Newsletter
July Health newsletter
Hope you had a celebratory Independence Day. Here are some patriotic thoughts to ponder:
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. ~Thomas Paine
Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower
In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
This, then, is the state of the union: free and restless, growing and full of hope. So it was in the beginning. So it shall always be, while God is willing, and we are strong enough to keep the faith. ~Lyndon B. Johnson
Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. ~Louis D. Brandeis
THE UPS AND DOWNS OF STAIRS
According to research, around 33% of Americans aged 65 or older will fall this year, sending 1.6 million to the emergency room and killing around 12,800. There is a misconception that falling is an inevitable result of aging, but once again, it’s not the years, it’s the mileage. Falling may be associated with stroke, dementia or vision problems, but it is also connected with poor balance, muscle strength and the side effects from certain drugs.
Climbing stairs is really a good thing to do, as it helps to strengthen your heart, lungs, circulation and muscles. What you can do to help improve your stair climbing is undergo some balance training. This is when you deliberately challenge yourself to move out of balance so that your body can re-learn how to respond and improve your sense of balance. This is done with a trainer or therapist. One way you can improve your balance on your own is with Tai Chi. This is a meditative martial art that combines gentle, flowing movements with breathing, allowing you to improve your balance and physical awareness. Another way you can proactively balance train is with dance. Any kind of dancing will do, including ballroom, salsa, swing or square dancing.
One of the exercises I have taught many of you to do regularly is the one-legged knee bend. This is where you stand on one leg and bend the standing leg slightly, then straighten it again. Do this slowly and easily as many times as you can, then switch to the other leg. Do this at least once a day. You can hold onto a desk or counter until you are able to stand and balance on the one leg without help. You can also strengthen your legs by stepping up and down on one step, with or without holding on to something.
A number of widely prescribed drugs have shown to increase the risk of falling, such as Lunesta and Ambien (sleep aids), Cymbalta and Elavil (antidepressants), Xanax (anti-anxiety), Lyrica (anticonvulsants), and Lasix and Procardia (blood pressure). If you are taking any of these medications and are experiencing unsteadiness and difficulty balancing, consult your M.D. about switching or reducing your medication.
Additionally, if you have low blood pressure due because you’re taking drugs for Parkinson’s disease or heart disease, you may be creating something called postural hypotension. This happens when your blood pressure drops quickly when you stand up from sitting or lying down, making you dizzy or causing you to faint. One of my patients happen to faint recently, and woke up just as her face hit the ground (and breaking a tooth). If this happens more than once, I recommend you get tested for postural hypotension. Also, you must make sure you are drinking enough water, as dehydration can be a cause for dizziness and fainting.
Finally, you can “fall-proof” your house by making sure you have bright lighting throughout the house, eliminate throw rugs that could cause you to trip, put handrails on both sides of your stairs, and put contrasting tape or paint on the bottom stair (light vs. dark) in order to better see the different level. So the next time you tell me about your trip, I want it to be about you visiting someplace nice, and not the emergency room.
The Best Stress-fighting Foods
Dietician Susan Mitchell, PhD, RD, recently wrote an article on the foods she considers the best for combating stress. As we have mentioned in the past, eating a variety of foods helps you ingest all the basic nutrients necessary for maintaining optimal health. Here are her suggestions, which I totally subscribe to:
- Folate, a B vitamin, helps in fighting stress, and is found in black-eyed peas, chickpeas, red beans, black beans, lentils, sunflower seeds and broccoli.
- Antioxidants, like Vitamin C, help repair cellular damage caused by stress. Foods high in Vitamin C are mangoes, kiwi, cranberries, oranges, blueberries, grape juice and pomegranate juice.
- Vitamin E, another antioxidant, can be found in almonds, pistachios, walnuts and avocadoes. Eat them raw or roasted, but preferably unsalted and only a handful each day.
- Carotenoids, such as beta-carotene, are another type of antioxidant found in the yellow and orange colored foods. Sweet potatoes are particularly powerful, since they also contain a good amount of fiber. You will also find beta-carotene in carrots, cantaloupe, apricots and acorn squash.
- Stress can cause increased levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, which can often deplete your immune system. Eating a cup of yogurt can help maintain a healthy digestive system, which will help boost your immune system. If you have trouble with dairy, start with small amounts of yogurt and slowly increase the amount. You can also help your digestion by eating sauerkraut.
Having a healthy diet is just one of the many ways you can reduce the effects of stress in your life. Eating the right foods is just a tasty way to fight it.
June Newsletter
Here’s wishing you all a wonderful and happy summer.
Watch out, though. Did you know that sitting could kill you?
From the Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis Laboratory at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, comes this: Americans spend more than half their waking hours sitting , mostly from watching TV, driving and working at a desk. A recent study from Australia tracking 8,800 people found that for every hour of daily TV viewing, the risk for death due to cardiovascular disease increased 18%. For those who watched 4 hours of TV each day had a 80% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than those who watched less than 2 hours a day.
A Canadian study found similar results with increased health risks, suggesting that long periods of sitting might cancel out the health benefits of regular exercise. The problem with too much sitting is that our muscles were meant to move. Sitting can cause the central nervous system to slow down, leading to fatigue. It will weaken your muscles and stiffen your joints, leading to poor posture and an increased risk for back, shoulder and neck pain.
Sitting too long can affect your losing weight. In the walls of your capillaries is lipoprotein lipase, an enzyme that breaks down specific fats in your bloodstream. If you don’t move for a few hours, the enzymes start turning off, and if you sit all day, you can lose 50% of their activity. Additionally, sitting too long can have negative effects on your blood sugar and blood fat levels, leading to diabetes and heart disease.
So what can you do to combat this insidious killer?
- Add small amounts of non-exercise-related activity into your daily life, like doing the laundry, weeding the yard, and shopping.
- Stand up while talking on the phone, during commercials or other small chores
- Meet a friend for a walk and talk, instead of sitting over a cup of coffee
- Get an exercise ball and sit on it while working at your computer or watching TV
- Put your exercise equipment in front of the TV, and use while watching your shows. This could be a treadmill, exercycle, stair-stepper, elliptical trainer or a mini-trampoline
- Place action-oriented video games like Wii
- Use stairs instead of the elevator, park your car at the end of the parking lot, take a midday walk during lunch, and get up every half hour from your desk and stretch for at least a minute.
The bottom line is, get off your bottom as often as you can.
WHY USE CHIROPRACTIC?
“We address the cause, not the symptom.”
Most chiropractors believe that subluxations (vertebrae out of alignment) are the cause of a host of health issues. They often are. However, upon closer inspection it appears that subluxations are actually symptoms themselves!
At its most fundamental, subluxations involve bones and nerves. Bones, being static structures, move only when your muscles contract. Muscles contract based on conscious and unconscious commands from the nervous system. Thus, notwithstanding the effects of physical trauma, the vertebral displacement often used to determine the presence of subluxation is actually a neurological event!
What prompts the nervous system to command muscles to contract? Most of you will agree that it is an attempt to accommodate physical, chemical or emotional stress. So we chiropractors address the cause of the cause. This chiropractor’s mission is to help you, my patients, become aware of, and reduce, the emotional, physical and chemical stress you face daily. When this happens, then true healing and lasting spinal changes can be found.
RESEARCH:
Omega-3 May Protect Against Hearing Loss
Increased intakes of omega-3 fatty acids from supplements and dietary sources may reduce the risk of age-related hearing loss, according to a new study from the University of Sydney.
At least two servings of fish per week was associated with a 42 per cent reduction in the risk of hearing loss for people over 50 year-olds compared with people who average less than one serving per week, according to findings published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Previous studies on omega-3 supplements have shown similar reductions in age related hearing loss. “Dietary intervention with omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids could prevent or delay the development of age-related hearing loss,” wrote the researchers, led by Paul Mitchell.
Mitchell and his co-workers analyzed data from 2,956 participants of the Blue Mountains Hearing Study. Dietary intakes of fish, and the omega-3s they contain, using food-frequency questionnaires. Results showed an inverse association between total and long-chain omega-3 intakes and hearing loss, while increasing fish intakes also indicated a reduction in the risk of presbycusis, said the researchers. Correlation is not causation, however, and significant further research is needed, including human intervention trials.
Other micronutrients have been linked to a reduced risk of age-related hearing loss. In 2007 scientists from Wageningen University reported that folic acid delayed age-related hearing loss in the low frequency region in a study of 728 men and women between the ages of 50 and 70 (Annals of Internal Medicine, Vol. 146, pp. 1-9).
Another study, published earlier this year indicated a role for beta carotene and vitamins C and E, and the mineral magnesium in preventing prevent both temporary and permanent hearing loss in guinea pigs and mice. The animal study was presented at the Association for Research in Otolaryngology’s annual conference in Baltimore in February 2009.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Published online ahead of print, doi: 10.3945/ajcn.2010.29370
“Consumption of omega-3 fatty acids and fish and risk of age-related hearing loss”
Authors: B. Gopinath, V.M. Flood, E. Rochtchina, C.M. McMahon, P. Mitchell
Slim Down with This Multitasking Side Dish
By RealAge
For slimmer hips, skip the baked potato and make yourself a bowl of this for your next side dish: barley salad.
Barley is rich in beta glucan, a soluble fiber shown to reduce cholesterol. And now, new research shows that this special fiber may help with waist management, too!
Beyond Cholesterol Control
Barley actually has up to twice as much beta glucan as oats have. And a study found that getting 3 to 5 grams of beta glucan every day from barley can lower harmful LDL cholesterol between 9 and 15 percent in people with high cholesterol. Not too shabby. But the unexpected bonus in this study? The beta glucan helped decrease hunger, so people ate fewer calories overall. How does barley banish blubber? Researchers suspect that beta glucan and other barley fibers expand in your stomach, so you feel full faster and end up eating less. And working this grain into your day is a snap. Start your day with barley cereal. For lunch, toss barley into soup, stew, or even salad. And use barley in place of rice at dinner.
References
Published on 06/07/2010
Physiological effects of concentrated barley beta-glucan in mildly hypercholesterolemic adults. Smith, K. N. et al., Journal of the American College of Nutrition 2008 Jun;27(3):434-440.
HUMOR
I thought about the 30 year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos, pictures and communicated with Facebook and Twitter. I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.
That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.
My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.
The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife as everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it and I got a little loud.
I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, “Re-calc-ul-ating” You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then when I would make a right turn instead, it was not good.
When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.
To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven’t figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have to run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.
The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden “Paper or Plastic?” every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused but I never remember to take them in with me.
Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, “Paper or Plastic?” I just say, “Doesn’t matter to me. I am bi-sacksual.” Then it’s their turn to stare at me with a blank look.
I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, No, but I do toot a lot.”
MORE HUMOR – How BP handles a coffee spill
Dr. G’s May health ezine
Happy May to you. So far it looks like we’re going to have a great month. Here’s some news you can use.
For those of you who think we’re crazy to exercise, recent research has found a link between regular physical activity and mental and emotional health.
Exercise, fitness level, and depression: A large study of 5,451 men and 1,277 women tested participants’ level of aerobic fitness and compared it to their scores on a depression inventory and an emotional well-being assessment. Results showed that people with a higher fitness score have a lower risk of developing depression and had higher emotional well-being scores.
In addition, when the participants were assessed for their activity level, results showed that for each increase in weekly miles of exercise completed, protection from depression and improved emotional well-being increased. In other words, the more participants exercised and the more fit they were, the better their mental and emotional health.
Another study relates the relationship between exercise and dementia: A study of 1,740 mentally healthy people aged 65 and older were examined for six years to determine who developed dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Results showed people who exercised at least three or more days per week were 32 percent less likely to develop dementia than those who exercised less than three days per week.
The reduction of Alzheimer’s disease in exercisers was found to be similar to dementia. It is thought that the reason is due to improved circulation and oxygen transport to the brain during exercise which improves cognitive function.
What it all means: You may be able to take an active role in your mental and emotional health. Evidence continues to show that regular physical activity has a positive effect on your brain as well as helping your body and is one of the key factors in being happy and emotionally healthy. In addition, moving your body could decrease your risk of developing more serious mental health problems including depression, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Sources: Galper, Trevedi, Barlow, et al. (2006). “Inverse Association Between Physical Activity and Mental Health in Men and Women”, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 38; Larson, Want, Bowen, et al. (2006). “Exercise is Associated with Reduced Risk for Incident Dementia among Persons 65 Years of Age and Older.” Annals of Internal Medicine, 144.
Source: Northwestern Health Sciences University, www.nwhealth.edu/nwtoday/index.html
For those of you who still won’t exercise, here is the next best thing:
Laughter is a highly complex process. Joyous or mirthful laughter is considered a positive stress (eustress) that involves complicated brain activities leading to a positive effect on health. Norman Cousins first suggested the idea that humor and the associated laughter can benefit a person’s health in the 1970s. His ground-breaking work, as a layperson diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, documented his use of laughter in treating himself—with medical approval and oversight—into remission. He published his personal research results in the New England Journal of Medicine and is considered one of the original architects of mind-body medicine.
Dr. Lee S. Berk, a preventive care specialist and psychoneuroimmunology researcher at Loma Linda University’s Schools of Allied Health (SAHP) and Medicine, and director of the molecular research lab at SAHP, Loma Linda, CA, and Dr. Stanley Tan have picked up where Cousins left off. Since the 1980s, they have been studying the human body’s response to mirthful laughter and have found that laughter helps optimize many of the functions of various body systems. Berk and his colleagues were the first to establish that laughter helps optimize the hormones in the endocrine system, including decreasing the levels of cortisol and epinephrine, which lead to stress reduction. They have also shown that laughter has a positive effect on modulating components of the immune system, including increased production of antibodies and activation of the body’s protective cells, including T-cells and especially Natural Killer cells’ killing activity of tumor cells. Their studies have shown that repetitious “mirthful laughter,” which they call Laughercise©, causes the body to respond in a way similar to moderate physical exercise. Laughercise© enhances your mood, decreases stress hormones, enhances immune activity, lowers bad cholesterol and systolic blood pressure, and raises good cholesterol (HDL).
As Berk explains, “We are finally starting to realize that our everyday behaviors and emotions are modulating our bodies in many ways.” His latest research expands the role of laughter even further.
I’ve mentioned to you in the past the importance of eating healthy, and to particularly avoid “inflaming” your digestive system. Here, again, are the top foods to eat and the top foods to avoid. Bon apetite.
10 BEST ANTI-INFLAMMATORY FOODS
*Wild salmon, mackerel and other omega-3-fatty-acid-rich fish.
*Berries.
*Green, leafy vegetables (e.g., spinach and kale).
*Cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, etc.).
*Deeply pigmented produce, such as sweet potatoes, eggplant and pomegranate… along with carrots, plums, oranges, peppers, peas and red grapes.
*Nuts, particularly almonds, walnuts, and cashews.
*Whole grains, including sprouted grains.
*Tea — specifically black, green and white teas.
*Cold-pressed fresh oils, including avocado, flaxseed and olive oils in particular.
*Spices (specifically, garlic, ginger, turmeric, saffron).
10 WORST INFLAMMATORY FOODS
*Desserts made with lots of sugar (cookies, candy, ice cream and so on).
*Sweetened cereals.
*”White” carbohydrates (white bread, white rice, white potatoes, English muffins, etc.).
*Non-diet soft drinks.
*Anything containing high-fructose corn syrup.
*Processed meats (bologna, salami, hotdogs, sausage and others made with preservatives and additives).
*French fries, potato chips and other fried snack foods.
*Fast foods, most specifically the ones that are high-fat, high-calorie, high simple carbohydrate — which describes most of the inexpensive offerings at quick-serve restaurants.
*Margarine, because it contains processed sterols called stanols that have been implicated in both atherosclerosis and various fatty-deposit diseases.
*Organ meats such as liver, because these often contain undesirable products including antibiotics, fertilizer and other unwanted residues.
THOUGHTS FOR THE MONTH
The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart. – Benjamin Franklin
A wise man will not communicate his differing thoughts to unprepared minds, or in a disorderly manner. – Benjamin Whichcote
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly. – Buddha
There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: He that thinks himself the happiest man really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool. – Charles Caleb Colton
Cheers. Dr. Ben