Mutivitamin-A Smart Addition During Pregnancy
April 24, 2010 | Filed under: General Interest, Pregnancy
In a study performed on an entirely African American population, infants born to moms who used a pre-natal multivitamin during gestation, demonstrated improved birth weight and fetal growth rate than those infants whose mothers did not consume a pre-natal vitamin during gestation, according to the Annals of Epidemiology.
Source: Periconceptional Multivitamin Use and Infant Birth Weight Disparities
I think all expecting mothers should use a high quality pre-natal multivitamin to fill any gaps in their diet. The gains fair outweigh the costs in this situation regardless of race.
Top 5 consequences to bad posture
April 23, 2010 | Filed under: General Interest
There are many ways we can improve your posture including adjustments to restore normal motion, custom orthotics to support your foundation, specific exercises and stretches, etc. This article goes over the consequences of poor posture.
Prevention and awareness is the best care for health-related problems. One of the easiest and most logical ways to prevent bad posture habits is to think about the consequences.
1. Tension Headaches: Sitting hunched over at your job, most commonly caused by your hands reaching for the keyboard when typing on your computer leads to your shoulders and head slumping forward. This posture tightens the muscles in your neck, upper back and shoulders. After awhile, the tightness causes nerve irritations and muscle spasms which restrict proper flow of blood to the back of your head. This leads to tension headaches.
2. Diminished Breathing: Poor posture can lead to severe kyphosis (hunched back) causing the torso collapse leading to breathing difficulties. Rounded shoulders and overly bent or imbalanced spine restrict the expansion of the rib cage, which restricts the rise and fall of the breathing diaphragm. Reduced rib and spinal mobility will affect the normal breathing movement. If the diaphragm can’t rise, it won’t be able to draw in as much oxygen during inhalation.
3. Fatigue: Fatigue is one of the most common causes of bad posture. Tired and tight muscles cannot support the skeleton as they are designed to do. Your muscles have to work extra hard just to hold you up if you have poor posture, leaving you without energy. Lack of adequate muscle flexibility and strength, abnormal joint motion in the spine and other body regions will lead to overall muscle fatigue.
4. Make you look older: Never underestimate the beauty and health benefits of good posture. Often poor posture is just a bad habit that is easily corrected. Poor posture not only makes you look older, but could be the first step toward dowager’s hump, double chin, potbelly, and swayback as well as some internal problems too. When a person is hunched over or not standing straight that person may be perceived as older than they actually are. Good posture is not only beneficial to your body; it also makes you look taller and slimmer. What’s more, good posture can convey self-confidence, which may just be the best accessory you can have.
5. Back pain: Most common consequence of poor posture, due to muscle strain, especially lower back pain. The back muscles, ligaments, and discs are under extra stress when the spine is not in proper alignment. Strong muscles help keep the spine in proper alignment and prevent back pain. Strong muscles also prevent the spine from extending beyond its normal range of motion, which is essential to protecting the ligaments and disks from injury.
Source: T. Moses Public Relations and Consulting, http://tmosespublicrelations.com
Per Chiroeco.com
Viagra is Not The Answer, It Most Likely Is Hiding A MAJOR Problem
April 22, 2010 | Filed under: General Interest, Heart Health
This was a great article to read. For too long some physicians quickly wrote a prescription for Viagra if the patient complained of erectile dysfunction and saw the commercial and decided to ask his doctor. The patient would leave and that may take care of the problem. Men are typically happy once that issue is taken care of but that issue is a sign something is wrong, quite wrong.
A study in the Journal Circulation from October 20, 2009 found: ED was predictive of all-cause death, which consisted of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, hospitalization for heart failure, and stroke. The medications made not difference in this. This is a BIG DEAL.
If there is a problem with blood flow to the penis it would make sense there may be a problem with blood getting to the heart tissue, the brain, etc.
Not to to be an alarmist, but I would like to see a similar study with individuals who constantly have poor circulation to their extremities and often complain of cold hands and feet. This once again is an issue of a decrease in the cardiovascular system’s output to provide oxygen to the extremities. Your brain is also an extermity so to speak, is it getting enough oxygen. Are these people at a higher risk, I like to look at this closer rather than simply writing it off as something to live with?
Basically the take home here is never use a medication to hide a problem or simply ignore it before you have gotten to the bottom of it.
Women Avoid The Pizza, Rice, and Other Simple Processed Carbs.
| Filed under: General Interest, Heart Health
(Health.com) — Women who eat more white bread, white rice, pizza, and other carbohydrate-rich foods that cause blood sugar to spike are more than twice as likely to develop heart disease than women who eat less of those foods, a new study suggests.
Men who eat lots of those carbohydrates — which have what’s known as a high glycemic index — do not have the same increased risk, however, perhaps because their bodies process the carbs differently, the researchers found.
Only carbohydrates with a high glycemic index appear to hurt the heart. Carbs with a low glycemic index — such as fruit and pasta — were not associated with an increased risk of heart disease, which suggests that the increased risk is caused “not by a diet high in carbohydrates, but by a diet rich in rapidly absorbed carbohydrates,” says the lead author of the study, Sabina Sieri, of the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, a national institute for cancer research in Milan, Italy.
I really like the first few paragraphs of the CNN article so included it above but I loved the study title more so included the abstract as well (below).
Dietary Glycemic Load and Index and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in a Large Italian Cohort
The EPICOR Study
Sabina Sieri, PhD; Vittorio Krogh, MD, MS; Franco Berrino, MD; Alberto Evangelista, BSc; Claudia Agnoli, PhD; Furio Brighenti, PhD; Nicoletta Pellegrini, PhD; Domenico Palli, MD; Giovanna Masala, MD; Carlotta Sacerdote, MD; Fabrizio Veglia, MD; Rosario Tumino, MD; Graziella Frasca, PhD; Sara Grioni, BSc; Valeria Pala, PhD; Amalia Mattiello, MD; Paolo Chiodini, PhD; Salvatore Panico, MD
Arch Intern Med. 2010;170(7):640-647.
Background Dietary glycemic load (GL) and glycemic index (GI) in relation to cardiovascular disease have been investigated in a few prospective studies with inconsistent results, particularly in men. The present EPICOR study investigated the association of GI and GL with coronary heart disease (CHD) in a large and heterogeneous cohort of Italian men and women originally recruited to the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study.
Methods We studied 47 749 volunteers (15 171 men and 32 578 women) who completed a dietary questionnaire. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards modeling estimated adjusted relative risks (RRs) of CHD and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).
Results During a median of 7.9 years of follow-up, 463 CHD cases (158 women and 305 men) were identified. Women in the highest carbohydrate intake quartile had a significantly greater risk of CHD than did those in the lowest quartile (RR, 2.00; 95% CI, 1.16-3.43), with no association found in men (P = .04 for interaction). Increasing carbohydrate intake from high-GI foods was also significantly associated with greater risk of CHD in women (RR, 1.68; 95% CI, 1.02-2.75), whereas increasing the intake of low-GI carbohydrates was not. Women in the highest GL quartile had a significantly greater risk of CHD than did those in the lowest quartile (RR, 2.24; 95% CI, 1.26-3.98), with no significant association in men (P = .03 for interaction).
Conclusion In this Italian cohort, high dietary GL and carbohydrate intake from high-GI foods increase the overall risk of CHD in women but not men.
How safe is a chiropractic neck adjustment? Ten year study: As safe as simply walking into you MD’s office.
April 17, 2010 | Filed under: General Interest
“The most recent research (Neck Pain Task Force Report of the Bone and Joint Decade 2000-2010, a study sanctioned by the United Nations and the World Health Organization) indicates neck manipulation is a safe and effective form of health care,” according to the medical journal Spine.
Dr. Cassidy was an investigator with the Bone and Joint Decade 2000-2010 Task Force on Neck Pain and Its Associated Disorders. The work of this international task force affirms the safety and benefits of chiropractic care for people with neck pain—a condition frequently treated by doctors of chiropractic.
The study, which analyzed nine years’ worth of data from a population of 110-million person years, concluded that vertebrobasilar artery (VBA) stroke is a very rare event and that the risk of VBA stroke following a visit to a chiropractor’s office appears to be no different than the risk of VBA stroke following a visit to the office of a primary care medical physician (PCP).
The study goes on to say that any observed association between VBA stroke and chiropractic manipulation—as well as its apparent association with PCP visits—is likely due to patients with an undiagnosed vertebral artery dissection seeking care for neck pain and headache prior to their stroke.
Over the years, popular media has all too often sensationalized the association between chiropractic cervical manipulation and cerebral vascular accidents—even though the evidence would strongly indicate that this assertion is incorrect. The organizations representing the chiropractic profession believe this most recent evidence should help to dispel any myths on this issue, as well as provide more data to support the safety and effectiveness of chiropractic procedures.
As a profession, doctors of chiropractic remain committed to expanding the research and clinical understanding of VBA injuries, because even one cerebral vascular incident that could have been prevented or detected early is one too many.
Source: ACA Today
Jaw Joint Can Affect Hip, Another Reason To Look at the Body as a Whole
April 16, 2010 | Filed under: General Interest
Many of my patients know that sometimes I often look to the jaw to determine if there is any dysfunction even though the person may not be complaining out jaw or TMJ pain. That is because the TMJ influences the body as a whole. This new study looks to how the dysfunction in the jaw reduces hip range of motion.
- Have you had an injury to the jaw?
- Do you grind your teeth (maybe as you sleep)?
- Do you clench your teeth when your nervous?
I know this concept is a big one so I’ll give you some time to chew on it as you read the abstract.
- J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2009 Jun;32(5):364-71.
Links
Influence of the temporomandibular joint on range of motion of the hip joint in patients with complex regional pain syndrome.
Fischer MJ, Riedlinger K, Gutenbrunner C, Bernateck M.
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Hanover Medical School, Hanover, Germany. fischer.michael@mh-hannover.de
OBJECTIVE: This study evaluated if patients with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) would have an increase in range of motion (ROM) after myofascial release and a similar ROM decrease after jaw clenching, whereas in healthy subjects these effects would be minimal or nonexistent. METHODS: Documentation of patients with CRPS (n = 20) was established using the research diagnostic criteria for CRPS, questionnaires, average pain intensity for the past 4 weeks, and the temporomandibular index (TMI). Healthy subjects (n = 20, controls) also underwent the same testing. Hip ROM (alpha angle) was measured at 3 time points as follows: baseline (t1), after myofascial release of the temporomandibular joint (t2), and after jaw clenching for 90 seconds (t3). Comparison of the CRPS and control groups was made using t tests. RESULTS: Mean TMI total score and mean pain reported for the last 4 weeks were significantly different between the 2 groups (P < .0005). Hip ROM at t1 was always slightly higher compared to t3, but t2 was always lower in value compared to t1 or t3 for both groups. The differences of all hip ROM values between the groups were significant (P < .0005). Moreover, the difference between t1 or t3 and t2 was significantly different within the CRPS group (t1 = 48.7 degrees ; t2 = 35.8 degrees ; P < .0005). CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that temporomandibular joint dysfunction plays an important role in the restriction of hip motion experienced by patients with CRPS, which indicated a connectedness between these 2 regions of the body.
PMID: 19539119 [PubMed - in process]
Is It Asthma? How Do I Improve My Lung Function? This Solution Is A No Brainer.
March 20, 2010 | Filed under: Sports
Young wrestlers who were supplemented with omega-3 fatty acids and were subsequently evaluated for specific parameters of pulmonary function after 12 weeks of use, demonstrated a significant improvement in several of these variables both during and post workout.
Dr Cohen’s input: 1 gram of omega 3’s improve the ability of these athletes to breathe effectively-getting more oxygen into the muscles and therefore one would assume perform longer. This is a no brainier for athletes who want an extra edge when you take into account all of the other benifits of omega 3’s (EPA/DHA). Do I sound like a broken record? Reduce your Omega 6’s and increase your Omega 3’s (1:1 ratio is ideal). The effects are so multidimensional as we saw in this study of lung function.
