Monthly Archives: January 2009

When I was in undergraduate and chiropractic school, certain classes had certain “default answers” that could be used on tests when you didn’t really know the answer.  For example, in a nutrition class, when asked what would be a good food source of a particular vitamin or mineral, the default answer was “leafy green vegetables”.  You rarely went wrong with that answer because leafy green vegetables are a good food source of most important vitamins and minerals.   

Another example of the default answer for tests dealing with illness or injury is “inflammation”, because inflammation is involved to some extent in nearly all illnesses and injuries. 

These days, when asked for a natural remedy or treatment for just about any health condition, my answers ary somewhat, but nearly all fall into the category of “healthy lifestyle”.  In other words, healthy diet, regular exercise, good hydration, stress management, and avoidance of avoidable toxins (such as smoking, excess alcohol, drugs, and household chemicals) can be “prescribed” to alleviate and/or prevent almost any health problem you can think of. 

Dr. John Brimhall, who taught several post-graduate seminars I attended, used to say, “Healthy people don’t have cancer.”  The same can be said for any chronic illness.  The thing is, most people don’t give much thought to their health until they are suffering from poor health.  Then they become highly motivated to get healthy, but once the crisis has past, most revert back to their unhealthy lifestyles that got them into trouble in the first place. 

I think part of the problem is that we have been conditioned to think in terms of “curing” health problems by doctors and drug advertisements.  We’ve come to think of health as something that occurs without any effort, that we can eat what we want, do what we want, and then only when we have an illness or injury do we need to take corrective action. 

The problem with this line of thinking is that all too often health can deteriorate so gradually that we don’t notice.  What seems  to be a sudden occurrence of a serious health problem is usually not sudden at all.  In fact, the health crisis is the result of several months or even many years of poor lifestyle choices.  By the time the major symptoms appear, sometimes the damage is irreversible. 

 The good news is that it really is not that difficult to live a healthy life.  Yes, it can be a little difficult at first to change habits, and it will be harder for those individuals who have had the worst health habits.  What I suggest is making small changes one at a time, rather than trying to do everything at once.  Perhaps the first step might be to switch half of your coffee drinking to water.  Maybe you reduce the cut the portion sizes of junk foods in half and then gradually eliminate them.  You might begin to take daily walks.  Figure out what changes you can make without being overwhelmed and make the changes right now. 

Making the change immediately is important too.  If you wait until some specified day and time in the future, it’s too easy to find a reason to delay when that day and time arrives.  There will never be an ideal time when there’s no distractions or upcoming special events, or stressful situations.  If you are going to make the change and stick to it, now is the time.  As you add in more and more changes, you’ll probably wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.  Most people who make lasting healthy lifestyle changes tell me that they can’t believe how much better they feel, how much more energy they have, and how much easier life is. 

To close, for those of you who are ready to make the changes you know you need to, I wish you good luck!

Just a humor break for today’s post:

Ed’s Holistic Auto Repair

Perhaps you’re thinking that there’s a mistake in the title of today’s post.  Everyone knows that arthritis is for “old folks”, right?  Wrong!

While arthritis symptoms often do not appear until later in life, the beginnings of arthritis actually occur when you are young – even as far back as childhood in many cases!  The causes of arthritis are varied, but for degenerative arthritis, the most common type, the causes can be grouped into just a few categories.  Oh and by the way, simply getting older is NOT a cause of arthritis, contrary to popular belief.

The first category of causes for degenerative arthritis is a familiar one to most people:  wear and tear.  Most people think in terms of traumas to the body when they think of joint damage that leads to arthritis.  It is true that traumatic injuries from falls, auto accidents, sports, lifting injuries, etc. will often set the stage for the development of degenerative arthritis. 

The arthritic development from a trauma can begin at almost any age.  For example, a child who is riding in a car at the time of an accident can have resulting jamming or hypermobility of joints that can lead to severe arthritis many years later, even if they had no pain when the accident occurred.  So the joint and soft tissue damage that occurs from traumas to the body can set degenerative changes in motion that may go completely unnoticed for 5, 10, 20, or more years later.

But major accidents and injuries are not the only source of wear and tear.  Joint damage can also come from less obvious “micro-trauma”, such as repetetive activites and poor posture.  Small amounts of damage when occurring frequently over a long period of time can do as much or more damage than a “major” injury.  For example, someone who tends to sit in a slouched position most of the time will often develop arthritic problems in the back, even though they “never had a back injury”. 

While too much of the wrong activities can cause the beginnings of arthritis, too little physical activity can cause problems too.  This leads to the second category of causes for arthritis, inactivity.  The joints and surrounding soft tissues require movement to maintain flexibility and proper lubrication.  People who are extremely sedentary can develop arthritis because of a lack of nutrient exchange and removal of tissue wastes that occurs with lack of movement and the consequent lack of circulation to the joints.  So, even if you maintain good posture, if you don’t move around much, you are prone to developing arthritic problems.

The next category of causes for arthritis I’ll call consumption causes.  That is, things you put in your body, either from eating, drinking, or inhaling.  A diet high in refined carbohydrates (sugar, white flour, and foods made with them), Omega 6 fats (found in most vegetable oils), and various pro-inflammatory artificial ingredients lead to overall increased inflammation in the body and participate in the development of arthritis.  Soft drinks, “juice drinks” (that are primarily refined sugar), “energy drinks”, caffeinated beverages, and alcohol tend to promote inflammation and dehydration of the joints and other tissues.  Of course, the added structural stress of the weight gain from poor eating and drinking choices also contributes to arthritis development.  Finally, smoking causes inflammation and also decreases circulation to the joints, depriving them of the oxygen needed for normal regeneration of cartilage.

Finally, there are the deficiency causes of arthritis.  Lack of certain nutrients, especially antioxidants and sulfur-containing compounds used to regenerate cartilage will prevent the body from completing the ongoing joint repair activities that would normally take place.  While most of these nutrients can be easily obtained from a reasonably healthy diet, many people in the modern world fail to eat reasonably healthy diets.  It has been said that the United States and other Westernized nations have the seemingly contradictory problems of overeating and malnutrition.  The weight gain that increases joint stress, and the lack of the necessary nutrients for joint repair from the typical American diet provide a “double whammy” to our joints. 

As you can see, the causes of arthritis really have nothing to do with age, and in fact, the problems that start the development of arthritis are not only possible at a young age, but usually do occur at a young age. 

While not all of the causes of arthritis are avoidable, there is much that can be done to counter these causes and prevent the development of arthritis and thereby maintain healthy joints throughout life.  In my next post, I’ll discuss ways to negate or reduce the effects of the unavoidable causes of arthritis and give you tips on preventing the causes that are avoidable. 

First, my apologies to my faithful blog visitors who don’t live in “Mountain Cedar Country”, which is Texas and Southern Oklahoma – I’ll return to more global interests next time.  But for those of you who are suffering with “cedar fever”, I wanted to provide you with some information to help you get through the season. 

First, if you’re wondering how one pollen could be causing you so much misery, the video below shows a typical release of cedar when the weather gets dry and windy.  What looks like clouds of smoke from burning cedar trees is in fact clouds of pollen.  Multiply that by hundreds of thousands of acres of cedar trees, and you get huge amounts of pollen in the air that spreads for hundreds of miles.  Mountain cedar is truly in a class by itself in terms of the amount of pollen it produces.  So, for those of you who want to cut down the cedar trees in your yard – don’t bother, it won’t make the slightest difference in your allergies!

Cedar Pollen

 For effective relief of mountain cedar allergies, I suggest you checkout my post about allergy desensitization.

The following video from U.S. News and World Report details how artistic expressions, such as singing, painting, pottery, and others can help improve brain function and health in general for older adults.

The Aging Brain

The following video is of course intended to be humorous, but the ingredients shown for making your own flu shot are disturbingly all too real (and yes, the same ingredients are used in flu vaccines here in the U.S. as those used in Canada).  While the flu shot MAY reduce the incidence of flu (effectiveness varies from year to year and from strain to strain of the influenza virus, but rarely is it better than 50% overall for a given flu season), getting a flu shot can hardly be considered “healthy”. 

What’s In a Flu Shot

The first video below is a brief case history showing the difference in behavior in a young child when fed a diet high in sugar versus when fed a meal containing protein, fats, and complex carbohydrates.  While sugar is the stereotypical trigger for attention deficit disorder and disruptive behavior in children, almost any food can be a trigger for a given individual if that individual has a sensitivity to that food.  For instance, dairy allergies can sometimes trigger ADD / ADHD behaviors in certain children even moreso than sugar.  In general, minimizing refined and processed foods in the diet of an individual with ADD/ADHD will improve his or her ability to focus and reduce disruptive behavior.

How diet affects your child – http://www.nutritionforlearning.com

The next video presents another approach to Attention Deficit Disorder that may sound a little strange at first.  Chiropractic treatment is often very helpful for people with ADD / ADHD.  The theory on how it works is that it is believed that mechanical irritation in the spine can in turn produce irritation and/or compression of the spinal cord and nerves.  This results in abnormal processing in the central nervous system and may in some individuals produce the mental disorganization, distractibility, and emotional outbursts that are labeled as Attention Deficit Disorder.  Chiropractic treatment is used to correct the underlying mechanical problems producing the reactions in the nervous system and thereby allow a return to more normal central nervous system functioning. 

Chiropractic and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

The following video is a trailer for the documentary “Sweet Remedy” that discusses the FDA’s approval of various artificial ingredients, particularly artificial sweeteners like aspartame, yet they ban natural substances such as the sweet herb stevia.

Interestingly, the FDA has recently approved two new sweeteners made with stevia.  Truvia made by Coca-Cola and PureVia made by Pepsico both use rebiana, an extract of the stevia plant as their main ingredient. 

Yet as recently as the end of 2007, the FDA declared that stevia was “an unsafe food additive”. 

It’s amazing how Coca-Cola and Pepsico were able to magically transform this “unsafe food additive” into a safe and acceptable sweetener that the FDA could easily approve for release to the market. 

Or could it be that the FDA is actually in the pocket of corporate interests as they’ve been repeatedly accused.  Nah, that couldn’t be it!

Aspartame/MSG/FDA Sweet Remedy: The World Reacts (Trailer)

The following video discusses the paradox of how artificial sweeteners actually contribute to weight gain.  So, if you’re trying to lose weight, the first thing to do is dump the diet soda!

ABC News: Can Diet Soda Make You Fat?

The following video explains how enzymes promote thorough digestion and reduces or eliminates bloating after eating, as well as helps with a number of  inflammatory conditions in the body.

How Digestive Enzymes and Prebiotics Resolve Post-meal Bloat