Healthy Life Newsletter December 2015

Action request for all Chiropractic patients from the American Chiropractic Association.  (note from Dr. Mha Atma--if you can

spare one extra minute, please do this online alert and share it

with others.  Thanks!)

Petition The White House and Members of Congress

Give Seniors the Medicare Coverage They Need and Deserve: Full Access to and Reimbursement for Services Provided by Doctors of Chiropractic

The American Chiropractic Association (ACA) has launched a major grassroots campaign to enact federal legislation that would achieve full physician status for doctors of chiropractic in Medicare. This initiative would significantly improve the health and wellness of our nation's aging population -- and your support is urgently needed. 

Studies have shown that essential services provided by doctors of chiropractic (DCs) can help aging Americans live healthier and happier lives, yet every day our nation's seniors are being unjustly denied full access to Medicare covered services by doctors of chiropractic that could improve their quality of life.

Click the link below to log in and send your message:

https://www.votervoice.net/BroadcastLinks/F5oTCmJHV4wr7UEFKIpnyg

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Prominent study (published 5 years ago) demonstrates effectiveness of chiropractic care for sciatica/disc herniation after "conventional" treatments failed

The study was published in 2010 in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics.  The study took 40 patients with lumbar disc herniation who had not improved with medication, lifestyle modification, physical therapy, massage and/or acupuncture.  Half the patients had microdiskectomy (arthroscopic back surgery) and half had chiropractic.  The study found that the chiropractic treatment worked equally well as the surgery, with dramatically lower risk and cost..  The authors concluded that patients with symptomatic lumbar disc herniation should consider chiropractic treatment first, followed by surgery if no improvement.

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From The Chiropractic Report:

Leading professional golfers rely on chiropractic care

Two of the world's leading golf pros credit chiropractic care Jordan Spieth, winner of the 2015 Masters and US Open, and Zach Johnson, winner of the 2015 British open, both are long time chiropractic patients and consider chiropractic treatment a key part of their success.  Both have been patients of Dr. Troy Van Biezen of Dallas, although Zach Johnson is also the son of a chiropractor who treated him most of his life. Since the age of 14, Spieth has relied upon chiropractic care to prevent injuries as well as optimize overall health and athletic performance. 

“Dr. Van Biezen is an important member of my team and, thanks to his care, my all-time dream of winning the Masters Tournament has now become a reality,” states Jordan Spieth. Dr. Van Biezen presently travels full-time with Spieth and several other professional golfers, providing chiropractic care once or twice daily. “Regular chiropractic care helps to alleviate back pain and greatly improve an athlete’s game,” states Dr. Van Biezen. 

Zach Johnson grew up with chiropractic care from his father, Dr. David Johnson, and later became a patient of Dr. Van Biezen.  It’s not surprising that, as the son of a doctor of chiropractic, Zach relies faithfully on chiropractic to help keep his body in top form and to treat the inevitable injuries of a golf pro. Dr. Johnson told ACA News that Zach got his first adjustment when he was just about five days old. While on tour, he continues, Zach receives regular adjustments by official PGA chiropractors about two times per week. He also gets regular adjustments when he’s at home in Florida. 

Read more on this story here and here.

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View the following article on line

Eliminate Most of Your Chronic Disease Risk in Four Steps

by: Michael Greger M.D.

Turning the Clock Back 14 Years

In 1903, Thomas Edison predicted that the doctor of the future will give no medicine, but instead “instruct his patient in the care of the human frame in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.” A hundred and one years later, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine was born. Lifestyle docs like myself still prescribe meds when necessary, but, based on the understanding that the leading causes of disability and death in the United States are caused mostly by lifestyle, our emphasis is particularly on what we put in our mouths: food and cigarettes. An “impressive number of studies have shown that lifestyle is the root cause of what ails us.” The good news is that by changing our lifestyle we can dramatically improve our health.

You have the power

We’ve known for a long time that for most of the leading causes of death our genes account for at most 10 to 20% of risk, given that rates of killers like heart disease and major cancers differ up to a 100-fold among various populations, and that when people migrate from low- to high-risk countries, their disease rates almost always change to those of the new environment. For example, at least 70% of strokes and colon cancer are avoidable, as are over 80% of coronary heart disease and over 90% of type 2 diabetes. So maybe it’s “time we stop blaming our genes and focus on the 70% that is under our control.” That may be the real solution to the health care crisis.

It doesn’t take much. Adhering to just four simple healthy lifestyle factors can have a strong impact on the prevention of chronic diseases: not smoking, not being obese, exercising half an hour a day, and eating healthier (more fruits, veggies, whole grains, less processed foods and meat). Four simple things cut our risk of developing a chronic disease by 78%. 95% of diabetes risk out the window, 80% of heart attack risk, gone. Half of stroke risk, a third of cancer risk, simply gone. Think of what that means in terms of the numbers. As it stands now, each year a million Americans experience their first heart attack or stroke, a million get diabetes, a million get cancer.

Do we actually get to live longer, too? The CDC followed about 8,000 Americans 20 years or older for about six years. They found that three cardinal lifestyle behaviors exerted an enormous impact on mortality. People who do not smoke, consume a healthy diet, and engage in sufficient physical activity can substantially reduce their risk for early death. By “not smoking” they just meant not currently smoking; by “healthy diet” they just meant in the top 40% in terms of complying with the rather wimpy federal dietary guidelines; and by being “physically active” they just meant averaging about 21 minutes a day or more of at least moderate exercise. Those that managed at least one of the three had a 40% lower risk of dying. Those that hit two out of three cut their chances of dying by more than half. Those that scored all three threw 82% of their chances of dying in those six years out the window.

What does that mean in terms of how much longer we get to live? A similar study on health behaviors and survival, highlighted in my video, Turning the Clock Back 14 Years, didn’t just take people’s word for how healthfully they were eating, they measured the level of vitamin C in people’s blood, a biomarker for how many plants they were eating, and the drop in mortality risk in those nailing all healthy behaviors was equivalent to being 14 years younger.