I was recently asked what I take when I get a cold. I had to smile a little because the treatment in our household is much different than the norm. My response to that question was “Well, we don’t really take anything.” Surprising? It surprised the person who was asking. I was then asked what my family does instead. I said that what we do is get as much rest as possible, drink a lot of water (and I mean A LOT), and get adjusted. That’s basically it. Since this is not the typical treatment to the common cold, I thought I would share a little more about the why behind each of these things.

A Chiropractor’s Approach

Get As Much Rest As Possible

The body does most of its repair work while we are sleeping or resting. This is true of both the everyday upkeep and fighting off an illness. When the body is resting, there is less going on so more attention can be devoted to dealing with problems or focusing on fighting off a foreign invader. I have noticed when I feel I am ‘coming down’ with something, if I get some extra rest often not much more comes of it. Not that taking naps all day is really an option for most people, but when you can, get in a nap or go to bed a little earlier so your body can heal better.

Drink Lots of Water

Staying well hydrated is important all the time, but especially when you’re sick. When we are dehydrated our immune system cannot function at its best. White blood cells move through the blood and lymph to get to where they need to go. When we are dehydrated this process is slowed down. And especially when it comes to a cold, extra fluid is needed to flush out the viruses and wastes created by the immune response. While it can be very annoying, that runny nose serves a purpose, and you need to take in more fluid to replace that which is being lost.

Get Adjusted

Now most of you don’t have the advantage my family has of having an in-house chiropractor to deliver adjustments whenever needed. But even without that, regular chiropractic care can help you be healthier to prevent you from getting sick in the first place and helps boost your immune system, giving you the best chance to recover quickly, if you are sick. Regular chiropractic care helps keep every system in your body running smoothly so your body is better able to resist foreign invaders to begin with. If you are sick, adjustments help the body to get back in balance and fight off whatever is causing the problem. Studies have shown that there is increased activity in some of the components of the immune systems immediately following an adjustment.(1,2) With colds, many people find that their sinuses start draining for at least a little while following an adjustment. Always a nice thing when you’ve been congested. I can also check and adjust the sinuses themselves, which often also helps with drainage.

A Few Other Things

Those are the main components of cold treatment in our family. We occasionally use one of the nasal rinse pots to help when congestion is bad. A steamer or humidifier can also be helpful, particularly here where it is so dry, to increase moisture in the respiratory tract and help loosen some of the mucus. We have found that not using cold medicine helps our family get over colds faster than if we took things to relieve our symptoms. Instead, we have learned to rely on our bodies’ natural abilities to heal. Cough and fever suppressants actually hinder the body’s natural response for dealing with foreign invaders. Now there may be times when medications are needed, but there is a lot to be said for trusting your body and letting it do what it is supposed to do. That’s part of the reason I decided to become a chiropractor. I believe in providing a natural way to manage your pain, recover from injuries and sickness, and add years to your life and life to your years—without drugs or surgery.

References

1. Brennan PC, et al. Enhanced phagocytic cell respiratory burst induced by spinal manipulation: potential role of substance P. JMPT, 1991;14:399-408.
2. Brennan PC, et al. Enhanced neutrophil respiratory burst as a biological marker for manipulation forces: duration of the effect and association with substance P and tumor necrosis factor. JMPT,1992;15:83-9.

Do you think you are healthy? Does it even matter what you think? You are either healthy or not and what you think about your health has nothing to do with it, right? Health is all about exercise and eating right, isn’t it? These questions bring up the connection between thoughts and health that I would like to discuss. First, I want to briefly say that health is not an either/or situation but there are various levels or degrees of health and sickness. And true health is more than merely the absence of disease or symptoms. True health is optimal physical, mental, and social well-being!

So with that said, what you think absolutely matters when it comes to health, and not just because having lots of negative thoughts makes it impossible to have optimal mental well-being. There have been several theories as to why your thoughts affect your health, but there does not seem to be any real consensus on the matter. Some evidence shows that negative thoughts are associated with increased markers for stress and that stress can have a negative impact on health. However, other studies still found a relationship between positive thoughts and better health even after controlling for stress factors.

There are a couple of interesting studies that I wanted to briefly share on the subject of thoughts and health before discussing how chiropractic views this idea. In one study, the participants were given nasal drops that contained one of two rhinoviruses (common cold viruses) and evaluated for the development of the common cold. The results are fascinating. The participants who had the most positive emotional style were less likely to develop a cold in a dose-dependent manner even after controlling for “prechallenge virus-specific antibody, virus-type, age, sex, education, race, body mass, and season.” That means those who were highest on positive emotions had the least risk of developing a cold, those with middle positive emotions had a little higher risk and those lowest on positive emotions still had a little higher risk. Now it is really interesting that those who had negative emotional styles did not show a significant difference in risk between the high, medium, and low levels of negative emotion like you may have expected. The positive group did have better stress hormone levels and better health practices, but these factors could not account for the different risks of illness according to the study. (1)

In the other study a group of healthy premenopausal women was followed for many years to evaluate cardiovascular risk factors. At 10.4 years and 13.5 years after enrolling in the study (when they were at least 5 years postmenopausal) carotid scans were taken and evaluated for thickening of the carotid artery wall, a sign of cardiovascular disease. At the time of entering into the study and at the first scan the women also completed a test measuring optimistic or pessimistic attitudes. Those with the most optimistic attitudes had the least thickening of the carotid artery wall. The conclusion of the authors was “optimistic women are less likely to show progression of carotid disease in mid-life than are pessimists.” (2)

It is remarkable that these studies show benefits of positive emotions and thinking for both short- and long-term health. I personally think the benefits of ‘healthy thinking’ go far beyond just these two examples. I would like to share one more possibility for the link between thoughts and health from the view of chiropractic philosophy. The link between thoughts and health has been known in chiropractic from the very beginning. The founder of chiropractic, D.D. Palmer, succinctly stated that the three causes of subluxation are thoughts, traumas, and toxins. A subluxation is when the bones of the spine are not aligned or moving properly and causes irritation to the spinal nerves interfering with their ability to function fully. With subluxations the body is in a state of less than optimal functioning. Since the body works together as a whole, when one part is not functioning at its best it affects everything else.

So constantly thinking negative or self-defeating thoughts can lead to subluxation, hindering your body’s natural ability to heal. From experience I have found that to truly correct some subluxations you need to address the underlying cause which may include your thoughts. So think positive and healthy thoughts and you will be affecting more than just your mood; you will be affecting your body’s ability to heal.

This connection between thoughts and health is one reason why I look into more than just the physical symptoms to get to the real cause of the problem. I believe that the body, mind, and soul need to be balanced for true healing. If you or someone you know could benefit from this kind of holistic approach stop by or give me a call.

References

1. Cohen S, Doyle WJ, Turner RB, Alper CM, Skoner DP. Emotional Style and Susceptibility to the Common Cold, Psychosomatic Medicine 65:652–657 (2003). Can be accessed at: http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/content/65/4/652.long
2. Matthews KA, Raikkonen K, Sutton-Tyrrell K, Kuller LH. Optimistic Attitudes Protect Against Progression of Carotid Atherosclerosis in Healthy Middle-Aged Women, Psychosomatic Medicine 66:640–644 (2004). Can be accessed at: http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/content/66/5/640.full.pdf

I believe that our society today misunderstands what sickness is. Yes, we have made many advances in knowledge about how pathological processes take place, even to a molecular level, but overall we have become confused about sickness. We have confused the body’s natural response to disease (the symptom) with sickness. Before we get to the question of “why do we get sick” I need to define what sickness is in my mind.

Sickness is not the symptom! While this has become the common way of thinking, I contend that it is an incorrect way of thinking and only leads to more sickness and disease. What do I mean? Well when you are running a fever, have a runny nose and cough you would probably claim that you are ‘sick.’ Very likely you would even take some medication to reduce your fever and suppress your cough to get ‘better.’ You may think you are treating your sickness.  But you are not.  You are treating your symptoms, and in fact are probably prolonging the amount of time that you will have symptoms.

So what is the sickness or the cause of the symptoms? Well you may think the ‘cold virus’ is what is causing the symptoms or sickness. And on one level that is correct, but does everyone exposed to a ‘cold virus’ get a cold? Of course not, so dig a little deeper, what is it that makes the difference?

The difference is the body’s ability to adapt to the stress placed on it. In our example, the body’s defenses were weakened to a point where the ‘cold virus’ was able to invade and cause symptoms. But the interesting thing is that those symptoms are actually the body’s way of increasing its defenses to neutralize the virus. A fever increases the body’s activity especially of the immune system and white blood cells. A cough helps to clear mucus with waste products from the lungs and airways. So if your body does start to have symptoms this is a healthy response, not sickness.

This idea is nothing new. In fact, Hippocrates ‘the Father of Medicine’ wrote:

Diseases are crises of purification, of toxic elimination. Symptoms are the natural defenses of the body. We call them diseases, but in fact they are the cure of diseases. All diseases are but one and their cause is also one, although they manifest themselves by means of different symptoms, according to the place in which they appear.

So if the symptoms are not sickness but a healthy response of the body, then what is sickness? Sickness is when the body—to some degree—is unable to adapt to the stresses around it and begins to dysfunction. Perhaps “sickness” is not the best word for this, and “loss of health” might be a more fitting term. By this definition, I would say there is much more sickness in the world today than there ever has been with the rise of so many lifestyle diseases: heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc. This loss of health may be accompanied by outward symptoms but the symptoms themselves are not the sickness but evidence of the underlying dysfunction.

Why Do We Get Sick?

I have already, in part, given the answer to that question: lifestyle. Our lifestyle and what we do and put into our bodies determines how well they will function. Sickness comes when we do not take care of our bodies and then they can no longer adapt to the stresses placed on them and begin to break down. As a chiropractor, more specifically, I see the cause of sickness is spinal subluxation. Spinal subluxation is when the bones of the spine are not aligned or moving properly and this causes strain or irritation to the nerves, in turn causing interference with the messages they send. This puts the body in a state of dis-ease, which is basically a state of some sort of dysfunction. The thing is that you may or may not have symptoms to go along this state of dis-ease but the body is not functioning at its best even if you aren’t aware of it.

But what causes spinal subluxations? The founder of chiropractic, D.D. Palmer beautifully summed up the causes of subluxation in three simple words: Thoughts, Trauma, and Toxins.

Thoughts

Our thoughts and emotions can have a huge impact on our health. If we constantly think negative thoughts, are surrounded by negative emotions, or are constantly stressed about things, it takes a toll on our health. One way this takes place is by causing spinal subluxations.

Traumas

Traumas are probably what most people think about as a reason to go to a chiropractor. If you are in a car accident, hurt yourself lifting something, or even have repetitive stress injuries that cause pain you may consider going to a chiropractor. But the real benefits are not just pain relief but correcting the spinal subluxations, allowing the body to function better.

Toxins

This is a big one in the world we live in today. Our bodies are exposed to so many chemicals constantly. This exposure can be in the food we eat, products we use, or even pollution in the environment. Allergies and sensitivities may be from an underlying toxicity issue. And again these toxins can cause subluxation which in turn inhibits your body’s ability to optimally process all of the chemicals we are exposed to. To correct the problem you must get rid of the toxins as well as correct the subluxation.

Conclusion

Ultimately the answer to “why do we get sick” comes down to the body not functioning correctly. I believe that the only way to correct the problem is to find the underlying dysfunction and address that, NOT chasing the symptoms. This is what chiropractic does: addresses the underlying cause of the dysfunction – the subluxation – and then lets the body heal itself.

If you or someone you know could benefit from chiropractic care, give us a call. We are always happy to help!

We are told by the media and many doctors that vaccines are safe and effective. We are told that vaccines are responsible for saving thousands to millions of lives from infectious diseases that we are taught to fear. We are told that vaccines provide life-long immunity to these diseases (with booster shots?). However is this accurate?

I want to start by saying that I am not completely against vaccines and I believe it is every person’s right to decide for themselves whether or not to be vaccinated. I also strongly believe that people should have adequate information to be able to make an informed decision. This is the biggest problem that I have with vaccination: that often vaccines are either forced on people or that individuals are only given limited, one-sided information—if any at all—to make a decision about vaccinating. This post only very briefly presents some of the ‘other side’ of the debate. In researching for this post, I continued to come across more and more information about vaccines and can only present very little here. There are several links to other articles and websites at the end for more information. I think there are many important questions that should be asked before deciding to vaccinate and I hope this will stimulate some thought when it comes to vaccines.

Vaccine Safety

First off, what are the requirements to claim that a vaccine is safe? Are there even any specific requirements? The Committee on the Assessment of Studies of Health Outcomes Related to the Recommended Childhood Immunization Schedule (long enough name?) had this to say about vaccine safety:

Vaccine safety is critically important, but a determination of safety is ultimately a value judgment. For example, some might believe that a serious adverse event that occurs once in 1 million doses is “safe enough” relative to the benefit of preventing a serious disease, whereas others may consider that risk unacceptably high.(1)

So as far as I can tell from my research there is no specific set standard as what is considered safe enough. I hope that there is some common sense used in making that determination, but likely it would be different for each and every vaccine. So what does a vaccine go through before being approved to be sold in the US?

Like other pharmaceutical products, vaccines, undergo extensive safety and efficacy evaluations in the laboratory, in animals and in sequentially phased human clinical trials prior to licensure. Phase I trials usually number in the tens and can only detect the grossest toxicity. Phase II trials generally enroll hundreds of people and, when carefully coordinated, can provide important conclusions. These conclusions might address the relationship between the concentration of antigens, number of vaccine components, formulation technique, effect of successive dose and profile of common reactions, all of which impact on the choice of the vaccines chosen for Phase III trial. The sample size for Phase III vaccine trials are based primarily on efficacy considerations, usually ranging between 100 and 10,000 participants. The maximum duration of observation is also generally limited to a couple of years. The availability of unvaccinated control group, however, allows clear identification of true common local and systemic reactions (e.g., injection site swelling, fever, fussiness). To identify potential safety problems, vaccines go through pre-release lot testing for safety and potency. This evaluation usually occurs parallel to the clinical trials prior to vaccine licensure.(2)

It is interesting to note that these trials are carried out by the pharmaceutical companies producing the vaccine. This really is a conflict of interest and brings into question the validity of those studies. Specifically with the flu vaccine the Cochrane Review Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults contains this warning:

This review includes 15 out of 36 trials funded by industry (four had no funding declaration). An earlier systematic review of 274 influenza vaccine studies published up to 2007 found industry funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size. Studies funded from public sources were significantly less likely to report conclusions favorable to the vaccines. The review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies. The content and conclusions of this review should be interpreted in light of this finding.(3)

Also in the process of approval for a vaccine, the unvaccinated control group really only refers to an individual being unvaccinated with the specific vaccine that is being tested. There have been few if any studies and no randomized control trials that compare health outcomes of completely unvaccinated individuals and fully vaccinated individuals. And you are unlikely ever to see a randomized controlled trial (the gold standard) comparing vaccinated with completely unvaccinated because it is considered unethical to withhold vaccines to perform the trial (that seems awfully convenient for the vaccine companies).

So before approval of a vaccine, it is basically left up to the pharmaceutical company to show that it is safe. Aside from that, the longest trials are only limited to a couple of years, so long-term effects cannot be determined from them. So how do we determine if there are long-term negative effects to vaccination? The only way to definitively answer the question would be several long-term randomized control trials, but that isn’t going to happen as stated before. That leaves looking back and trying to figure how vaccination plays into the declining health in the US, which really doesn’t give a clear answer.

Passive reporting systems have also been created, such as the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), to help track vaccine safety after marketing. So basically the pharmaceutical companies ‘show’ a vaccine is safe in the short-term, it is licensed, and then we monitor reported health problems after vaccination to see if trends develop. This essentially means the entire population is in a vaccine safety study. While having a passive reporting system is better than nothing, it is not foolproof. One major problem with passive reporting systems like VAERS is that adverse events are known to be underreported. The rates vary for different types of adverse events, but it is universally acknowledged that underreporting is a problem. Just how much of a problem is difficult to ascertain.

Vaccine safety has been a concern for a number of years.  In 1986 adverse reactions to childhood vaccines were reviewed.

In the United States, The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 established a Committee from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to review the adverse consequences of childhood vaccines. This group found severe limits in the knowledge and research capability on vaccine safety. Of the 76 vaccine adverse events they reviewed for causal relation, 50 (66%) had no or inadequate research. Specifically, the IOM Committees identified the following limitation’s: 1) Inadequate understanding of biologic mechanisms underlying adverse events; 2) Insufficient or inconsistent information from case reports and case series; 3) Inadequate size or length of follow-up of many population-based epidemiologic studies; 4) Limitations of existing surveillance systems to provide persuasive evidence of causation and 5) Few experimental studies published relative to the total number of epidemiologic studies published.(2)

So how has the research improved since then? Well when it comes to the safety of the whole vaccination schedule, The Committee on the Assessment of Studies of Health Outcomes Related to the Recommended Childhood Immunization Schedule (remember them?) had this to say:

In summary, few studies have comprehensively assessed the association between the entire immunization schedule or variations in the overall schedule and categories of health outcomes, and no study has directly examined health outcomes and stakeholder concerns in precisely the way that the committee was charged to address in its statement of task. No studies have compared the differences in health outcomes that some stakeholders questioned between entirely unimmunized populations of children and fully immunized children. Experts who addressed the committee pointed not to a body of evidence that had been overlooked but rather to the fact that existing research has not been designed to test the entire immunization schedule.(1)

And…

In summary, to consider whether and how to study the safety and health outcomes of the entire childhood immunization schedule, the field needs valid and accepted metrics of the entire schedule (the “exposure”) and clearer definitions of health outcomes linked to stakeholder concerns (the “outcomes”) in rigorous research that will ensure validity and generalizability.(1)

So after basically saying there was little evidence about the safety of the vaccination schedule and a need for “valid and accepted metrics” to even adequately study the matter, what was the committee’s final conclusion? “The committee found no significant evidence to imply that the recommended immunization schedule is not safe.”(1) Claiming that there is no significant evidence (where there is little to no evidence to begin with) that something is not safe does not equate to it being proven safe, though I think few people realize this.

In my mind the question about safety is far from adequately answered!

Vaccine Effectiveness

There are many studies to show that vaccines do affect the body and that the body will make antibodies to the antigens in the vaccines. This in turn will affect how the body will respond to an infection. However, there are many questions that remain. One big question is whether or not vaccines are responsible for the decline in deaths from infections disease as we are taught. Another important question is do vaccines provide long-term protection against disease and that in turn has a huge impact on the idea of herd immunity.

To begin with let’s discuss the question of if vaccines are responsible for the decrease in deaths from infectious diseases. Now it is interesting that to have good evidence of a causal relationship you need a randomized control trial. So if you want to say that vaccines caused a reduction in deaths you would need to set up a randomized control trial to test that. That is not the case. So did deaths decrease from infectious diseases after vaccines were introduced? Yes, but that does not mean that vaccines were responsible for the decrease.

I will not go into too much detail here because there is a good article specifically on the subject in the links below. But there is evidence that deaths from infectious diseases were already on the decline before vaccines were introduced. So was it the vaccines that were responsible or something else like improved living conditions and nutrition? I personally am inclined to believe that better nutrition, living conditions and even medical treatment had a greater impact than vaccines themselves. Something else to consider with this question is what about ‘diseases’ that do not have a vaccine, did death or incidence decline as well without a vaccine? For example, scarlet fever (which is caused by group A streptococcus, the same type of bacteria responsible for strep throat), is practically unheard of today. There is no vaccine for scarlet fever or group A streptococcus, but this deadly disease has practically disappeared without a vaccine.

As far as long-term protection goes, it is assumed that finding a certain level of antibodies in the blood should give protection. It was thought that vaccines would provide lifelong protection against disease. But more recently we are finding that vaccines do not offer lifelong protection and this is the idea behind giving booster shots to maintain antibody levels. However at least in the case of pertussis “antibody levels do not correlate well with protection against pertussis.”(4) So there is a question of whether or not antibody levels offer protection, but this is what is assumed to ‘show’ protection. So if a certain level of antibodies is not protective, the assumption that we have been protected would be incorrect. What does offer protection, or have we been unprotected without having huge outbreaks? I do not have the answers to these questions but it does cast doubt in my mind about the effectiveness of vaccines and the concept of herd immunity.

I hope this has given you some questions to think about. Again I am not completely against vaccines, but strongly believe that what we often hear in the media is not the whole story. Everyone should have the right to make an informed decision about vaccination, and I currently believe that most people don’t have adequate information to make an informed decision. I hope you will do your own research and look at some of the links below to get some more of the ‘other side’ of the story.

Additional Information

National Vaccine Information Center – lots of good information about vaccines and the importance of informed consent http://www.nvic.org

About herd immunity http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/07/05/herd-immunity-the-flawed-science-and-failures-of-mass-vaccination-suzanne-humphries-md-3/

Decline in infectious disease before vaccines http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2013/11/12/vaccines-a-peek-beneath-the-hood-by-roman-bystrianyk-and-suzanne-humphries-md/

Vaccines are some of the most recalled drugs http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/04/24/most-recalled-type-of-drug-will-surprise-you.aspx

Contamination of vaccine with pig virus, but not recalled by the FDA only suspended for a time http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/04/17/major-vaccine-suspended-due-to-contamination-with-pig-virus.aspx

Vaccines changing the way the immune system responds to disease http://pathwaystofamilywellness.org/component/option,com_crossjoomlaarticlemanager/Itemid,375/aid,1369/view,crossjoomlaarticlemanager/

Dr. Blaylock, MD – more on herd immunity and risks of vaccine and forced vaccination http://www.thenhf.com/article.php?id=1975

References

(1) National Research Council. The Childhood Immunization Schedule and Safety: Stakeholder Concerns, Scientific Evidence, and Future Studies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2013. Available online at: The National Academies Press

(2) Chen RT, Hibbs B. Vaccine Safety: Current and Future Challenges. Pediatric Annals July 1998; 27 (7): 445-455. Can be accessed here: http://www.utoronto.ca/virology/mby480/VaccineSafe/VaccineSafe.htm

(3) Jefferson T, Di Pietrantonj C, Rivetti A, Bawazeer GA, Al-Ansary LA, Ferroni E. Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2010, Issue 7.

(4) Dajani NA, Scheifele D. How long can we expect pertussis protection to last after the adolescent booster dose of tetanus-diphtheria-pertussis (Tdap) vaccines? Paediatrics & Child Health Vol 12 No 10 December 2007.

Have you heard the phrase “you are what you eat”? Well besides being catchy, it is true. Your body uses the food you take in as the building blocks to maintain and repair your body. The body only has three options with everything that comes into your body:

1. Use it
2. Get rid of it
3. Store it

That’s it. If the body cannot do number one or two, it is stuck with number three, which can have a huge impact on health when we accumulate toxins that the body cannot get rid of very well. So if you eat “junk” you will only have “junk” for your body to work with.

I recently watched the documentary “Food Matters.” Apparently, it normally will cost you money to get a DVD or some other access to it, but is showing free for a short time. If you like, you can check it out yourself here if you act quickly because it is only available for free until midnight December 10, 2013. It was thought provoking and I would recommend it.

While I did not completely agree with everything that was presented, it did give me many things to consider. I will definitely be researching more about the ideas presented. I agree with the overall ideas presented that you are in charge of your health and what you eat makes an enormous difference when it comes to health.

The documentary centers on using nutrition to not only maintain health but to ‘treat’ any number of diseases including cancer. Whether or not that is valid is something I will have to look into, but nutrition is known to affect many types of cancer. One of the ideas put forth that I completely agree with is that the body is endowed with an innate ability to heal and that disease happens when this healing ability is hindered by something. In this case, the focus was on poor nutrition as the cause of the breakdown of the healing mechanism. I agree that nutrition can be a cause and proper nutrition is essential to the body being able to heal. But as a chiropractor, I also know that subluxation interferes with the healing mechanism.

A subluxation is basically when the bones of the spine are not aligned or moving properly, which interferes with the function of nerves. The nerves control every process in the body, including healing. Poor nutrition is one cause of subluxation as well as physical and mental/emotional stresses. As a chiropractor I can help in correcting subluxations, but if you are not eating well you will not be able to achieve your full health potential.

How important is nutrition? Nutrition is vitally important to your health. And I will echo suggestions from the documentary: don’t take anyone else’s word for it, find out for yourself! Research for yourself and ask questions. And if you have any questions I would be glad to be a starting place. I minored in nutrition during my undergraduate work and studied it while in chiropractic school.

You may not be familiar with germ theory in detail, but you probably have heard the general idea behind it. In fact, it is probably engrained into your everyday life even without you knowing it because modern medicine and pharmaceuticals are based on germ theory. Germ theory basically states that germs are the cause of certain diseases. However, it is still a theory rather than proven fact (as difficult as that may be to believe), and there is much more to sickness than just germs.

Louis Pasteur was one of the major individuals in developing germ theory. He spent most of his life advocating that germs were the cause of disease – often to the exclusion of any other factors. However, there were other scientists at the same time as Pasteur that had a different view on the cause of disease. They believed that the environment of the body was what determined disease. The idea was that germs are a result of an unhealthy internal environment and not the cause of disease. It is interesting to note that it is reported that Pasteur, on his death-bed, ‘confessed’ that the germ was nothing and that the internal environment was everything.

While I do not think either extreme is completely correct, the internal environment of the body has a bigger effect on health and sickness than germs alone. Think about it. When someone in a family gets sick, does everyone necessarily get sick? Yet they are all exposed to the same germs. Also there are a number of diseases that are not related to germs but lifestyle. These ‘lifestyle’ diseases in turn make a person more susceptible to infectious diseases. There is practical evidence that it is more than just germs that cause certain diseases. In fact, there have been researchers over the years that have taken different ‘germs’ into their bodies and not gotten sick with the disease those germs were supposed to cause (not generally a good idea though).

Modern medicine and pharmaceuticals has focused on the germ for years now, and we may be quickly reaching a point when antibiotics will no longer do any good. While antibiotics have saved many lives over the years, they have been overused and led to many germs becoming resistant to them. What do we do if we reach the point when antibiotics become useless? The only option I see will be to strengthen our natural immunity to prevent disease.

So how do we increase our body’s natural ability to fight disease or improve its internal environment to stay healthy? Well the answer will probably not be surprising: eat healthy, get adequate rest, regular exercise and keep your body functioning at its best. One thing needed to keep the body functioning at its best is regular chiropractic care.

When the bones of the spine are not aligned/moving properly it affects the nerves coming and going from the spinal cord. This basically causes interference with the normal function of the nerves and, in turn, everything else in the body since the nervous system controls everything in the body. This can lead to any number of problems, and may or may not cause pain as well. One thing that can be affected is the immune system, and a few studies have shown that after a chiropractic adjustment certain white blood cells have enhanced function at least for a short time. Other studies have also shown that people that regularly use chiropractic take less medication and visit the hospital less than those that do not.

So if you want to prevent disease, you are better off visiting the chiropractor than grabbing the disinfectant. Come give it a try!

References:

Louis Pasture Recants His Germ Theory
Immune Responses to Spinal Manipulation
Abstract-Clinical Utilization and Cost Outcomes From an Integrative Medicine Independent Physician Association: An Additional 3-Year Update

Coming into the holiday season, many people may wonder—or worry—about how much they are eating. This may raise questions about what is a serving size. However the question of “what is a serving size?” is not quite as simple as you might think. This is because there are actually several food guidelines, each with little differences in serving size. In fact, the most recent US food guideline – MyPlate – actually does not use serving sizes per se, but only gives overall amounts that should be eaten of each group each day. This blog will review the most common serving sizes based on the Food Guide Pyramid and then the current recommendations per day based on MyPlate.

Before getting to the common serving sizes, another place you find serving sizes is on food labels, however the serving size may not be the same as food guidelines. Food labels are required to list a serving size and the number of servings per container. These serving sizes are based on information taken from national surveys of what is usually eaten of a certain food at a sitting. The key word here is based on this reference amount because a food label may have a serving size as little as 50% or as great as 200% of this reference amount.

Food Guide Pyramid

Maybe the most well-known food guideline in the US was the Food Guide Pyramid. The Food Guide Pyramid was introduced in 1992 and was replaced by MyPyramid in 2005. Since that time MyPyramid has been replaced by MyPlate, and neither used specific serving sizes. So the serving sizes most people think of are probably from the Food Guide Pyramid or one of its derivatives.

Serving Sizes

According to the Food Guide Pyramid here are some of the most common serving sizes for each group

• Bread, Cereal, Rice & Pasta
  • ½ cup of cooked rice or pasta
  • 1 cup of ready-to-eat cereal
  • 1 slice of bread
• Vegetables
  • ½ cup of chopped or cooked vegetables
  • 1 cup of green leafy vegetables
  • ¾ cup (6 fl. oz.) of vegetable juice
• Fruit
  • ½ cup of chopped, cooked, or canned fruit
  • 1 medium apple, banana, or orange
  • ¾ cup (6 fl. oz.) of fruit juice
• Milk, Yogurt, and Cheese
  • 1 cup of milk or yogurt
  • 1 ½ oz. of natural cheese (e.g. cheddar)
  • 2 oz. of processed cheese (e.g. American)
• Meat, Poultry, Fish, Dry Beans, Eggs, and Nuts
  • 2-3 oz. of meat, poultry, or fish
  • The following counts as 1 oz. of meat
    • ½ cup cooked beans
    • 1 egg
    • 2 Tbsp. of peanut butter

There was no serving size set for fats, oils & sweets for the Food Guide Pyramid. The recommendation was to use these sparingly.

MyPlate “Serving Sizes”

As mentioned before the MyPlate guidelines do not have specific serving sizes. The guidelines recommend what should be eaten of each group each day. For adults the recommendations for each group are

• Grains – 5-8 oz. equivalents/day
• Vegetables – 2-3 cups/day
  • Dark green – 1 ½ -2 cups/week
  • Red/Orange – 4-6 cups/week
  • Beans/Peas – 1-2 cups/week
  • Starchy – 4-6 cups/week
  • Other – 3 ½ -5 cups/week
• Fruits – 1 ½ -2 cups/day
• Protein – 5 – 6 ½ oz. equivalents/day
• Dairy – 3 cups/day
• Fats/Oils – 5-7 teaspoons allowed/day

If you would like more about what equals an oz. equivalent, cup, or teaspoon of each group see the MyPlate website.

Conclusion

What you eat has a big impact on your health. Knowing what a serving size is can be helpful to gauge how much you eat, but is only one part of healthy eating. If this information has been helpful share it with a friend. If you would like more information about the importance of nutrition give us a call and watch for more nutrition related blogs to come.

We all want to be healthy, right? But when you think of being healthy, does a healthy spine come to mind first? Think about it, what does the spine protect? Your spinal cord! Your spinal cord is what bridges the gap between your brain, which controls everything, and the nerves that go out to your body. If there are problems with the spine, it affects the spinal cord and nerves! Unlike many other parts of the body that may wear out and be replaced, have you ever heard of a spine transplant? I haven’t either. So a healthy spine is essential to a healthy you!

1. Posture Is Important for a Healthy Spine

Did you know that your spine was not designed to be completely straight? It has natural curves front to back that help it to better distribute the stresses put on it. When you have “good” posture you are in natural alignment that reduces the stress on the spine. “Poor” posture is a posture that increases the stress on the spine and other joints of the body. In a short period of time, poor posture will probably cause little noticeable difference. But in the long term it makes an enormous difference in how the spine can function and your overall health. With poor posture you end up increasing the stress on areas that were not meant to have that much stress and they begin to break down. This leads to arthritis in the spine or spinal degeneration.

What is “Good” Posture?

In general “good” posture is when we are not hunching, leaning, or slouching.  Ideal standing posture from a side view is when a straight line passes through:

• Ear lobe
• Tip of the shoulder
• Slightly behind the hip joint
• Slightly in front of the middle of the knee
• Just in front of the lateral malleolus (the bump on the outside of the ankle)

Also the natural curves of the spine are not decreased or over-accentuated.

When sitting, you want to sit up straight without slouching keeping the natural curve in the low back. One easy way to help with this is by sitting with your buttocks to the back of the seat instead of a little forward. Then you want to have the head over the shoulders and the shoulders “back” (in a neutral position). When working on a computer, we have the tendency to move the head forward, round the shoulders forward and to increase the curve in our upper back by leaning forward. So watch for those things and adjust your posture accordingly.

Posture takes time to change, so don’t get discouraged when trying to correct it. It took you a long time to get those bad habits and it will take time to replace them with good habits.

2. Exercise Your Spine

Posture is definitely important, but what stabilizes the spine so you can maintain your posture? The muscles of the back and your “core” muscles. You have probably done or heard of workouts to strengthen your core, but what are your “core muscles”? In general, your core muscles are the muscles that stabilize the “core” of your body, namely the spine and pelvis. Overall your core muscles are not muscles that are used to make large movements but instead are used to stabilize and maintain posture. They are meant to be endurance muscles and you work them by holding positions, not doing repetitions of some exercise with increasing weight. This means that even bodybuilders or those that seem really fit may still have a weak core and will be more likely to have a back injury.

What Exercises Strengthen Your Core?

Exercises that require you to hold a position and build more endurance than ‘strength’ are great for the core. It is much more important to keep proper form during the exercise than just getting more time doing the exercise. If you can’t keep the proper form, you need to stop and rest. It does more harm than good doing an exercise with poor form. Some good core exercises that I like to have patients do are front and side bridges (planks), bird dog, and curl-ups (kind of a modified crunch with a hold). To help with keeping proper form it is good to have a spotter help you or do the exercises in front of a mirror.

3. Get Regular Chiropractic Check-ups

Even with perfect posture and a strong core to help stabilize the back, there may still be a major health issue present. It is called spinal subluxation. It is basically improper movement/alignment of the bones of the spine which in turn affects the function of the nerves exiting the spinal cord. Often a spinal subluxation will be attended by pain—but not always—which is why it is so important to regularly be checked by a chiropractor. A chiropractor is the only health professional that is trained to identify and help correct spinal subluxation.

Regular chiropractic care also helps you to maintain proper posture and keep the core muscles functioning the way they should. A spinal subluxation can have a pronounced effect on the body overall and interferes with the body’s natural ability to heal. A spinal subluxation creates, to some degree, a disconnect between the brain and the body, so the body cannot function at its best. As a chiropractor, I have helped numerous people improve their health naturally by finding and correcting spinal subluxations allowing the body to better heal itself. Chiropractic is so much more than just relieving back pain. If you would like to know more about how chiropractic can help you contact our office today.