As a chiropractor who works with athletes, both young and old, and one who preaches a healthy diet in addition to regular chiropractic care, I am often asked by my more active patients about “fuel foods,” especially before a big high school football game or prior to a weekend warrior event. The most frequently asked question is: Are carbohydrates the best source to “fuel my sport”? And, my answer is “yes and no.” If you play sports, it’s important for you to know that even though carbohydrates burn off quickly, and are generally the best source of energy (and I recommend them highly), other factors come into play when the body is under the “stress” of the game. And, while pasta, energy bars, fruits, breads, yogurt, potatoes, cereals, and milk may all be great energy foods to eat before your sport, you should also include high sources of protein, including meat and peanut butter. Why? Because even though carbohydrates give you energy, proteins rebuild your cells and help you to maintain your muscle mass.
Another important thing to remember is that not all carbohydrates are equal. And while healthy fats can be an excellent source of energy during your sport, it isn’t wise before the game to eat fats that digest too slowly, like the fats contained in potato chips, fried foods, doughnuts, candy bars, and other sugary foods. Not only can hard-to-digest fats cause stomach cramping, but these types of fats are hard on the body systems for many reasons.
Maintaining an active lifestyle is important to overall health. But, doing it right and not overdoing it will make a big difference in how well you perform.
As a chiropractor, I recommend daily exercise to all of my patients.Regular moderate exercise improves the health of every system in the human body, including the musculoskeletal system, my specialty. Exercise helps to keep joints mobile, reduces the symptoms of arthritis, increases bone health, and improves muscle performance. In other words, exercise is essential to good health. And, because I know that most of my patients are very busy people, I always suggest that they make exercise as much a necessary part of their day as brushing their teeth or having a nutritious meal, which is to say that they don't need to put on special clothing and head for the gym to get a beneficial workout. That's why I was very interested in an article I just read in the health page of msnbc.com that described the results of a study done on women that linked a moderate activity like walking to a substantial decrease in stroke risk. In addition to walking, the study looked at vigorous activities like running, swimming and biking, but didn't find a link between those activities and the 37 percent reduction in stroke risk that walking provided.
So ladies, take a walk! Do it for your health's sake! For more information on this interesting story, click the link provided above.
As a chiropractor who treats many senior patients suffering from painful back problems, I was very concerned when I read about a new study published this month in The Journal of the American Medical Association that found that the percentage of older adults undergoing a complicated fusion procedure for the painful lower-back condition called spinal stenosis has increased sharply– rising fifteenfold from 2002 to 2007.
This type of fusion procedure is not only complicated, but costly. And worse, it carries three times the rate of life-threatening complications than alternative procedures such as decompression (removal of part of the bone pressing on the nerve) or simple fusion (in which two or three vertebrae are fused and only the front or back of the vertebrae, rather than front and back). And, the bottom line is that earlier studies haven’t found that the complex surgery leads to better results or greater pain relief.
Gentle, non-invasive chiropractic treatment can often relieve the severe back pain caused by spinal stenosis. I fully recommend a short conservative trial of chiropractic care prior to considering most surgeries involving the musculoskeletal system. Any type of surgery carries risks and such risks increase exponentially as we age. But, when a study reveals that a costly, life-threatening surgery does little to relieve pain or improve an individual’s quality of life, in my opinion such a surgery should not even be considered.
As a San Diego Chiropractor, I counsel many individuals who come to my clinic who want to lose weight. I know how hard it can be, and I also know how important it is to lose those extra pounds. Before you let out all the seams in your current wardrobe, there’s something important that you need to know regarding those few seemingly benign extra pounds you may have gained. As we age, they can add up to a large number of health challenges from heart and pulmonary diseases and diabetes to back problems and joint degeneration. Extra pounds put excessive stress on organs, like the heart, not to mention on joints in the low back, hips, and knees. A whopping 62% of men and women in the U.S. are overweight or obese, according to recent studies. That is a very significant number and a truly gigantic national health issue (no pun intended).
Though we try to pretend otherwise, most of us know that the human body has not evolved to carry around surplus weight in the form of body fat. Just an additional 20 or 30 pounds can literally overload and encumber the musculoskeletal system. Excess weight in the abdominal region, for example, requires that the body compensate (counterbalance the weight) by tilting the pelvis forward. The tilt puts pressure on the joints of the low back. Painful inflammation results as this joint compression restricts nerve activity. A larger percentage of men and women that have a heavy midsectionsuffer from low back pain as the result of an impingement of the sciatic nerve or spinal misalignments that constrict nerves as a consequence of weight-bearing stresses. If left untreated, misaligned vertebra in most cases produce new arthritic changes in the spine over time, as well as continue to irritate the degenerative changes that have already taken place.
Here are the ways in which chiropractic treatment can help. Perhaps, it should go without saying that a moderate body weight is essential in order for the musculoskeletal system to act and respond in the way it is built to. Chiropractic treatment can not only ease the pain caused by excess weight compensation, but it can aid in weight reduction. Here’s how. Chiropractic adjustments relieve nerve restrictions in the vertebral column and help to get movement back into the joints of the musculoskeletal system, particularly in the low back, hips, and knees. And, certainly exercise and physical activity will be a lot easier, and more beneficial for the body, when the spine is in alignment and the joints have good movement. Not only will exercise help with weight reduction, but it can actually slow the potential for degenerative changes as the body ages.
Healthcare professionals, like your chiropractor, can talk to you about your diet and exercise alternatives. In addition to caring for people suffering from back pain and joint inflammation, chiropractors can provide proficient suggestions on the particular lifestyle modifications that can help you to stay healthier, more vital, and more active through the years. Arthritis and immobility due to aging don’t have to be compulsory. The human body was created for a lifetime of pain-free movement.
So, if those extra pounds have been sneaking up on you, and they’ve turned into a surprising load of pain, as your San Diego chiropractor and someone who understands, I can help. Make an appointment today!
As a Cincinnati Chiropractor I treat many elders who suffer from balance problems. In fact, nine percent of adults, aged 65 and older, experience dizziness, “wooziness,” and other balance-related conditions. Good balance is essential, of course, in aiding elders in remaining independent and in avoiding falls and encounter injuries that are frequently very serious or even fatal. But, it may surprise you to know that falls contribute to a large number of work-related injuries for individuals younger than 65 years of age, including individuals in their twenties and thirties. That’s right! No one is immune to balance challenges, no matter what their age may be. In fact, those who work in “high places” like construction workers, roofers, oil platform employees, windows cleaners, or anywhere else where a ladder is necessary are in danger of serious injury if their balance is “off.”
The most important action of good balance is to assist us in managing and maintaining our body position, whether standing still or moving, and whether on the ground or high up on a platform. Good balance helps us to walk without staggering, arise from a sitting position without teetering, and to climb stairs without missing a step. To sum it up, then, good balance is crucial to our health and well-being.
What is commongly surprising to some individuals is that they could have a balance dysfunction without any idea of how significant it may be. Sometimes an individual is able to “shake off” a dizzy feeling and it may not return for a while. The problem is that when sudden dizziness comes about at a critical moment, it is too late to shake it off and a fall is most likely unpreventable.
The sensation by some people that they, themselves, are spinning or that objects around them are moving is termed “vertigo.” Close to 40 percent of people in the U.S. will have at least one episode of dizziness that is serious enough to seek out help from a health professional, such as your Chiropractor in Cincinnati. However, if you are involved in any of the activities listed above, it is an extremely good idea for you to have a chiropractor check your balance prior to an acute episode of dizziness, instead of as a response to such an episode. Why? Because as a chiropractor, I can not only check your balance, and make adjustments if needed, but can assist you in maintaining good balance in the future. And, naturally, having good balance may save you from serious injury or worse.
Balance disorders are serious at any age. If you feel as if you might have a possible balance disorder, it is extremely important for you to be diagnosed and treated without delay. In fact, if you can answer “yes” to any of the following questions, even if the experience is seldom or infrequent, it is highly recommended that you discuss the symptom(s) with a chiropractor as soon as possible:
• Have you experienced a feeling of being “unsteady?”
• Has the room seemed to spin around you?
• Has there ever a time when you felt as if you were moving when you knew you were standing still?
• Have you lost your balance and/or fallen down?
• Have you ever felt as if you were falling?
• Has your vision ever become “blurred?”
• Have you ever felt disoriented, or lost a sense of time, place or identity?
As discussed above, balance problems are not confined to a particular age group. Our falling down is an ever-present possibility from the time we learn to walk until we take our final step If you work in a job that makes your falling down a “critical” event, you need to have your balance checked. Don’t wait until it’s too late! If you’re in the Cincinnati area, give Cincinnati Chiropractic a call today!
As a chiropractor who believes in the human body’s ability to heal itself, often with the aid of natural, non-invasive, drug-free treatment, I am always dismayed, but never surprised, at some of the pernicious claims and tenacious effrontery of drug companies when it comes to pain killers, in general, and the “treatment” of a number of conditions that don’t get any better with drugs or are made worse by them. And, as a chiropractor who has helped hundreds of headache sufferers not only get temporary, but permanent relief, when I read about a drug study for yet another pain med that will likely keep headache sufferers numbed to their pain, but in the process numb to the rest of their life as well, I feel like shouting from the rooftops: “Try chiropractic first!” But, today, when I read about a study, sponsored by Merck (who also makes the product), I really felt compelled to say that this particular study is shamefully playing to the fears of migraine sufferers when, in fact, the drug itself only offers “less severity” at best when it comes to a migraine headache.
The study, conducted by Dr. X. Henry Hu of Merck & Co.and colleagues, found that one in five migraine sufferers had “avoided” a work-related commitment because they were afraid of getting a migraine, while 27 percent reported canceling a work commitment for this reason, and round 28 percent said they had avoided or canceled social commitments due to fear of migraines.
I have treated many patients who told me how much they’d “feared” the onset of a migraine and limited their activities in life because of that fear, so I do understand how devastating the fear migraines can be. And, yet, the only “solution” this study offered?
This study is “important,” said Dr. Hu, the unpredictability of migraines could contribute to people’s anxiety and fear about them and early treatment with migraine drugs called triptans can help reduce headache severity. “Because of the lack of predictability of future migraine attacks, migraine sufferers may benefit from increased education on the importance of keeping medications available at all times,” they concluded.
My conclusion? If you suffer from migraines, give your chiropractor a call today!
SOURCE: Headache, published online March 25, 2010.
Chiropractic News: Chiropractic Marketing internet radio show, Chiropractic Masters on Blog Talk Radio, interviews expert chiropractors around the country. The first episode featured Ventura Chiropractor, Dr. Steven Alff. Dr. Alff talked about spinal decompression and how it benefits his patients.
Does your refrigerator light stay on when you close the frig door? No? Well, new research is suggesting that perhaps it should! As a chiropractor, I’m all about “total wellness,” which means that I believe in routine chiropractic care along with a healthy lifestyle that includes good nutrition, regular exercise, drinking plenty of water, and dealing effectively with life stresses. Getting the nutrition we need from fruits and vegetables used to be a “no brainer,” i.e., just buy them fresh. But, with the current trend towards big farm over-planting that has lead to soil depletion in many areas, sadly the fruits and vegetables grown in, and pulled from, soil lacking in nutrients lack much of the health benefits they once offered. We generally need to search for fruit and veggie stands and farmers’ markets to get anything close to the natural nutrition that was once “a given” when we were children because, let’s face it, it’s hard to find healthy produce in our supermarkets anymore. So, I was pleasantly surprised and very interested in a new study that the harsh, unnatural lighting in most supermarkets — the kind of lighting that seems to have no environmental upside — apparently has a bright side: healthier fruits and vegetables.
That’s right! A recent study found that spinach actually gained nutritional value as it sat for days under fluorescent lights! And, not just “minor” value gains. Some vitamins doubled their concentrations. Apparently, fluorescent supermarket lights mimic the spectrum of natural sunlight, and some supermarkets keep them on all the time, 24-hours a day. Continuous light exposure allows plants to maintain photosynthesis and, of course, photosynthesis produces nutrients.
The study’s author, Gene Lester, is a research plant physiologist at the United States Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, MD. He and his colleagues chose to study spinach because it is one of the most nutritionally complete vegetables commonly available, with significant concentrations of vitamins C, A, K, E and folate.
You can read about how the research was done in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry or by going to discovery.com
Bottom line: To boost the nutritional content of spinach and other produce, researchers suggest (counter-intuitively) that consumers select packages from the front of display cases that are kept under continuous light.
As a chiropractor I have observed over the years that there isn’t just one type of adjustment that benefits every patient, or solely one type of therapy that works for everyone, or just one type of diet that works for every overweight patient that needs to lose weight for their health. Fad diets become “fads” because they actually do work for some people. But, each and every one of them eventually becomes “unfashionable” because the number of people that don’t lose weight far exceeds those who do.
A new genetic test may explain why “one diet fits all” is a myth. The study involved 140 overweight or obese women. The results indicated that those on “genetically appropriate,” i.e., diets that corresponded to their genetic makeup, lost more weight than those on less appropriate diets.
“The potential of using genetic information to achieve this magnitude of weight loss without pharmaceutical intervention would be important in helping to solve the pervasive problem of excessive weight in our society,” said Christopher Gardner who worked on the study at Stanford University in California.
Massachusetts-based Interleukin’s $149 test looks for mutations in three specific genes, known as FABP2, PPARG and ADRB2. The company says 39 percent of white Americans have the low-fat genotype, 45 percent have the type that responds best to a diet low in processed carbohydrates, and 16 percent have gene mutations that mean they have to watch both fat and processed carbohydrates.
The researchers randomly assigned around 140 women to one of four diets — the low-carb Atkins diet, the ultra low-fat Ornish diet, the very low-fat LEARN diet, or the more balanced Zone diet.
According to the Stanford researchers, who carried out the study for one year, results indicated that the women that were on diets appropriate to their genetic makeup, as determined by a saliva test, lost 5.3 percent of body weight. Plus, cholesterol levels improved in line with weight loss, they said.
“One of the gene variations affects absorption of fats from the intestine,” Ken Kornman, chief scientific officer at Interleukin, said in a telephone interview. He said people with that particular mutation absorb more fat from their food and thus should avoid fat if they want to lose weight.
he company planned broader studies to ask these questions.
Interleukin, who markets the test under the brand name Inherent Health, plans broader studies to determine if a genetically appropriate affects satiety or feeling full.
In my chiropractic clinic I always recommend some sort of routine exercise for my patients as part of a healthy lifestyle–from young adults to baby boomers and beyond–and not as a weight loss because exercise, though extremely beneficial for every body, doesn’t necessarily generate weight loss in some people. So, I’m hoping that the Interleukin test, which can also determine who might best lose weight in response to exercise, won’t discourage anyone from exercising nevertheless.
As a Wichita Chiropractor for more than twenty years, I have helped hundreds of people suffering from sciatic pain, I’m truly aware from experience just how debilitating sciatic pain can be. Sciatica sufferers are regrettably all too familiar with the deep radiating pain that accompanies their waking hours each day and restricts almost all of their daily activities.
Could your low back pain be caused by sciatica? You are probably experiencing sciatica if your pain travels from your low back, through your buttock(s), down the large sciatic nerve in the back of your leg(s), and possibly radiates into your knee(s). In addition, not only motion, but even sitting can be painful. Commonly lying down will lessen, or occasionally even temporarily eliminate the pain. But, you should be warned that sciatica will not go away without appropriate treatment.
Radiculopathy
One of the clinical diagnoses of sciatica is referred to as a “radiculopathy”, a medical term that means simply that a disc has protruded from its normal position in the vertebral column and is putting pressure on the radicular nerve (nerve root) in the lower back, which forms part of the sciatic nerve. This type of pressure is extremely painful.
Increased pressure on the intervertebral discs, as well as imbalances in the muscles surrounding the spine, can occur during and after prolonged sitting, especially in an awkward position. A particular event or injury isn’t usually the cause of sciatica, but rather sciatica has a tendency to develop over time as a consequence of ordinary wear and tear on the structures of the lower spine. Eventually the lower spine can lose its ability to function normally during common stresses.
When this happens, the intervertebral disc incurs small fissures or cracks that then allow the soft nucleus to protrude the disc outward. Pain is generated as the disc pushes on sensitive tissues. This condition is commonly referred to as a ruptured, or slipped, disc. Sciatica is the result of the disc pressing on the spinal nerve. Fortunately, most disc challenges, including sciatica, can be totally alleviated with chiropractic manipulation and therapy that frequently includes postural exercises.
Periformis Syndrome
Another cause of sciatic pain is periformis syndrome. Periformis syndrome develops when the periformis muscle, for any reason, goes into spasm and irritates the sciatic nerve, is superficial to the nerve In combination with chiropractic adjustments, this kind of sciatica can be significantly relieved by sciatica stretches that your chiropractor will advise you on.
It is essential for you to seek chiropractic attention if you are experiencing sciatic pain. If you are in the Wichita area, as your Wichita Chiropractor, I look forward to helping you to get out of pain and get your life back!