Healthy Life Newsletter, June 2021
Seth J. Gillihan Ph.D. Think, Act, Be
How to Manage the Psychological Side of Back Pain
When you’re hurting, make your mind an ally.
If you suffer from chronic back pain, you know what a miserable experience it can be. Unrelenting pain is exhausting and affects not just the body but the mind and spirit.
While back pain obviously occurs in the body, our minds and emotions can play a significant part in how we experience the pain. Neurosurgeon and spine specialist Dr. Jack Stern described the psychology of back pain in my recent discussion with him on the Think Act Be podcast. He emphasized the distinction between the raw sensation of pain and our perception of pain.
Sensation vs. Perception
“A sensation occurs in your body—I pinch you and you sense it,” Stern explained. But the perception of pain is more complicated than the simple sensory experience of a pinch or other stimulus. “A perception happens in your brain,” Stern continued, and incorporates a wide range of experiences: emotional responses, memories, anxiety about future pain, and the meaning we give the stimulus, to name a few. For example, we might perceive the pain of the same physical pinch very differently if it’s intended playfully or cruelly.
Fear of Future Pain
Fear of future pain can have an especially powerful effect on our perception of current pain, according to psychiatrist Dr. Stuart Eisendrath. “If you tell yourself the story that this is going to go on forever,” he said, “or last indefinitely, or get more painful over time, you’re really painting a negative story about what you’re going to experience.” That story can amplify our perception of pain, as we feel not only the current pain but the enormity of all our future pain.
Pain, Stress, and Trauma
Stress can also play an important role in our pain. “Stress is universal, but each of us exhibits our stress in different locations of the body,” said Stern. “You exhibit the emotional stress physically as pain.”
If your back pain tends to get worse around busy times like the winter holidays, stress is likely an important factor. The worst back pain I’ve ever experienced happened during an especially stressful period of my life when I was dealing with a chronic illness, family conflict, and executor duties for a relative who had died.
Stern also noted that past trauma can significantly affect our experience of pain. For example, the specific location of “chronic pain may be a manifestation of a past abuse,” he said. “That’s where cognitive behavioral therapy [CBT] or other psychological treatment modalities are effective in recognizing ‘what’s going on’ and maybe dealing with the original trauma,” said Stern, “and dealing with the pain they have as a result of that trauma.”
Read the rest of this article.
Dark Chocolate and Diabetes: Friend or Foe?
by James Bogash, DC
It should come as no surprise that I am a big fan of dark chocolate.
Cacao, the bean that chocolate is made from, is loaded with super-protective compounds called polyphenols. This class of compounds is also found in coffee, tea and berries.
The polyphenols are one of the reasons why these foods and drinks are so good for your health.
The problem with dark chocolate is that many people mistakenly believe that chocolate is bad for you. I’m not really sure where that came from, but I have a sneaky suspicion that it came from dark chocolate’s unhealthy sibling, milk chocolate.
Milk chocolate has no health benefits whatsoever. It barely contains any cacao, for that matter.
The darker the chocolate the better, although I personally don’t like going too dark without adding in some berries or nuts to take down some of the bitterness.
Polyphenols have been shown to protect blood vessels leading to lower rates of heart disease and dementia. And rather than contributing to diabetes and obesity, cacao and dark chocolate protect against these diseases.
Which brings us to this study on 48 healthy people who were given either water or a high-cacao chocolate drink before taking an oral-glucose tolerance test.
Turns out all kinds of anti-diabetic stuff happened to the group that drank the cacao-drink. Lower blood sugar, better insulin response and, more importantly, higher levels of the powerful anti-diabetic hormone GLP-1.
Yes–taking in dark chocolate helps your body produce one of the more powerful anti-diabetic hormones your body can produce.
Find out more in the video .
Safer with Chiropractic
Whenever you visit a health care provider, safety is always a concern: How will that treatment (whether a drug, procedure, etc.) affect me? Those fears are magnified in elderly patients, who can generally handle less physical trauma than their younger counterparts.
Well, the statistics don’t lie: A recent study in the peer-reviewed journal Spine compared two groups of elderly patients’ experiences with chiropractic and medical care, respectively, arriving at an interesting conclusion: Chiropractic is the safer of the two options in terms of the elderly patient’s likelihood of suffering an injury within seven days of an office visit.
The study evaluated the risk of injury to the head, neck or trunk after an office visit for chiropractic spinal manipulation or evaluation by a primary care physician. The cumulative probability of injury in the chiropractic group: 40 injury incidents per 100,000 subjects; in the primary care group: 153 incidents per 100,000 subjects.
The study authors’ conclusion makes their findings crystal clear: “Among Medicare beneficiaries aged 66 to 99 years with an office visit for a neuromusculoskeletal problem, risk of injury to the head, neck, or trunk within 7 days was 76% lower among subjects with a chiropractic office visit than among those who saw a primary care physician.
All Activity Isn’t Healthy
Any physical activity is healthy activity, right? Not so fast. Where you do it might make a big difference. It could boil down to whether your activity is on or off the job.
Researchers tracked more than 100,000 men and women who completed questionnaires regarding their activity during leisure and work hours, categorizing participants into four activity groups for both leisure and employment activity: low, moderate, high or very high. After an average of 10 years of monitoring, death rates from any cause or a major (fatal or nonfatal) cardiovascular event during that time period were assessed.
Compared to men and women with low leisure activity levels, moderate, high and very high leisure-time activity levels decreased early death significantly - by 26 percent, 41 percent and 40 percent, respectively. However, compared to low job activity levels, high and very high job activity levels actually increased the risk of early death by 13 percent and 27 percent, respectively.
The European Society of Cardiology, which published the findings in its journal, the European Heart Journal, emphasized, “[Leisure] time physical activity and occupational physical activity have opposite, and independent, associations with cardiovascular disease risk and longevity.” The society’s press release also quoted study author Prof. Andreas Holtermann, who explained why leisure-time vs. on-the-job activity may not be the same:
“A brisk 30-minute walk will benefit your health by raising your heart rate and improving your cardiorespiratory fitness, while work activity often does not sufficiently increase heart rate to improve fitness. In addition, work involving lifting for several hours a day increases blood pressure for many hours, which is linked with heart disease risk, while short bursts of intense physical activity during leisure raises blood pressure only briefly.”
Why Is Tea Good for BP?
High blood pressure is a major risk factor for the two sudden events we perhaps fear the most when it comes to ourselves or our loved ones: heart attack and stroke. Fortunately, with the exception of genetic predisposition to high BP, lifestyle behaviors are generally effective in keeping blood pressure in the safe range.
Drinking tea, both green and black, is one such behavior, and researchers are beginning to understand why it works. Case in point: a team from the University of California - Irvine that discovered compounds in both varieties of tea relax blood vessels by activating “channel proteins” in the vessel wall. Specifically, two flavonoid compounds (scientific terms: epicatechin gallate and epigallocatechin-3-gallate) activate an ion channel protein that allows potassium ions to diffuse out of the cells. Because the specific ion channel protein (KCNQ5) is found in the smooth muscle lining blood vessels, it’s activation helps relax the vessels, in so doing reducing blood pressure.
While the researchers, whose finders were published in Cellular Physiology and Biochemistry, emphasize the potential for these compounds to be utilized in BP-lowering drugs, they’re overlooking its more straightforward, natural potential: drinking green and black tea to lower blood pressure (if it’s high) or keep it in the safe range in the first place. Talk to your doctor for additional information on the health and wellness benefits of tea.
Acid Suppressants Linked to Fracture Risk
Proton-pump inhibitors sound like something right out of Star Wars, but they’re actually common - far too common, considering their potential risks - here in the real world.
This class of drugs, which includes Nexium, Prilosec and Prevacid, among others, is prescribed to treat digestive tract issues such as gastroesophageal reflux, chronic dyspepsia (indigestion) and peptic ulcer disease. These conditions are all characterized by excessive production of stomach acid. The intended mechanism of action of proton-pump inhibitors, as you might expect, is to reduce acid by blocking the gastric proton pump; a decidedly unintended mechanism of action is increased fracture risk.
Following a recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review of studies, the administration posted a “class labeling change” notice on its Web site alerting health care professionals and consumers that proton-pump inhibitors will now feature a label warning regarding “a possible increased risk of fractures at the hip, wrist and spine” attributable to their use. According to the FDA, people ages 50 or older who had been taking the medication for one year or more, often in high doses, were at the greatest risk.
If your doctor tells you proton-pump inhibitors are in your immediate future, ask about the potential side effects and if you can avoid taking medication altogether.
When Weight Gain Works?
In our world of weight-loss fads and fascinations (even with an increasing acceptance of body types), weight gain is rarely considered a positive event. That’s a misconception since several situations actually make reasonable weight gain a sign of good health. One such situation is after a person has quit smoking. Here’s why.
Research suggests smokers who gain weight after they quit smoking (a commonly echoed concern / rationale among smokers, particularly those who’ve lost weight while smoking) are healthier than if they’d kept the weight off, but continued smoking. Published in JAMA Network Open, the study found that while smoking cessation was accompanied by weight gain (substantial in some cases), “this was not associated with an increased risk of chronic diseases or an attenuation of the mortality benefit of cessation.” In other words, quitting smoking was the healthier choice, hands down.
There are two clear morals to this story: First, if you’re a smoker or knows someone who is, quitting / helping them to quit is the absolutely best option in terms of their health. After all, smoking is linked to an increased risk of just about every negative health impact you can think of; and the mere act of quitting (for even a single day) immediately improves your quality of life and health. Second, in terms of these study findings, weight gain should not be considered a health barrier for smokers considering quitting. However, you should be aware that weight gain could occur and consult with your doctor about proactive ways to control weight with activity and a balanced diet – something even non-smokers with weight challenges should be doing to help maximize their health.
Why Magnesium Levels Decline with Age & What to Do About It
By Jennifer Chesak
Magnesium is required for a whole lot of chemical reactions in the body. The mineral plays a role in blood sugar and blood pressure management, muscle and nerve transmission, the transport of other nutrients, and immune system support.* Magnesium is also paramount to the health of our bodily structures—from our bones down to the tiny mitochondria in our cells.
Magnesium is a macromineral, meaning we need much more than trace amounts to keep our bodies running smoothly. But unfortunately, many of us have low levels of magnesium, a problem that can worsen as we get older.
Why magnesium levels often decline with age.
Getting enough magnesium through diet alone is challenging at any age. Soil depletion in farming has resulted in a steady decline of magnesium in the foods we eat. And food processing results in a loss of the mineral as well, according to a review in the journal Nutrients. These days, at least 60% of people in the United States don’t get the recommended daily amount of magnesium through foods.
So what does aging have to do with it? “As a person ages, a big factor in their magnesium decline is because their appetite and intake also decline,” explains Christina Fitzgerald, M.S., R.D., a registered dietitian and sports nutrition expert. “So they’re taking in much less dietary magnesium.”