M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I is the top-ranking state when it comes to life-threatening health issues like diabetes and heart disease. You could say that if a healthy diet can make it there, it can make it anywhere. And, that is just what Rev. Michael O. Minor, at Oak Hill Baptist in North Mississippi has in mind…God willing! Rev. Minor has not only “risen above” the worldly fact that fried foods taste heavenly, in order to point out that what’s pleasurable to the body is not necessarily good for it, but he’s had to overcome the cultural challenge that such tasty fried and heavily-salted food, and their accompanying age-old family recipes, have been part of the way of life for the people of Mississippi for generations. However, Rev. Minor’s evangelism about health food over the past ten years has not gone unsung by the heavenly hosts of the National Baptist Convention, which represents approximately seven million people in over ten thousand churches. Their goal is to have a “health ambassador” in every member church by September 2012.

So, Rev. Minor, I just want to thank you for putting the “fear of God” into eating healthy. May the goal of the National Baptist Convention be reached at…God-speed!!

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All too often we huddle the masses of various ethnic groups in this country into whatever has become the “norm” for Americans in general, and then try to monitor everyone’s health by a “standard” measure that actually has no real standards with which to measure. This type of healt hcare can’t be done in a country like the U.S., where the wonderfully diverse mixture of cultures and ethnic expression makes standard brand medical treatment invalid. And, apparently this type of medical model doesn’t work world wide either! World Health Organization BMI categories tailored for specific regions and races to define who was overweight and obese indicated that foreign-born South Asians had a higher rate of diabetes at lower BMI levels than all other racial and ethnic groups.

These results, according to the researchers, is important because it demonstrates that standard BMI cutoffs typically used in the U.S. and Europe do not accurately capture the health risks of being overweight or obese for South Asians. An associate investigator not involved in the study added that the findings highlight the importance of understanding the health differences between different Asian sub-populations.

I have to agree… everybody in every body is individual in every way, including the way that their body responds to food, drink and environmental agents, and though there are some things that may seem “groupable,” assumptions in medicine are dangerous!

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It used to be, when I was a kid, my mom would say, “No pop before dinner!” And, of course, no pop with dinner either, but few kids back in the day had anything but milk with dinner. But, ever since I became a chiropractor, I could see Mom’s wisdom about surgery, carbonated drinks not actually being “food” and, therefore, not belonging on the dinner table. But, today’s kids, and teens in particular, face a more significant problem. With American teens chugging energy drinks like there was actually some value in the chugging, fears are growing among health care professionals that the ingredients might be putting some kids (and adults) at risk. These so-called beverages contain a mix-match of caffeine, sugar, and (believe it or not) dietary supplements such as vitamins and herbal extracts. I am a great supporter of vitamin supplementation, but vitamins, like any other non-food addition to the diet, need to be monitored and their  effects well-understood.  But, for the very reason that these beverages are classified as nutritional supplements, they have received much less scrutiny and are under fewer restrictions than both foods and drugs.

In fact, in a  new report issued Monday, Florida pediatricians described cases of seizures, delusions, heart problems and kidney or liver damage in children who had downed one or more non-alcoholic energy drinks.

Common parents, you are the ones who are supposed to know what’s good for your kids. Are you too busy drinking these beverages, and getting the added “zip” from them that could lead to your own health problems that you are not even interested in considering the damage that these energy beverages might be doing to your kids?

The report called for regulatory action, in addition to more research. But, “money talks” and U.S. sales of non-alcoholic energy drinks are expected to hit $9 billion this year, with children and young adults accounting for half the market.
Source: reuters.com

Technorati Tags: childrens health, chiropractor, delusions, energy drinks, heart problems, kidney damage, liver damage, new study, pediatric chiropractic, seizures

A new study by Damaris Rohsenow of Brown University and colleagues reported in an upcoming issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research indicated that bourbon gave drinkers a more severe hangover than vodka, bourbon drinkers rating higher on scales that measured the severity of hangover malaise, including headache, nausea, loss of appetite and thirst. However, both bourbon and vodka drinkers’ sleep suffered equally, as did their performance on tasks requiring attention and quick responses. Rohsenow advised that understanding the lingering effects of alcohol after a night of heavy drinking is important for people who engage in safety-sensitive tasks, such as driving, while hung over.

Overall, bourbon drinkers reported feeling worse than vodka drinkers.  Let’s face it, drinking too much alcohol, no matter what the color, is just not good for anyone’s health. Moderation in all things is a good philosophy when it comes to a healthy lifestyle.  But, if there is a moral here, the may be it: Next time, sip a martini!

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Researchers found that when they exposed 32 adults to a moderately painful stimulus (a heat-producing probe placed on the skin), that women were, in fact, initially more sensitive to the pain than men. But after the first 20 seconds, women reported a decline in both the intensity of the pain and their “annoyance” with it. Men, in contrast, showed no similar adaptation.

The sex disparity was also seen when the study participants were exposed to the heat a second and third time. The women felt less pain and annoyance than their male counterparts throughout.
Perhaps the next test between the sexes should be which sex realizes first that exposure to heat hurts and that, therefore, they should avoid a second and third exposure!

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Alyssa Dufour of the Institute of Aging research, Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston, and her colleges, performed a large population-based study of foot pain and shoe style. The results, reported in the October issue of Arthritis Care & Research, revealed that a “certain type” of foot pain was directly related to the wearing of high heels. The finding applied only to women (Hmmm.) and only to one type of foot pain, pain in the heel. Dufour and her colleges found that women who wore “good” shoes were 67 percent less likely to develop “hindfoot pain” than those who wore “average” shoes.

“Hindfoot pain” is also known as Plantar Fascitis. One cause of this condition is short, tight calf muscles. When calf muscles get short and tight they exert a strong pull on the back of the heel bone, producing undue stress on the smaller and weaker plantar muscles and fascia. What can make calf muscles get short and tight? You guessed it: The wearing of high heels is often the reason. So, as doctor of chiropractic who has treated hundreds of women suffering from Plantar Fascitis, or heel pain, I must disagree with the conclusion reached by Dufour and her colleges. From my experience I have to say that the only “good” high heel is a flat heel!

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A study of mice conducted by researchers at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis researcher, suggests that lack of sleep may play a role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

Though researchers have found for years that many treatments that have shown promise in mice have had little effect on humans with Alzheimer’s, a study of the levels of amyloid beta (a protein that accumulates in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s) seems to hold promise.

Sleep — getting enough is such a wonderful, natural, curative solution to so many health issues!

For more on this interesting study and its possibilities, go to: reuters.com

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A new study shows that short children are no more likely to be depressed, unpopular with their classmates, or have other social and emotional problems than their taller peers. Good news concerned parents! Apparently, the “traumas and dramas” of childhood happen to children of all shapes and sizes.

The study, published in Pediatrics, analyzed data on 712 sixth-graders. Twenty-eight children were classified as having short stature, i.e., they were below the 10th percentile on a growth chart; the remaining children were non-short stature (10th percentile and up). Average height was considered between 25th and 75th percentiles.

The social and emotional well-being of the study group was measured through a number of questionnaires answered by their teachers and the children, themselves. Short children reported slightly higher levels of being victimized or teased by their peers, but there was no difference on other measures of depression, behavioral problems, or popularity.

As soon as a baby is born, pediatricians start monitoring that child’s height and weight by percentile. Although low numbers may create anxiety in parents, that anxiety is likely unwarranted, the researchers write. The short children in the study “reported marginally higher levels of peer victimization … this was not associated with poorer adaptation,” said Joyce Lee, MD, MPH with the department of pediatrics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues.

So, listen up parents of short children because the researchers concluded that short children may interpret the everyday teasing as more significant because their parents “verbalize concerns about their child’s height and its possible negative impact on social functioning.” The best thing that any parent can do for their children is to encourage them to feel confident and secure about themselves and to measure their “growth” from the inside out.

Technorati Tags: chiropractor, pediatric chiropractic

To begin with, as a Tampa chiropractor, let me make it unquestionably clear that I unwaveringly believe that certain things that we put into our bodies can be beneficial to our health.  So, I’m definitely not against taking supplements. Not only do I advocate them for my patients, but I listen to my own advice and take them as well. Secondly, if confession is good for the soul, and red wine is good for the heart, then I’d like to take this opportunity to help both by stating for the record that I enjoy drinking a glass of red wine (and even a martini on occasion). The notion that red wine might have heart-healthy properties, well, that’s like icing on the cake, so to speak. And, lastly, as far as caffeine’s ability to genuinely reverse or prevent Alzheimer’s disease goes, I believe that if that were generally the case, life would be far less frightening and far more enjoyable for many people and their families.

However, before taking ill-considered action, and indiscriminately adding more coffee to your morning grind, another glass of red wine to your evening ritual, or an additional outlay of your hard-earned cash on exotic herbs that promise to make you live forever, let’s rationally think about a couple of things.

For example, let us consider the human condition. We are dynamic, biological beings, free to vigorously participate in life. We have not been cooped up in a cage all our life, and we have not been bred to “unnaturally” incur the age-related afflictions that lab animals do, disease and debilitation that is then “eliminated” by resveratrol, caffeine, or some “amazing” supplement.

Fundamentally, we are far more than the sum total of our parts. We are dynamic and biological, not “mechanical, conscienceless devices.” We are biologically individual, i.e., we respond in a uniquely individual ways to internal irritation factors and external environmental influences. Case in point, though smoking cigarettes is commonly unhealthy, there are a few people who are able to smoke, so it seems, and live to a ripe old age without any apparently-related problems.

Scientific studies isolate certain variables in order to achieve particular outcomes.  That’s scientific inquiry! But, because the results occur through such isolation, and due to the fact that they are generally done on animals, when it comes to translating such results to humans, it can be said that what may work for some of the people all of the time, won’t work for all of the people all of the time, and sometimes won’t work at all (to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln!).

You make choices each day, some that are intentional and others that may be indifferent, that will affect your physical health, now and in the future. You decide what (and how much) you’ll eat and drink, and the amount of physical activity and rest you’ll get. Even though you can “sense” what is healthy for you, by the way your body responds, sometimes, perhaps too often, you may override the feedback. Clearly, when you don’t consciously make healthy choices, you jeopardize your health and longevity.

Then you, like many others, may enthusiastically jump on the bandwagon of the latest report that announces that researchers have uncovered THE VERY THING that has the potency to reverse all of the excessive and unhealthy things you have been doing to your body on a routine basis! Talk about wishful thinking!

Your human body is an elegantly complex, homeostatic system. In other words, every operation is interdependent and sensitively balanced. When you choose an unhealthy lifestyle, your fastidiously-responsive system gets “off balance.” Sooner or later, the imbalances created by choosing unhealthily, result in diseases and a shortened lifespan.

If supplements help you to feel more energetic and healthy, then as a chiropractor who takes them as well, I say great, take them! If it feels like the thing to do, drink that additional cup of coffee as well. And, have a little more red wine if it honestly feels beneficial. But, keep in mind that the only legitimate way for anyone to avert or reverse age-related health problems is by choosing a consistently healthy lifestyle. You won’t get healthier by chance. There is no “lucky charm” when it comes to health and longevity.

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