly how much I’m not sure from the study, as I don’t see the formula in his paper where we can play with the numbers.

But as for quoting previous Chinese premiers, it may look good in print but did he base that quote on science or was it just a soundbite that became “fact”?

Thanks for your helpful response and posting a link to the Dr. Pope (2000）EHP article. I look forward to reviewing it in more detail. On an initial read, Figure 3, looks quite interesting. I may be reading the text accompanying the figure incorrectly, but it seems to say that a cumulative RR of 1.25 for air pollution reduces life expectancy by 2.5, 2.9, and 3.1 years, respectively, depending on whether exposure starts at 45 years, age 1 year, and at birth, respectively. Where are you getting the “for Beijing, the loss of life is around 2 years“ from in the article?

Pope concludes that article by saying: “Loss of life estimates due to pollution exposure of 1-3 years for lifelong residents of highly polluted cities, however, is not unreasonable, especially in some of the more polluted cities in the world.” From the WHO data Beijing appears to be one of the most polluted cities in the world, so an estimate of approximately three years of life lost for Beijing would seem to be consistent with the article, including text accompanying Figure 3, and its conclusion.

“Only” three years of life lost would still work out (roughly) to about a day of life lost per month as a penalty for living in Beijing compared to somewhere with clean air. Does that number sound reasonable?

My understanding is that in the last dozen years since this Pope (2000) paper was published there has been considerable research finding that the health impacts of air pollution are more significant than previously believe. I need to look into this some more.

Part of the reason that I used the “five year” number in the China Dialogue article was to be consistent with Zhu Rongji’s comments: “Back in 1999, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji stated his own fears that air pollution in Beijing would shorten his life “at least five years” – and fine particulate concentrations have not improved since then.”

Hi Steven.

Great comments! The main issue here is comparing two metrics (life expectancy, or “Years of Life Lost” versus relative risks (RR). I think life expectancy is actually a lot more user-friendly to “consumers” while RR is best for stats experts…Doctor Pope actually has another paper I just got which may finally have some answers: http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1289/ehp.00108s4713 If you look at Figure 3 it calculates actual survival curves: so for relative risks of 1.25-1.4, which is what we have above for Beijing, the loss of life is around 2 years.

Notice how that’s a LOT lower than your “5 year” quote from your excellent paper a few weeks ago in Chinadialogue (http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/4661-Beijing-s-hazardous-blue-sky ) This “5 years” number got a lot of attention in the press but as I was worried about in my article here, the actual data as Pope has here is actually far less dramatic.

This also brings up another issue; if such answers are already known in a published paper from 10 years ago, why the heck does no reporter or expert ever mention this until now? Why are we ALL scrambling around looking for this data? I think it’s partly a failure of all public health agencies, including the WHO, for not effectively “dumbing down” arcane but important data into “user-friendly” format.

Greetings Richard,

Thanks for sharing your recent article. I am really happy to see that finally someone is taking the time to do this really critical analysis. Even after reading your article a couple times now and playing with excel for awhile I am still confused. I am exhausted at the moment, so my apologies if there is a straightforward answer to this that I am totally missing.

Main question: How does variation in combined lung cancer RR and heart disease death RR compare to Years of Life Lost (YOLL) and Pope’s 2009 NEJM study?

For example, Pope’s 2009 NEJM findings were that a decrease in PM2.5 of 10u/gm3 increased life expectancy by 0.61 years.

Let’s look at two cities you list:
Paris with a PM2.5 concentration of 22.9 has a lung cancer RR of 1.17 and a heard disease death RR of 1.21
and, London with a PM2.5 concentration of 13.5 has a lung cancer RR of 1.11 and a heart death disease RR of 1.19.

So the ~10ug/m3 (22.9-13.6= 9.4) change between Paris and London resulted in a change in lung cancer RR of 0.06 and a heart death disease RR of 0.02.

Yet, the ranges between 23 and 13 (approximately) are the same that Pope focused on in his study finding an increase in life expectancy of 0.61 years.

So how does the lung cancer RR variation of 0.06 and the heart death RR variation of 0.02 convert to the 0.61 years? I see those minor variations in RR and it seems insignificant on a personal level, but 0.61 years is a lot.

Thanks again for your work, and I look forward to your response.

Steve”

No, the exam is never waived…

Dr. Saint Cyr -

As always, we are extremely grateful for your support. It has been a fascinating journey working alongside you and others to grow the western base of knowledge of China’s evolving healthcare picture.

Damjan