Healthy Life Newsletter, December 2022
Patient of the Month: Jihan Everett
After I was rear-ended in a car accident I had severe pain and discomfort in my neck and back. The pain was 8 or 9 on a scale of 1 to 10. I try not to use medications if I don’t really have to but I did have to take Tylenol.
My lawyer recommended me to Khalsa Chiropractic! I had never been to a chiropractor before so I had some doubts about whether it would help me because I was unsure of the benefits of it. But I had been in pain for weeks so I had to try.
I had a great first impression of the office. Everyone was kind and professional. Dr. Mha Atma was knowledgeable and personable. He recommended treatment two to three times weekly plus massage and postural adjustments. I have now seen Dr. Mha Atma for four months and these visits made a significant postural impact. Prior to coming it would hurt my back when standing for prolonged periods of time. Now the pain has gone from almost constant and 8 or 9 to an occasional 3. I feel a lot better.
I would definitely recommend these services to family and friends. I have told them many good sentiments about my experience here. I feel that chiropractic care would be beneficial for all! I just want to thank the entire staff for their knowledge, care and recommendations!
Chronic Pain Can Wreck Your Life
But It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way
Chronic pain is pain that stays around, rather than going away after a short time (with or without treatment). Chronic pain is pain that lasts 3-6 months or longer … sometimes much longer. In fact, many people end up trying to “live” with their pain. The problem with chronic pain, besides the pain itself, is that it can do real damage to your quality of life for years – even decades.
Case in point: a new study that suggests people who experience chronic pain are more likely to experience poor general health, poor mental health outcomes and even joblessness years later. The study tracked pain patients from an average age of 44 through their 50s and 60s. Both short-term and chronic pain at age 44 predicted pain and poor health in later decades. Chronic pain in particular at age 44 was associated with pain (bodily pain and back pain) poor mental health (depression and general unhappiness), lower life satisfaction, poor sleep (fewer hours per night, more likely to be “troubled”) and joblessness at age 55. Findings appear in the research journal PLoS One.
In other words, chronic pain can wreck your life! But it doesn’t have to be that way. That’s where your doctor of chiropractic comes in. By evaluating and treating the root cause of your pain, your doctor can not only help avoid short-term pain from becoming chronic; he/she can also help prevent the pain from returning. In fact, you may prevent the pain from occurring in the first place if you receive consistent, preventive care from your doctor.
NSAIDs Aren’t Doing the Job
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are commonly used to reduce pain caused by soft-tissue injuries - think sprains, strains, contusions and other injuries that damage muscles, ligaments and tendons anywhere in the body.
Ever suffered an ankle sprain or similar soft-tissue injury? You’ve probably dealt with the pain by popping a few NSAIDs: Advil, Motrin, etc.
Besides the potential side effects, there’s another problem with taking NSAIDs in cases of soft-tissue injuries: They may be more trouble than good. Don’t take our word for it: Let’s hear what a recent research review published in Nursing Times has to say:
“NSAIDs have been used for [soft-tissue] injuries on the basis that they reduce pain and lead to a stronger and more effective return to function. However, there is little evidence in support of the latter, and a growing body of evidence is suggesting NSAIDs can delay healing due to their effect on inflammation.”
In other words, because NSAIDs block / reduce the body’s natural inflammatory process following an injury, using them may actually delay healing by delaying repair, regeneration and growth. The inflammatory phase is critical to proper, timely healing.
There’s also the potential side effects of NSAIDs to consider. While NSAIDs are not opioids, they can initiate any number of a wide variety of side effects including gastrointestinal bleeding and a higher risk of cardiovascular events, especially if used for long periods of time. Talk to your doctor for more information.
Half the Effort … Same Results?
While a certain percentage of people can’t wait to hit the gym every day, if you’re like most people, it can be a daily grind. Between competing family, job and other responsibilities, most of us are so worn down by the end of the day (or the start of the next one) that the thought of exercising is low on the list of priorities.
But what if you could cut your exercise effort, specifically your weight-training effort, in half … and still achieve the same results? You can.
An eccentric contraction is the lowering or releasing part of a movement. If you’re doing dumbbell biceps curls, for example, the eccentric portion of the movement is when you extend your arms back down after curling it up (what most people consider the conclusion of one repetition). By comparison, the concentric contraction is the first portion of the movement – raising the weight up and contracting your biceps. Researchers recently discovered that people who perform only the eccentric part of the movement increase muscle strength and size as much as doing the entire movement (raising and lowering; concentric and eccentric).
Their study divided exercisers into four groups for comparison. Three groups performed three different dumbbell curl exercises, but one group raised and lowered the weights with each repetition, a second group performed only the raising (concentric) portion of each repetition, while the third group only performed the eccentric (lowering) portion. A fourth group performed no lifting exercises during the study period.
After five weeks, strength gains were similar between the group that performed “full” repetitions (concentric and eccentric) and the eccentric-only group. And in terms of muscle thickness / hypertrophy, the eccentric-only group actually made greater gains than the concentric-eccentric group.
So, how do you perform an eccentric-only repetition? After all, even if you’re only lowering a weight, you have to raise it back up to get to your starting point, right? The easiest way to do it by yourself, using the dumbbell curl example, is to do single-arm curls. Each time you raise the weight, use your opposite hand to support the weight and “push” it up. On the way down (the eccentric contraction), engage the muscle and do the work. You’ll only be doing half the work … and getting the same (or even better) results! (If you have a workout partner, they can also provide the impetus for the concentric contraction.)
If nothing else, this study emphasizes what many gym-goers overlook on a routine basis: the power of the eccentric contraction. Each repetition of each exercise involves two important steps: concentric and eccentric. If you’re only lifting the weight (concentric), but then essentially “dropping” it back down to the starting position, you’re not taking advantage of the eccentric contraction this study shows is so valuable (not to mention increasing your injury risk).
Video Games Help the Brain
Video games get a bad rap. There are several stereotypical reasons underlying this perception, including the graphic content in some games; the time some kids spend playing them (instead of doing homework, studying or engaging with “the world”); and the image of the 30-year-old in their parents’ basement who can’t seem to pull away from the screen and “grow up.” While there may be kernels of truth to all of the above, video games also play a positive role in brain development, suggests new research.
video game - Copyright – Stock Photo / Register MarkKids who play video games have superior cognitive abilities compared to kids who don’t. In arriving at that conclusion, researchers asked more than 2,000 9- and 10-year-olds to report their average daily video gaming time. Children who played video games (at least 21 hours per week) were compared to children who reported zero hours of gaming per week. Video gamers exhibited “better cognitive performance involving response inhibition and working memory as well as altered [blood oxygen level–dependent] signal in key regions of the cortex responsible for visual, attention, and memory processing” compared to non-gamers.
In case you wonder if these findings apply to video watchers, the answer is no, at least not in this study. After accounting for video watching as an element of their findings, the researchers concluded, “children must actively engage with a video’s content, as opposed to passively watching a video, to exhibit altered brain activation in key areas of the brain involved in cognition.”
What to Know About Healthy Aging, Especially While You’re Still ‘Young’
Is our age solely determined by the number of years we have lived? While chronological age is calculated the same for everyone (based on how old we are in years), biological age is more representative of overall physiological and functional health, including the risk of age-related conditions and diseases. On the other hand, epigenetic aging is related to the modification of our genes, specifically through DNA methylation, which may in turn directly affect the biological age of an individual. Research has shown that lifestyle and nutrition factors play a role in epigenetic aging, and that supplementation with specific nutrients may slow or reverse it.
For example, 99% of Alzheimer’s disease is not caused by genes, but is the direct result of diet and lifestyle factors – and is predictable from as early as age 35! By starting early with positive prevention steps, researchers estimate that a person’s risk could be cut by as much as two thirds. A lack of B vitamins, vitamin D, and omega-3 fatty acids contribute greatly to this risk.
Could the Vitamin D and Omega-3 Supplements We Take Add Years to Our Lives?
Evidence suggesting that supplemental vitamin D and/or omega-3 fatty acids can slow epigenetic aging and add years to our lives.
Vitamin D Protects Your Cells and Immune System from the Effects of Aging
Many alterations within the immune cells occur directly as a result of aging. One of the key events that occurs as a part of the aging process is the shortening or degradation of telomeres, which can then affect the health of the cells and lead to increased risk of death and disease. One study on how telomere length affected mortality found a 3 to 8 times increased risk of death due to heart or infectious diseases, respectively, among older individuals with shorter telomeres. Studies on vitamin D have shown that individuals with the lowest levels of vitamin D had shorter telomeres; in one study, those with the lowest vitamin D showed an extra 5 years of aging on the telomeres .
What Are Optimal Levels of Omega-3 for Aging? Why?
Another study with 608 coronary heart disease patients measured the length of telomeres, the end segments of chromosomes, over 5 years. Telomere shortening over time has been associated with cellular aging. This study found a strong inverse association between the Omega-3 Index and telomere shrinkage. The higher the Omega-3 Index, the less shrinkage occurred with the least amount of shrinkage at an Omega-3 Index of 8.7%.
Omega-3s Help Maintain Muscle Function and Strength with Aging
A systematic review and meta-analysis by Cornish et al. looked at 16 different studies on the effect of omega-3 fatty acids (with or without resistance exercise training) on muscle mass and function in older adults and found significant improvement of lower body strength, improved performance in the timed up and go test, and improved performance in the 30 second sit-to-stand test among those omega-3 supplements.