Pain Relief Chiropractic

According to findings published in BMC Family Practice, “High dose zinc acetate lozenges shortened the duration of common-cold associated nasal discharge by 34%, nasal congestion by 37%, scratchy throat by 33%, and cough by 46%.”

Because they observed no major adverse effects related to zinc consumption over three separate studies, the authors of the study conclude, “Zinc acetate lozenges releasing zinc ions at doses of about 80 mg/day may be a useful treatment for the common cold, started within 24 hours, for a time period of less than two weeks.”

Don’t forget, if you ever have any questions or concerns about your health, talk to us. Contact us with your questions. We’re here to help and don’t enjoy anything more than participating in providing you natural pain relief.

According to a new small-scale study published in Diabetologia, “The combined consumption of a high-energy breakfast and a low-energy dinner decreases overall daily hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetics.” 

Researcher Dr. Daniela Jakubowicz notes, “We found that by eating more calories at breakfast, when the glucose response to food is lowest and consuming fewer calories at dinner, glucose peaks after meals and glucose levels throughout the day were significantly reduced.” 

In other words, a big breakfast and small dinner helped control blood sugar levels throughout the day.

Here is an interesting finding from the research:  Participants’ blood glucose levels rose 23 percent less after lunches preceded by large breakfasts. Dr. Jakubowicz adds, “By demonstrating that a diet of high-energy breakfasts and more modest dinners is more effective in lowering overall daily post-meal glucose surges, we suggest that such a regimen is a powerful therapeutic approach for improving glycemic control and may potentially reduce cardiovascular complications in type 2 diabetic… It is not enough to tell the diabetic patient what he or she should or should not eat.  It is more important to emphasize that a more advantageous meal schedule should be followed.”

If you have ever had low back pain, then you will find this information very useful… especially if you do not want your back pain to come back!

New research published in the Journal of Pain (a peer-reviewed publication of the American Pain Society) indicates that pain severity during an episode of back pain is correlated with future pain and disability.

The authors of the study write, “After six months, the results showed that baseline pain intensity was associated with a 12 percent higher risk for developing chronic low back pain and patient beliefs that pain would persist conveyed a 4 percent risk increase. After five years, baseline pain intensity yielded a 9 percent increased risk for chronic pain, while believing that pain would persist had increased the risk by 6 percent.”

According to Science Daily:  “The authors noted that their research confirms previous studies concluding that baseline pain intensity is a key predictor of future pain and disability.

“Clinically, the study confirms that effective pain relief in the initial management of low-back pain has implications for long-term improvement.”

Based on this research, it is clear that all back pain should be taken seriously and treated appropriately because treating back pain quickly and effectively may help reduce future pain, suffering, and even disability.

What About Preventing Back Pain?

If you want to prevent low back pain, then you must first understand its cause.  A 2008 study found that the majority of low back pain (97%) is mechanical in nature.  Mechanical low back pain is the general term that refers to any type of back pain caused by injury to the spinal structures (bones, ligaments, and disks, for example).

In other words, if you have low back pain, the odds are the cause is NOT a tumor or anything life-threatening.  But… and this is a very big BUT… every case of low back pain should be evaluated by an appropriate physician to rule out non-mechanical causes.  This is why chiropractors are trained in differential diagnosis to determine when low back pain is mechanical and when it is something more serious.

What Treatments Help Mechanical Low Back Pain?

Chiropractic has been shown to be both safe and effective for the treatment of mechanical low back pain.  For example, a study published back in 1990 in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) compared Chiropractic care to hospital outpatient treatment and found:  “Chiropractic treatment was more effective than hospital outpatient management, mainly for patients with chronic or severe back pain.  A benefit of about 7% points on the Oswestry scale was seen at two years.  The benefit of chiropractic treatment became more evident throughout the follow-up period.  Secondary outcome measures also showed that chiropractic was more beneficial.”

The study concluded, “For patients with low back pain in whom manipulation is not contraindicated, chiropractic almost certainly confers worthwhile, long-term benefit in comparison with hospital outpatient management. The benefit is seen mainly in those with chronic or severe pain.”

It is great that Chiropractic care can help low back pain, but the main goal of any treatment should be to get you out of pain AND prevent your pain from coming back.

New research published in Arthritis Care & Research, the journal of the American College of Rheumatology, shows that being engaged in manual tasks involving awkward positions can increase an individual’s risk for a low back injury by up to 800%.

Researchers also found that those who are distracted or fatigued while performing physical tasks are also at significantly higher risk for a low back injury.

What’s the Take-Home Message Here?

First, the majority of low back pain is mechanical and can be treated with chiropractic care.  Second, many cases of low back pain can be prevented in the first place by avoiding awkward positions, distractions, and fatigue while performing physical activities.

Learning proper posture while sitting can help prevent the abnormal stress and strain that lead to low back pain over time. If you develop low back pain, seek the proper treatment, one that has a proven track record.  Getting the best care to get out of pain as fast as possible is extremely important.  Also, make sure your treatment plan includes information on how you can prevent your low back pain from coming back (such as learning proper lifting technique) because relapses are often worse than the original injury.

Study Shows Meditation Helps Brain Function!

A new study by UCLA researchers found that meditation appears to help preserve the brain’s gray matter, the tissue that contains neurons.  This is extremely important because at some time in the mid-to-late 20s, the brain begins to decrease in size and can often lose some function.

According to the study, the effects of meditation were greater than expected. Study co-author Dr. Florian Kurth writes, “We expected rather small and distinct effects located in some of the regions that had previously been associated with meditating… Instead, what we actually observed was a widespread effect of meditation that encompassed regions throughout the entire brain.”

Dr. Kurth warns that this study does not “prove” meditation preserved gray matter in the brain.  There are many other factors such as lifestyle and genetics that can have an effect, but the results are promising and hopefully more research will give more definitive answers.

Don’t forget, if you ever have any questions or concerns about your health, talk to us. Contact us with your questions. We’re here to help and don’t enjoy anything more than participating in providing you natural pain relief.

Whether you are into football or not, you will like this information.  Why?  Because if you are like most people, you would love to know how to lose a few pounds…  and that’s exactly what Ohio State’s players did.  In fact, the coaching staff told players to lose about 5 lbs. (~2.2 kg) in the ten days before the National Championship game.  They even made them weigh in to prove they did it.  What was the “secret” to the weight loss?  According to Ohio State defensive-line coach Larry Johnson, “I told them: I don’t want you to starve.  Just eat less.  I should launch my own weight loss program.” 

One of the Ohio State players, Adolphus Washington, said it boiled down to eating less and running more.  According to the Wall Street Journal, “Washington, who weighs 295 pounds, stayed after practice between the Alabama and Oregon games for more cardiovascular exercise and swore off sweets, including Honey Buns, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and Snickers’ bars Johnson keeps in his office.” 

How crazy is this?  Who would have known that eating less, cutting out junk food, and exercising more is the “secret” to losing weight?

New research shows computers can judge your personality better than the humans closest to you… and it’s all about your “Likes”…

Isn’t it amazing that just twenty years ago very few people had a cell phone and now most people cannot live without one?  Try this little experiment: next time you go out, leave your cell phone at home.  Chances are you will feel very uncomfortable.  Some people actually say they “freak out” when they accidentally leave their smartphone at home or misplace it.

Twenty years ago, not too many people were on the internet either.  Now it’s such an entrenched part of life that some people feel uncomfortable if they are not connected 24/7 to their email or social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Because so much time is spent on social sites like Facebook, both researchers and marketers have studied them quite a bit, and some of the information they’ve discovered is quite surprising.

For example, a new study published in the journal PNAS tested to see whether computers or people made more accurate assessments of an individual’s personality. Researchers started by asking 86,220 volunteers to complete a 100-item personality questionnaire. Then, they asked friends and family members to complete a shorter questionnaire in regards to the volunteer’s personality. Finally, they accessed the volunteers’ Facebook Like history.

The human judgments were based on the data provided by friends or family members who actually knew the volunteer and the computer’s assessments were solely based on the volunteer’s Facebook Likes.

Results?  According to Science Daily: “The results show that by mining Facebook ‘Likes’, the computer model was able to predict a person’s personality more accurately than most of their friends and family.  Given enough likes to analyze, only a person’s spouse rivaled the computer for accuracy of broad psychological traits.”

The researchers said that this is a demonstration of how computers can discover a person’s psychological traits just from analyzing data.

Lead author Dr. Wu Youyou of Cambridge University’s Psychometrics Centre adds, “In the future, computers could be able to infer our psychological traits and react accordingly, leading to the emergence of emotionally-intelligent and socially skilled machines.”

Here is something you might find pretty incredible…  In the study, a computer could more accurately predict a subject’s personality than a work colleague by analyzing just ten likes, more than a friend or a cohabitant (roommate) with 70 likes, more than a family member (parent, sibling) with 150 likes, and more than a spouse with 300 likes!

What is This Information Good For?

Study co-author Dr. David Stillwell writes,   “The ability to judge personality is an essential component of social living – from day-to-day decisions to long-term plans such as whom to marry, trust, hire, or elect as president… The results of such data analysis can be very useful in aiding people when making decisions.”

Dr. Youyou explains, “Recruiters could better match candidates with jobs based on their personality; products and services could adjust their behavior to best match their users’ characters and changing moods.”

But the research team also issued this warning:  “We hope that consumers, technology developers, and policy-makers will tackle those challenges by supporting privacy-protecting laws and technologies, and giving the users full control over their digital footprints.”

Clearly, most things that possess the power and potential to do tremendous good can also be used for harm.  Splitting the atom is the classic example. This type of data mining is another.

That’s why everyone should think twice about what digital footprint they leave on the Internet. One good piece of advice is to only post things online that you wouldn’t mind your mother or grandmother seeing (because they might). If you’re not sure, then don’t post it. But since psychological profiles can be made of you just from you clicking a “Like” button, you may be revealing more about yourself than you know.

While we are on the topic of being careful what you post on the internet… check this out…

You probably know what a “selfie” is. A selfie is a self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a hand-held digital camera or smartphone.  Selfies are often shared on social networking services like as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.  They are usually flattering and made to appear casual.  Most selfies are taken with a camera held at arm’s length or pointed at a mirror.

You probably knew that.  But here is something you probably do not know…

The first selfie was taken by Robert Cornelius in 1839.  Yes… 1839.  Robert was an American pioneer in photography and took what is considered the first photograph of a person: himself.  He was able to accomplish this because it took over a minute for his primitive camera to take the shot, so he was able to start the picture and then run in front of the camera while the film was exposed to light.

Now for something else you probably do not know about selfies…

Researchers from Ohio State University analyzed surveys completed by 800 men in regards to their online behavior and personality traits. They found that men who regularly posted selfies on social media sites “scored higher on measures of narcissism and psychopathy, and were prone to self-objectification… Additionally, men who tended to edit their selfies before posting scored higher up the scale in narcissism and self-objectification, which measures the extent to which they prioritize their appearance.”

The researchers said that “self-objectification” may become a bigger problem with the rising use of social media. However, they stress that posting selfies on a regular basis doesn’t make a man a narcissist or psychopath, it just means they score above-average for these particular antisocial traits.

Don’t forget, if you ever have any questions or concerns about your health, talk to us. Contact us with your questions. We’re here to help and don’t enjoy anything more than participating in providing you natural pain relief.

There is no question,  science has dramatically changed the way in which we see the world and has helped us better understand both ourselves and the universe we inhabit.

Here is something most people do not know about science and the scientific method: it raises more questions than answers. You see, the purpose of science is NOT to “prove” things.  In fact, all scientific theories are actually unprovable.

The late philosopher Karl Popper believed a hypothesis, proposition, or theory is “scientific” only if it is, among other things, falsifiable.

According to Princeton University’s website:

“Falsifiability or refutability is the logical possibility that an assertion could be shown false by a particular observation or physical experiment.  That something is ‘falsifiable’ does not mean it is false; rather, it means that if the statement were false, then its falsehood could be demonstrated. “The claim ‘No human lives forever’ is not falsifiable since it does not seem possible to prove wrong.  In theory, one would have to observe a human living forever to falsify that claim. 

On the other hand, ‘All humans live forever’ is falsifiable since the presentation of just one dead human could prove the statement wrong (excluding metaphysical assertions about souls, which are not falsifiable). Moreover, a claim may be true and still be falsifiable; if ‘All humans live forever’ were true, we would never actually find a dead human, and yet that claim would still be falsifiable because we can at least imagine the observation that would prove it wrong.”

Here Are Two Important Things About This…

First, a statement that is unfalsifiable is non-scientific, but that does not mean it is not relevant or that it is inaccurate.  One great example is the existence of atoms.  The ancient metaphysical and unfalsifiable idea of the existence of atoms led to modern theories about atoms that are falsifiable.

In other words, just because something does not fit into the scientific method does not mean it will not fit someday or that it is false.  It is very possible that things could be untestable by science but true.

Just as important, because something does fit into the scientific method and has withstood scientific testing, it does not mean it is true or even partially true.  It is not uncommon to discover that things we believe to be fact are either partially or completely incorrect.

In other words, we know a lot less than we sometimes think we do and we should always keep an open mind.

Is Sodium Really the Devil?

For example, sodium has been demonized for quite some time because it has been linked to high blood pressure and heart disease.  For many years, it has been an accepted “fact” that sodium intake must be reduced in people with high blood pressure and by most people in general.

Not too long ago, a study was published that suggested the important measure wasn’t sodium intake but the sodium/potassium ratio in an individual’s diet. This could mean that even a low-sodium diet could be bad if an individual’s diet is also low in potassium, or that a high-sodium diet may not be an issue if a person’s diet is also a high-potassium diet. ‘

But it gets better…  Now, a new study published in the journal Open Heart has added to the debate.  In this study, high-sugar diets were found to raise blood pressure. According to the study:

“Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of premature mortality in the developed world, and hypertension is its most important risk factor.  Controlling hypertension is a major focus of public health initiatives, and dietary approaches have historically focused on sodium.

“While the potential benefits of sodium-reduction strategies are debatable, one fact which there is little debate is that the predominant sources of sodium in the diet are industrially processed foods.  Processed foods also happen to be generally high in added sugars, the consumption of which might be more strongly and directly associated with hypertension and cardio metabolic risk.”   

The authors of the study went on to add, 

“Thus, while there is no argument that recommendations to reduce consumption of processed foods are highly appropriate and advisable, the arguments in this review are that the benefits of such recommendations might have less to do with sodium – minimally related to blood pressure and perhaps even inversely related to cardiovascular risk – and more to do with highly-refined carbohydrates.”

Here’s What Is VERY Important To YOU:

This may seem like a lot of “scientific” information.  It may also seem confusing.  Researchers are good at making things confusing!

Here is the scoop:  Foods loaded with processed, refined carbohydrates are not good for you.  Choosing to eat fewer refined, processed foods is one of the best ways to lose weight and stay healthy.  Period.  End of story.

Notice, I did not say to stop eating carbohydrates?  Many people are confused by this and think all carbohydrates are the same but nothing could be further from the truth.

There is a HUGE difference between highly refined carbohydrates and unrefined carbohydrates.

Sure, there is a raging debate over low-carb and high-carb diets but that is another conversation.  The first thing you must understand is highly refined carbohydrates are not good for you in any amounts.  How many unrefined and GOOD carbohydrates you should consume is a very different topic.

Does science always have the right answer?  No, it is not supposed to.  Science is a method, a process.  It is one part of how we know what we know.  It is not all of it.

We should use science as part of the process to make the best decisions about life and health.

With that being said, I will go out on a limb and say this:  If you want to be healthier – possibly much healthier – stop eating processed, highly refined foods

Are You SAD? Vitamin D Deficiency Might Be The Cause…

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is believed to affect up to 10 percent of the population.  SAD is a type of depression related to the changes in the season and can affect some geographic locations more than others.  The symptoms of SAD usually start in the fall and continue throughout the winter months.  Now, new research suggests that Vitamin D plays a HUGE role in whether or not a person develops SAD. According to Dr. Alan Stewart of the University of Georgia College of Education,

“Rather than being one of many factors, Vitamin D could have a regulative role in the development of SAD… We believe there are several reasons for this, including Vitamin D levels fluctuate in the body seasonally, in direct relation to seasonally available sunlight.  For example, studies show there is a lag of about eight weeks between the peak in intensity of ultraviolet radiation and the onset of SAD, and this correlates with the time it takes for UV radiation to be processed by the body into Vitamin D.” 

It is important to note that Vitamin D is involved in the synthesis of dopamine and serotonin and lower levels of both are linked to depression. This is especially important since many people now avoid the sun as much as possible out of fear or developing skin cancer. Clearly, exposure to sunlight is important for optimizing your health. But there is a big difference between getting too much sunlight (and getting sunburns) and taking an extreme position to get no sunlight at all. The tricky thing is determining what level of sun exposure is most beneficial for you. Factors like skin tone and geographic location drastically affect how much sun any given person should be exposed to. However, a vitamin D supplement may safely help increase your vitamin D levels, especially during winter months when sunlight exposure is extremely limited.

Don’t forget, if you ever have any questions or concerns about your health, talk to us. Contact us with your questions. We’re here to help and don’t enjoy anything more than participating in providing you natural pain relief.