Healthy Life Newsletter, July 2019
For Low Back Pain, Look to Chiropractic
It’s estimated that eight out of 10 people suffer from back pain at some point in their lives. A recent study on the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders in the U.S. estimated that 40 million Americans aged 20-64 will experience “frequent” low back pain (LBP), with 15% suffering from LBP lasting up to two weeks at a time!
There’s no clear-cut way to resolve back pain, but chiropractic offers the most promise.
Witness the results of a recent study comparing one-month outcomes for 93 chiropractic patients and 45 medical patients with chronic, recurrent LBP. Chiropractic care included spinal manipulation and various forms of physiotherapy, averaging four patient visits. Medical care averaged one visit and frequently included the prescription of anti-inflammatory drugs.
Patients treated by chiropractors showed better overall improvement and satisfaction after one month than patients treated by family physicians. Chiropractic patients showed substantial decreases in pain severity, functional disability, and pain quality, while medical patients showed only minimal improvements with regard to the first two measures, and deterioration in the third.
If you’re suffering from low back pain, the road to recovery may not be an easy one, but it begins with chiropractic! Schedule a consultation with a chiropractor today, and for more information on back pain, visit chiroweb.com
Reference:
Nyiendo J, Haas M, Goodwin P. Patient characteristics, practice activities, and one-month outcomes for chronic, recurrent low-back pain treated by chiropractors and family medical physicians: a practice-based feasibility study. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, May 2000: Vol. 23, No. 4, pp239-45.
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Heart Function Significantly Improved with Omega-3s
Omega-3 fatty acids are well known to provide healthful benefits to the heart and circulatory system. Higher levels of omega-3s have also been linked to decreased levels of inflammation and decreased risk of chronic disease.
A study by Oikonomou et al. published recently in Clinical Nutrition highlighted the effects of omega-3 fatty acids on inflammation and heart function in patients who had been diagnosed with ischemic heart failure.
How did this study work?
The study enrolled 31 participants (22 men, 9 women), with an average age of 67 years. The treatment group received 2 grams of omega-3 fatty acids (46% EPA and 38% DHA) for eight weeks, while the placebo group received identical looking capsules with olive oil. After the first eight weeks of treatment/placebo there was a 6 week wash-out period in which no treatment/placebo was given, followed by a second 8 weeks of treatment/placebo in which the groups were switched - those who started in the treatment group then received placebo, and vice versa. All measurements were done at the beginning of the study, the end of the first 8 weeks, and at the beginning and end of the second 8 week period.
What did the study find?
The treatment group had significant improvements in left ventricular (LV) function, as measured by LV ejection fraction (LVEF), a measurement of how much blood is pumped out with each contraction, as well as several other functional measurements, while the placebo group did not.
In addition to improved LV function, there was also a significant decrease in levels of high sensitivity C reactive protein (hsCRP), a marker for inflammation, in the treatment group and not the placebo group, as shown in the chart below.
This study found that treatment with a daily dose of 2 grams of EPA+DHA omega-3 fatty acids for patients with ischemic heart failure resulted in improved LV performance, and decreased levels of inflammation.
Heartburn Drugs Aren’t Worth the Risk
Faced with heartburn, ulcers or acid reflux – or cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease or upper gastrointestinal cancer, which would you choose? We like to think you’d do everything possible to avoid the second set of health woes. Here’s one way to do it, suggests new research: avoid extended use of proton-pump inhibitors, commonly taken in over-the-counter and prescription form to manage gastric acid-related issues such as heartburn.
More commonly known by their brand names, such as Nexium, Prilosec and Prevacid, proton-pump inhibitors are among the most widely used classes of drugs in the U.S. Long-term PPI use – even in low doses – is associated with an increased risk of death from heart disease, kidney disease or upper GI cancer, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal.
The study compared PPIs with H2 blockers, another class of acid-suppressant drugs. While death rates from one of the above conditions were higher in the PPI group vs. the H2 group, it’s important to note that H2 blockers weren’t safe, either; just safer than PPIs. For example, fatality rates due to long-term PPI use were 387 per 1,000 people, compared with 342 per 1,000 people who used H2 blockers long-term. Not very encouraging if you’re taking H2 blockers instead of PPIs.
The bottom line: When it comes to heartburn and stomach acid-related conditions, talk to your doctor about nondrug options first, and make sure if a medication is the only option, that he/she makes clear the length of use and what the next nondrug step should be if the condition persists.
Depressed by Poor Fitness
If you’re not as fit as you’d like right now, you might feel a little down, despondent … even depressed. There’s a connection, suggests research, particularly for women.
Research published in the journal Menopause links poor lower- and upper-body physical performance with depression and anxiety in middle-aged women. Among more than 1,100 women ages 45-69 years, 15 percent reported depression and/or anxiety, but both were more likely and more severe among women with weak upper-body strength (handgrip strength) and poor lower-body strength (longer duration to complete a chair stand test).
Of course, these findings also suggest the opposite: Physical fitness reduces depression / anxiety symptoms, something emphasized in previous research. Strength training and aerobic exercise appear to improve overall mood and reduce depression / anxiety, perhaps because of improved blood flow to the brain and/or because of the release of “feel-good” hormones such as norepinephrine and dopamine.
Great tips to get fit starting today. You’ll turn that frown upside down in no time.
A Reason to Limit Consumption of Canned and Packaged Foods
How to Avoid BPA
The purported link between obesity and hormone-disrupting plastics chemicals like bisphenol A (BPA) was initially based in part on observations that the rise in chemical exposure seemed to coincide with the rise of the obesity epidemic, but that may only be a coincidence. Many other changes over the last half century, like an increase in fast-food consumption and watching TV, would seem to be simpler explanations. But why are our pets getting fatter, too? Fido isn’t eating more fries or drinking more soda. Of course, the more we watch Seinfeld reruns, the less we may walk the dog, but what about our cats? They’re also getting fatter. Are we giving both them and our kids a few too many treats? That would seem to be an easier explanation than some pervasive obesity-causing chemical in the environment building up in the pet and person food chains.
How then do we explain the results of a study of more than 20,000 animals from 24 populations, showing they are all getting fatter? The odds that this could happen just by chance is about 1 in 10 million. The study’s “findings reveal that large and sustained population increases in body weight” are occurring across the board, even in those without access to vending machines or getting less physical education in schools. Perhaps some environmental pollutant is involved. I discuss this in my video How to Avoid the Obesity-Related Plastic Chemical BPA.
We’re exposed to a whole cocktail of new chemicals besides BPA, but the reason researchers have zeroed in on it is because of experiments showing that BPA can accelerate the production of new fat cells, at least in a petri dish. This was at more than a thousand times the concentration found in most people’s bloodstream, though. We didn’t know if the same thing happened at typical levels…until now. Most people have between 1 and 20 nanomoles of BPA in their blood, but even 1 nanomole may significantly boost human fat cell production. So, even low levels may be a problem, but that’s in a petri dish. What about in people?
Why not just measure the body weights of a population exposed to the chemical compared to a population not exposed to the chemical? There is virtually no unexposed population: BPA is everywhere. In that case, how about those with higher levels compared to those with lower levels? This is what researchers at New York University did, and the amount of BPA flowing through the bodies of children and adolescents “was significantly associated with obesity.” However, since it was a cross-sectional study, a snapshot in time, we don’t know which came first. Maybe instead of the high BPA levels leading to obesity, the obesity led to high BPA levels, since the chemical is stored in fat. Or, perhaps BPA is a marker for the same kinds of processed foods that can make you fat. What we need are prospective studies that measure exposure and then follow people over time. We never had anything like that…until now! And indeed, researchers found that higher levels of BPA and some other plastics chemicals were significantly associated with faster weight gain over the subsequent decade. So, how can we stay away from the stuff?
Though we inhale some from dust and get some through our skin touching BPA-laden receipts, 90 percent of exposure is from our diet. How can we tell? When we have people fast and drink water only out of glass bottles for a few days, their BPA levels drop as much as tenfold.
Fasting isn’t very sustainable, though.
What happens with a three-day fresh foods intervention, where families switch away from canned and packaged foods for a few days? A significant drop in BPA exposure. If we do the experiment the other way, adding a serving of canned soup to people’s daily diet, we see a thousand percent rise in BPA levels in their urine compared to a serving of soup prepared with fresh ingredients. That study used a ready-to-serve canned soup, which, in the largest survey of North American canned foods, was found to have about 85 percent less BPA than condensed soups, but the worst was canned tuna.
Stomach Pain and Bloating: Destroying Your Gut (Part 2/3)
by James Bogash
The gut is the center of everything we are. The more we’ve learned about how stomach pain and bloating interacts with every other organ system the more we’ve realized that medicine had NO idea what it was messing with.
In the first part of this article I gave an overview of the gut and what can go wrong. Since it’s important to remember how your gut gets screwed up in the first place, I’ll give you an overview.
Destroying Your Gut; What Causes Stomach Bloating
There is a long list of things that ruin the gut. Sometimes it’s just for a few hours, sometimes a few days, sometimes a lifetime.
This list can be easily divided into two parts: Things we do that we do to our own gut and those things that mainstream medicine does that causes stomach bloating.
Self-Inflicted Stomach Pain and Bloating
That 8th shot of tequila. That triple-bacon-double-cheese-not-quite-beef-burger with a side of gravy fries. Those leftovers that should’ve been tossed a week prior.
We don’t always make the best choices for our health.
And your gut is on the front line of these bad choices.
Stomach Pain and Bloating: Diet Consequences
Diet is one of the most powerful tools when it comes to good health.
And bad health.
There are the obvious bad choices like a high saturated fat diet loaded with refined carbohydrates and not a vegetable in sight.
There are less obvious ones likes food allergies. Food allergies play a massive role in conditions like GERD/reflux/heartburn. In many cases this is THE problem.
Most common food allergies are dairy, wheat (which includes gluten), soy and corn. There are some other items that can go on the list, but this cuts across the bulk of what people are sensitive to.
If you continue to eat foods that your immune system does not like, the gut is at the front line of the immune reaction, leading to a breakdown of the lining of the gut (more on this later).
To truly heal your gut, you must address food allergies. The best tool for this is NOT a $1,000 blood test that shows that you are allergic to the South Bornean magenta pepper. I’ve never been a terribly big fan of wasting time and effort on bloodwork to determine allergies.
An elimination diet is the gold standard for identifying and fixing food allergies and sensitivities.
Read the rest of this article at modernhealthmyths.com