Chronic disease is a big problem in America with almost half of adults with one or more chronic disease diagnoses.  In this post we are continuing to look at “The Changing Face of Chronic Illness Management in Primary Care: A Qualitative Study of Underlying Influences and Unintended Outcomes” from the Annals of Family Medicine.   I encourage everyone to read the full article at the link.  In today’s post we will look more closely how lowering diagnostic thresholds and doctor incentives lead to increased prescription drug use.

Lowering Diagnostic Thresholds

The study focuses around two chronic diseases – diabetes and hypertension (high blood pressure).  Both diseases have had the criteria for diagnosis change since the early 1990’s.  The thresholds have been lowered and there is even a special lower threshold for hypertension in diabetic patients.

	1992	1993	1998	2003	Increase in cases
Diabetes: fasting plasma glucose, mg/dL
Diabetes	140	—	126	—	10.3 million
Prediabetes	None	—	110	100	—
Hypertension: blood pressure, mm Hg
Non-diabetic patients	160/95	140/90	—	—	22.0 million
Diabetic patients	—	—	—	130/80	—
Prehypertension	None	—	—	120/80	—

So changing the thresholds has resulted in 10.3 million more cases of diabetes and 22.0 million more cases of hypertension.  Now you may think that catching and treating these diseases sooner with the lower threshold is a good thing.  The authors noted that with changing guidelines, treating ‘pre’ condition status has become more common and that those considered ‘healthy’ a few years previous are now considered to need treatment.  But what is the treatment often given?  Of the physicians observed in the study, most of the visits revolved around medications almost to the exclusion of other options like lifestyle changes.

Something else mentioned in the study is that with lower thresholds, people are being treated with mild or marginal disease.  What this means is that the benefit of treatment is relatively lower, while the potential for negative side effects remains the same.  Also treatment of mild elevation in either blood glucose or blood pressure is more likely to result in problems with low blood glucose or blood pressure.

Doctor Incentive

There are several programs that look at performance of doctors and offer rewards for better performance.  These programs could be from insurance companies, the doctor’s employer, or other entities.  It seems to make sense to be rewarded for better performance, but how is performance measured?  Often it is measured by having the lab values for patients being within those established by guidelines.  Now there are a couple of issues here.  One is that if lab values are the measure of performance, this does not necessarily take into consideration the well-being of the patient.  Another is that having tightly controlled lab values may not lead to better long-term outcomes.

Here is an example from the study of ‘good’ lab values not equating to improved well-being.

“Sherie, a 54-year-old African American woman, is a recently unemployed cosmetologist who lost her health insurance several years ago. She has been taking hydrochlorothiazide and a β-blocker for hypertension for 13 years. Two years ago, she started taking metformin and glipizide after a random glucose reading of 130 mg/dL, as a preventive measure, because of a strong family history of diabetes. After her diabetes diagnosis, her doctor used a lower diagnostic threshold for hypertension and for high cholesterol, and she was prescribed a third antihypertensive and a statin.  Sherie is currently taking 8 prescription medications: 3 for hypertension, 2 for diabetes, 1 for high cholesterol levels, and 2 for depression…. Her diabetes medications cause diarrhea and bouts of hypoglycemia, which interferes with her ability to leave her home because she must eat and go to the bathroom so frequently. She also had 5 visits to the emergency department in 1 month for excruciating headaches, before they were determined to be an adverse effect of the additional hypertension medication she had been prescribed after her diabetes diagnosis. She was able to change hypertension medication with the help of the Pfizer program. At her most recent appointment, her physician happily told her: ‘Your blood pressure is 130/78 [mm Hg], your A1c is 7.0[%], and your cholesterol was normal. Very good!’

On the basis of current standards, the clinician classified this patient as healthy, a success story; however, this classification does not address the broader question of her well-being.”

This does not sound like a healthy person to me even if their lab values are within limits!  The point is that rigid conformity to a range of lab values does not equal health.  There is also evidence that strictly controlling lab values within a range with drugs does not always lead to better outcomes in the long run.  Something is wrong with the system when the patient takes a back seat to their disease.  William Osler said “It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has.”  I think the way the medical system is going, they are losing sight of this.

Conclusion

Changing diagnostic thresholds may be necessary at times as we continue to learn more about how the body functions, but are they always good changes?  And who benefits the most from changes in guidelines?  If it is not the patient, then there is definitely a problem.  And while it makes sense to have rewards for better performance, I don’t believe the standards used always measure better performance.  It is obvious to me that these changes at least play a part in the increasing use of prescription drugs in the US.  If the overuse of prescription drugs worry you, find out about other options that your doctor might not be sharing or even know about.  You are the one in control of your health.

Are We Headed in the Right Direction?

Many Americans are diagnosed with a chronic disease. In 2005, almost half of adults had one or more chronic disease. This is a frightening thought of where we are as a nation, but what is more frightening to me is how chronic disease is often treated. The underlying cause is rarely addressed but more commonly a myriad of drugs are given to try and force the body into “normal” functioning.

I recently read a study “The Changing Face of Chronic Illness Management in Primary Care: A Qualitative Study of Underlying Influences and Unintended Outcomes” in the Annals of Family Medicine. I encourage everyone to read the full study at the link, but I wanted to discuss some of the findings of the study. It is interesting to note that the study was written by anthropologists, and offers a different viewpoint than most medical studies with a look into the lives of patients. While the study only looks at a small group of doctors and cannot be generalized to all doctors, the trends discussed are still alarming and need to be considered. This post will give an overview of the article and points to be considered with more posts to follow with a more in-depth look at specific points.

To begin with, the researchers, being anthropologists, were not as interested in the specific treatments as the sociocultural aspects of the interactions. However, as the study progressed and they saw the prominence of prescription drugs in treatment they were compelled to look more closely at the use of prescription drugs. The authors bring up the subject of polypharmacy – the use of multiple medications by one patient, commonly considered 5 or more medications. Some possible reasons for the high use of drugs given in the study include lowering diagnostic thresholds for many chronic diseases, incentives for doctors to have patients’ lab values within a certain range, the prescribing cascade (prescribing more drugs to control side effects), and the influence of drug company representatives marketing directly to doctors.

It is sad that the authors note that often drugs were suggested almost to the exclusion of any other treatment options such as lifestyle factors. Some of the grim facts the study opens with include:

• Spending of prescription drugs in the US has risen almost 6 times since 1990
• Estimates are 11% of people in the US take 5 medications or more and that number jumps to 40% for those over the age of 65
• Adverse drug reactions reported by the FDA tripled between 1995 and 2005
• Research indicates that adverse drug reactions are the 4^th leading cause of death in the US
• Up to 45% of Americans have at least 1 diagnosed chronic disease

There is definitely a problem with the way chronic disease is typically treated in this country! If you find these statistics alarming as I do, find out how to prevent chronic disease NOT “treat” it. Watch for more posts discussing more specifically the points of the study.

Your shoes and your spine may seem like two completely unrelated things, but believe it or not, there are connections.  Not only can the type of shoes you wear affect your posture and spine, but how your shoes wear out may be an indication of misalignments of the spine, legs, and/or feet.  In this post we will briefly review some features of a ‘good’ shoe and things to watch for to see if you need to be checked by a chiropractor.

What Shoes Are Best?

The short answer is shoes that are comfortable and allow you to maintain proper alignment of the body.  Now there really isn’t one answer that is right for everyone because we are all different.  However, there are two main views about the best shoes: shoes that support all the major structures of the feet and a minimalist view with little to no support offered by the shoe.   Both views hold merit and I know people that have been helped by both methods.

The more traditional view holds that the foot is best able to function when there is adequate support for the arches of the foot and the shoe helps to cushion and reduce the forces placed on the foot, therefore decreasing injuries.  From the traditional view, a shoe should have a few general features.  It should offer support for the arch of the foot and this can vary person to person.  The shoe should also attach securely to the foot.  Having all the support in the world doesn’t do any good if it doesn’t stay where it is supposed to.  The shoe should be made of material that will absorb some of the force of walking/running.  It should also have sufficient space in the toe box so the toes do not become cramped which can lead to pain and other problems.

The minimalist view considers that a shoe with little or no support causes the muscles and ligaments of the foot to be strengthened.  It also allows for better ‘sense’ of foot position and response to the terrain you are on, therefore decreasing injuries.  One word of caution if you want to try a minimalist shoe, go very gradually to allow the foot to get used to it.  Switching too quickly can lead to pain and a variety of problems.

What to Watch For

A shoe or foot that supports the body can help with many pain problems.  But what if the problem is not due to needing support but from a misalignment in the foot, leg, or spine?  Well here are some things to watch for to see if you need to be checked by a chiropractor.  The biggest thing to watch for is uneven wear of shoes.  This is a telltale sign that there is an imbalance somewhere in the body.  It is normal to have shoes wear out in a typical pattern with the most wear on the sole at the heel, the ball of the foot and at the big toe because these areas get the most forces during normal walking.  The heel is typically the first to strike the ground when taking a step and the outside of the heel tends to wear a little more because there is naturally a little outward angle to the foot.  The ball and big toe area wears more because this is where we push off when walking.  Wear patterns different from this should be evaluated.

Chiropractic can help locate and correct misalignments or restrictions in the foot, leg, or spine that may alter the way we walk.  Regular chiropractic care can help keep you feeling and moving at your best, as well as increasing the body’s ability to heal.  So check your shoes and the shoes of loved ones and see if the wear patterns indicate the need to be checked by the chiropractor.

You hear a lot about “natural” things these days.  Natural home decor, beauty products, and cleaning supplies are touted almost everywhere.  Natural healing is quite the big deal too with lots of places claiming to have natural remedies to all your ills.  But what really is “natural health”?

Natural Health Is…

To understand natural health, let’s break it down.  First, what is “natural”?  The word “natural” has many definitions, but one meaning is something that is innate or inborn rather than acquired from the outside or through learning.   It is just a part of us.  Now what about “health”?  The definition of “health” is more than just the absence of disease or symptoms.  Health is a state of optimal physical, mental, and social well-being.  So, putting those two parts together, “natural health” is a state of optimal physical, mental, and social well-being that is achieved through our bodies’ innate ability to heal itself.

When you really think about it, the body is really the one responsible for all healing.  The bandage, medicine, or any other intervention does not do the healing but should be aimed at giving the body the best chance to heal itself.  Unfortunately, sometimes interventions can actually inhibit the body’s innate ability to heal.  In many ways this is where modern medicine in heading – trying to control the body from the outside and interfere with the body’s self-regulation.  Now in some emergency situations it may be necessary to intervene for a time but should this be done for every condition?  I would have to say no.

Chiropractic and Natural Health

I believe that the body innately knows much better how to regulate itself from the inside out than any educated guesses from outside in.  The body will perfectly regulate itself unless something interferes with this innate ability. This interference happens when the bones of the spine are misaligned and irritate the nerves causing distortion in the signals they carry.  In chiropractic, this is called a subluxation.  With interference to the messages sent through the nerves, the body’s ability to heal is compromised and may even cause outward symptoms.  The solution to this problem is not to take a drug to mask or eliminate the symptoms you are experiencing but to correct the misalignment of the spine and remove the interference.  Chiropractic adjustments help the body do just that and help to restore the body’s ability to self-regulate and heal itself.  As a chiropractor, I don’t do the healing: the body’s innate ability to heal takes care of that.

Conclusion

Natural health is trusting and allowing the body to regulate and heal itself without trying to control it from the outside.  Chiropractic helps to unleash the body’s innate ability to heal by helping remove interference from the nerves.  The body doesn’t need help to heal; it just needs to be free of interference.

Today’s post is going to make you think a little bit and perhaps challenge some things that you thought were fairly obvious.  You may think “Dr. Schuneman, of course I know when I am sick because I feel terrible!”  How you feel can be an indicator that something is wrong, but there are many problems that do not have any noticeable symptoms, at least not at first.  To go even further, what about when you don’t feel well but your body is actually reacting to something in a very healthy way?

Healthy or Sick?

Here is an example of what I mean.  You went to try this great new restaurant that you heard so many good things about.  You go out and enjoy yourself and the food tastes great!  You get home and relax for a while and then you start not feeling so well.  The next thing you know, you are vomiting like there is no tomorrow because something you ate was bad.  Now if I were to ask you if you were sick or healthy at that moment, you would probably say you were sick and think I was crazy if I said your body was healthy.

I will have to agree that having food poisoning is not fun.  You feel terrible, and in general, this is what we would call being sick.  However, let me point out that your body’s reaction to the toxic food was actually very healthy.  Think about it.  What could have happened if you didn’t get rid of that toxic load or even ended up taking some drug to prevent the body from getting rid of it?  Would that be a very healthy thing to do?  Probably not.

The body’s reaction to the toxins in the food was very healthy.  The body wanted to get rid of the toxins as fast as it could and that unfortunately means vomiting.  But this is actually the best thing that could happen because vomiting gets rid of the toxins before they can do more damage and harm to the body.  Now I don’t want to get too stuck on what being sick means, but I hope you can agree that getting rid of the toxins was a good thing even if it didn’t feel good.

Good or Bad?

Here is another example along the same lines.  Your child was out in the rain yesterday playing without their coat.  Today they are coughing, sneezing, and running a fever of 102 degrees.  So what do you do?  “Give them something to bring that fever down and stop the coughing and sneezing,” you may think.

Well hold on just a minute.  Let’s think about why the body is running a fever, coughing and sneezing.  First, the body increases its temperature to help fight off infections.  There are many benefits to a fever.  Many bacteria do not function as well at a higher temperature, plus the fever increases both the body’s metabolism and the function of white blood cells, giving the body an advantage in its fight to get well.

“But fevers are dangerous!” you say.  I know there is a fear about a high fever doing damage to the brain.  According to MedlinePlus – A service of the US National Library of Medicine – “Brain damage from a fever generally will not occur unless the fever is over 107.6 °F (42 °C). Untreated fevers caused by infection will seldom go over 105 °F unless the child is overdressed or trapped in a hot place.”  So unless the fever is extremely high this is not very likely.

Second, the coughing and sneezing are ways to help the body get rid of wastes and the bacteria or virus that is causing the problem.  Most likely the invader got in through the respiratory tract, and the body is trying to flush it out and get rid of any others that may still be there.  Also when fighting off an infection there are many wastes created, and coughing and sneezing help get rid of those wastes products too.

So while you may be “sick,” the body’s reaction in these situations is actually very healthy.  If you did something to get rid of the symptoms in these situations, it would most likely do more harm than good.  The body is intelligent and has reasons for why it reacts the way it does.

Conclusion

I hope this has made you think a little differently about health and sickness.  Please appreciate the intelligence our bodies inherently have and consider this when you are making a choice about getting rid of some symptom.  Is it addressing the real problem or not?  If you found this post interesting please share it!  If you would like more information about how the body works and addressing the cause of disease contact our office.

Have you ever heard someone say “you’ll worry yourself sick”? It is a rather common saying but is there any truth to it? In this post we will talk about some ways worrying too much may actually lead to getting sick.

What Is Worry?

First off, it would be helpful to understand what worry is. Merriam-webster.com defines worry as “to feel or experience concern or anxiety.” Worry is really a form of mental/emotional stress! While some forms of stress can be good, long term stress has negative effects on your health. So what does worry do that effects health? Here are just a few ways worry can lead to sickness.

How Can Worry Make You Sick?

Probably the most direct way worry can lead to getting sick is through the effects of cortisol. Cortisol is the body’s main stress hormone and is a powerful suppressor of the immune system. When you constantly worry about things, the body is chronically stressed and there is an elevation in stress hormones. The long term effects are that you likely will have decreased resistance to sicknesses and how quickly your body can heal may be affected as well.

Constant worry also has a definite effect on our state of mind. Worry focuses on negative things that may happen. Giving place to negative thoughts leads to a more pessimistic view. Several studies have shown that being more optimistic may have many health benefits including greater resistance to the common cold.¹ Worrying a lot may lead to more pessimistic thoughts and greater likelihood of getting sick.

Besides our state of mind, worry/stress can also affect our posture. My personal observation is that someone who worries a lot has a tendency to have tighter muscles and altered posture. And posture can have a huge impact on health. The body is designed to work most efficiently in a “normal” posture and when we deviate from that the body has to work harder. Also poor posture can lead to improper movement or fixations of the spine called subluxations. This interferes with how the nerves passing between the bones of the spine work. Sometimes this interference leads to pain, but it always leads to the body not functioning at its best. Again this contributes to getting sick.

Conclusion

Worry most definitely can play a role in getting sick. When we worry a little about things we can control and it motivates us to do something productive, worry can be a good thing. However, constant worry about things you cannot control does absolutely no good and can be a factor in getting sick. Know someone that worries a lot? Share this with them!

Reference

(1) Cohen, et al Emotional Style and Susceptibility to the Common Cold. Psychosomatic Medicine 65:652-657 (2003)

The “healthcare” system in our country has been a hot topic for quite some time now.  It seems obvious to most that it is broken and there have been many different ideas as how to “fix” it.  Well I think we need to go deeper and decide if we even have a healthcare system.  If we don’t even have a true healthcare system then all the “fixing” or building of the current system is still not going to give us a healthcare system.  In this post I will be discussing what health care is and what sick care is and you can decide for yourself what kind of system we currently have.

Sick Care

We will start with sick care because this is a concept that most may not be familiar with.  If we take the words “sick care” and think about it, shouldn’t it mean caring for the sick?  That is exactly what it is, and it is not a bad thing but not exactly health care.  Sick care is a reactive type of system.  You need to be “sick” before the system really kicks in.  Sick care is all about treating a disease or condition.  This leads to looking more at symptoms, conditions, or even parts of the body instead of considering the whole.  Things get compartmentalized and interactions between different parts of the body often get overlooked.

The treatments of choice in sick care are drugs and surgery.  This, in part, comes from focusing on sickness and leads to thinking the body must sick and needs to be changed from the outside.  So the options are to control through drugs the processes of the body, or to physically change the body through surgery.  It is an outside-in approach to treatment.

Health Care

So following the same logic as before, “health care” must be caring for the healthy.  While I think that works, I think a better way of describing it would be to care for the body to maintain health.  True health care is a proactive system.  It is not waiting for something to happen but constantly doing things that help to maintain health and prevent sickness.  True health care looks at the whole person and considers what different interactions or factors may lead to disease and addresses these things.

Treatments in a true health care system are varied, but all support health.  It is an inside-out approach that considers that the body is supposed to be healthy and can be that way when it is taken care of properly.  Some of the preventative strategies in a health care system include reducing stress, getting adequate sleep, eating healthy, exercising regularly, and getting chiropractic care or other care to help keep the body functioning at its best.

What Do We Have?

Thinking about the current system in the US, does it sound more like a health care system or a sick care system?  You can decide, but consider what things the current system reimburses for and tends to encourage.  And if we do not have a health care system all the “fixing” isn’t going to get us there; we will need to start a whole new foundation to build on.

Conclusion

The good thing with true health care is that it really is all up to YOU.  You are the only one who can make the decisions to make you healthy.  And you don’t need an outside system to do it for you.  In fact it can’t because true health comes from the inside out.  So what are you going to do today to start your own health care system?  If you don’t know, talk to us.  We can help.

The short answer to that question is yes!  But you are probably reading this because you would like more information than just that.  There are actually many types of headaches, each with its own unique set of causes, but most can be helped by chiropractic care.  This post will briefly describe some of the most common types of headaches and ways that chiropractic can help the body and alleviate headaches.

Types of Headaches

You may be surprised, but there are actually over a hundred different types of diagnosable headaches.  However, there are several major ‘types’ of headaches many of us have heard of and may be familiar with.  Some of the major types of headache include migraine, cluster headache, and tension headache.  There are also several other types of headache that can be related to certain activities, vision problems, or taking in certain substances.  Headaches can also be caused by other diseases.

Migraine

Migraine may be one of the most infamous types of headaches.  Typically, a migraine is on one side of the head in the temple area or behind the eyes.  The pain can be moderate to severe and often feels like a throbbing or pulsating pain.  A migraine can affect your daily activities and even cause nausea or vomiting.  People experiencing migraines tend to be sensitive to lights and sounds.  Some migraine sufferers may experience visual disturbances known as ‘aura’ before the migraine sets in.

There are many factors that can contribute to triggering a migraine, including sleep patterns, what you eat, and even stress.  The pain from a migraine is thought to be caused by swelling of the blood vessels on the surface of the brain that refers pain to areas of the head.  You can learn more about migraines at the National Headache Foundation.

Cluster Headache

Cluster headaches are similar to migraines but a less common headache type.  Cluster headaches are also caused by swelling of the blood vessels on the surface of the brain that refers pain to the head but is characterized by having attacks that come in clusters.  They occur in regular intervals.  There may be several headaches that occur every day for weeks to months and then none for several months or even years.  The pain is almost always on one side of the head and is moderate to severe.  The pain is on the same side during a cluster but may be on the opposite side when a new cluster of headaches begin.  The pain is usually behind the eye and can cause tearing in the eye and nasal drainage on the affected side.  Cluster headaches are not associated with nausea, vomiting, or sensitivity to light and sound.  More about cluster headaches.

Tension headache

Tension headaches are the most common form of headache.  Tension headaches are often felt as a dull ache around the head.  It is sometimes described as feeling like a band of tightness around the head or “vice-like” and is not pulsating in nature.  The pain intensity tends to be less intense than a migraine or cluster headache, but in some cases can still be severe.  Tension headaches are caused by tight muscles in the head or neck that can pull on the head or put pressure on the structures of the head leading to pain.

Chiropractic and Headaches

Chiropractic has helped many suffering from headaches.  Many think of chiropractors as being bone or spine doctors but actually chiropractic has more to do with the nervous system.  When the bones of the spine are misaligned or not moving properly, it interferes with information sent through the nerves entering and leaving the spinal canal.  Chiropractors look for these areas of misalignment and help correct them with adjustments to allow the nerves to function at their best and the body to heal itself.  This is how chiropractic in general can affect headaches but here are a few more specific ways chiropractic can affect headaches.

Chiropractic and Blood Vessels

The nervous system controls how wide or narrow the blood vessels are throughout the body.  Both migraine and cluster headaches are a vascular type of headache.  They are thought to be caused by nerves releasing chemicals that irritate the blood vessels of the brain.  Another possible cause, especially of the cluster headache, may be related to the nerves that control the blood vessels in the brain not functioning correctly.  The nerves that control the blood vessels in the head come from the spinal cord in the upper back area and run close along the bones in the neck and then up into the head.

It is possible that misalignments in the upper back or neck can affect these nerves.  Chiropractic has been shown to have an effect on the blood vessels and blood pressure.  It is likely that dysfunction of the nerves going into the head has an effect on migraines and cluster headaches and this may be how chiropractic care helps these headache sufferers.

Chiropractic and Tension Headaches

Tight muscles go along with misalignments or improper movements of the spine.  Poor posture can also lead to muscles getting overworked and tight in the back and neck contributing to tension headaches.  Chiropractic adjustments help to relax the tight muscles due to misalignments, and regular chiropractic care can help to retrain muscles and correct posture so that tension headaches are less likely to occur.

There is another possible cause of headaches that chiropractic can help with.  The pain receptors from the joints in the upper neck go to the same area in the brain as pain receptors for the face and head, and sometimes a problem in the joints of the neck refers pain into the head causing a headache.  By adjusting the neck and helping the problem within the joints of the neck the headache resolves too.

Conclusion

Headaches can have a wide variety of causes and there are many different diagnosable headaches.  The most common types of headaches can be helped by chiropractic.  Chiropractic may not always ‘cure’ every headache, but it is a safe and natural way that has helped many find relief and gets to the cause of the problem not just covers the pain.  Could chiropractic help you or someone you know?  Come and find out!

With all the things that we are told and see about obesity and being fit, you may wonder, how much body fat should I have?  I think it is important to know what is considered a normal and healthy body fat percentage because not knowing can lead to unhealthy expectations on either end of the spectrum.

Why do we need body fat?

For those that may think body fat is bad no matter what amount, there are several things that we need fat for.  Body fat is used to protect our vital organs, helps to insulate our body and maintain our body temperature, and also is an important way of storing energy.  Our bodies also need to take in certain fats that we cannot make – called essential fatty acids – to keep our bodies healthy.  In fact, if we do not get enough essential fatty acids we would die.  Fats are a crucial part of every cell in our body.

Body Fat Percentages

It is interesting that there is not an ‘official’ set of body fat percentages.  There are a few different guidelines that are usually referenced, but each varies slightly.  Overall they generally agree that the amount of essential fat – what our body needs to survive – is about 2-4% for men and 10-13% for women.   If you are wondering why the difference between men and women, well men and women are different in many ways and this is just one of them.  Women need a higher body fat percentage to have their bodies function correctly.

Besides essential fat, there are other divisions such as lean, athletic, average, etc. between the different guidelines.   A general rule that I like to use for a healthy body fat percentage is about 17% for men and 25% for women.  These numbers tend to fall around the ideal/fitness to average level on the different guidelines.  However it is not important to have that exact value because everyone is different and also it is natural as we get older that we tend to have more fat.  So the numbers above are a ballpark to shoot for, but how do you know your body fat percent?

How to Measure Body Fat Percentage

There are several different methods to measure body fat percentages.  Unfortunately even the best method may be off as much as 1-4% for body fat percentage.  This is one more reason not to worry too much about the specific number.  Here are some of the ways to measure body fat percentage.

Under Water Weighing/Bod Pod

These measurements are considered the gold standard for body composition.  Basically you weigh and also take the displacement of water (under water weighing) or air (Bod Pod) to get the volume of the body to figure out body fat percentage.  As both take highly specialized equipment, it is not a practical method for figuring out body fat percentage.

Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DEXA/DXA)

This method uses two different energy levels for x-rays to help determine the composition of the body.  This is technique is more commonly used to determine bone mineral density and to evaluate for osteoporosis.  Again it requires highly specialized equipment and is not practical for the average person.

Body Impedance

This includes scales or hand held devices that measure body fat percentage.  The basic idea is that an electrical current is passed through the body and the resistance to the flow of the current is measured to estimate body fat percentage.  This is a relatively easy way to estimate body fat percentage, but it is not very accurate and can be affected by a number of factors.  Being dehydrated can have a significant effect on the reading.

Skinfold Calipers

This method uses calipers to measure the width of skinfolds at one or more places on the body and using these measurements in an equation to estimate body fat percentage.  Many calipers can be purchased at a reasonable price.  However, this method takes practice to do correctly and, again, is susceptible to error.  It is an economical way to help measure progress, but it may not be very accurate for a true body fat percentage.

Body Measurements

This method uses a tape measure to measure the circumference on different parts of the body and then uses the measurements in an equation to estimate body fat percentage.  This method is probably less accurate than using calipers to measure skinfolds.  Again this may be an economical way to measure progress but not likely to give a very accurate estimate of body fat percentage.

Conclusion

Body fat is essential for life and too little or too much can be damaging to health.  While there are many different ways of measuring/estimating body fat percentage each has its pros and cons and ultimately may not be highly accurate.  Unless you have a need for an accurate measurement for body fat percentage the less expensive methods of estimating it are fine.  Ultimately body fat percentage is just one piece of information to determine your health status so don’t get too worried about it.  For health, getting around 17% body fat for men and 25% for women is good, but a few percentage points one way or the other is still fine.

It has been a little while since the last blog post because we have been working on the website and the changes should be going into effect the next few weeks.  Recently I was reading The Harvester by Gene Stratton-Porter with my wife.  I enjoyed the book but there was a quote from the book that stuck out to me that illustrates an important point.  A little background for context: there is a character that has had a hard life living in poor conditions, overworking, and not having proper nutrition who is now out in the country trying to recover and hoping for a quick recovery. The person caring for her gives this wise advice.

You can’t expect to sin steadily against the laws of health for years, and recover in a day.

Health and Sickness Take Time

I thought about this and considered how often do people do this?  They live their lives in a way that is not conducive to health.  Then when they do decide to take better care of their health, they often give up because the results they wanted didn’t come in a day or weeks or whatever time frame they were expecting.  The principle that people often ignore or forget about is TIME.  This is actually one of the 33 Chiropractic Principles.  Principle six is the principle of time and states “there is no process that does not require time.”  This is true for the process of getting a body that is unhealthy as well as getting a body that is healthy.  It takes time for the neglect of years to take its toll on a body.  After those years of neglect, it is going to take time for the body to be able to make the necessary repairs to become healthy again. It is not an instantaneous process – it takes time!

Health Through Eating

Let’s look at a couple of examples.  Have you ever heard “you are what you eat”?  Well this is true because what you take in when you eat become the building blocks that your body uses to make repairs and grow.  So if you are eating junk for years and years and not giving your body all the nutrients it needs, your body is not going to be able to make repairs the best that it can.  In addition, the body needs to process and either use, store or get rid of everything that you eat whether it is good food or junk.  There are limits to what the body can process and get rid of, so if you’re eating a lot of junk food, you start storing that junk in your body.  Even after you start eating healthy things, it is still going to take time to make the repairs and to get rid of all the junk that your body had to store.

Health Through Chiropractic

Chiropractic care is also similar in that it takes time to work.  If you have poor posture that puts excess stress on your spine and has been doing so for years, one visit or adjustment is not all going to take care of the problem over night.  The body learns to accept a certain position and it becomes ‘normal’ to the body.  So when you start making changes, it takes time for the muscles and ligaments to become used to this better and healthier posture before it becomes ‘normal’ again.  Even after you feel better it is important to have regular visits to help maintain the progress you have made because if you aren’t make specific efforts to maintain it, the body can slip back to the way it was.

In closing, don’t get discouraged if you do not see the health results you want right away. It most likely took years to get where you are, it is going to take time to heal and repair.