Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Sunday, December 19, 2010

        10 million baby boomers are expected to be affected by Alzheimers. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a chronic form of dementia that results in severe memory loss and eventually death. The average lifespan of someone with Alzheimer’s is about 8-20 years. Since the causes of AD are not clear, there is a correlation with thyroid hormone dysfunction, lack of exercise, diabetes, high sugar diets, heavy metal toxicity, cholesterol (lipid) lowering medication, long term smoking, high blood pressure (HBP) and improper posture (anterior head carriage - decreases blood flow to the brain). "One type of Alzheimer’s, called frontotemporal dementia, is characterized by cellular damage in the front and side regions of your brain. Researchers still have no idea what causes it—only that excess production of a tiny protein fragment called beta-amyloid starts jamming the signals between your brain synapses, blocking information flow, leading to a cascade of damaging events that end in cell death." (Dr. Mercola - 10 Million Baby Boomers Face Alzheimer's Epidemic)

        How is Alzheimer's really created? I wish the chiropractic profession had the money to do research on this observation that I learned from top neurologists in our profession. Over 90% of the population has anterior head carriage (AHD). This is when your ear is past your shoulder on a side view of your head to shoulder. If you have this condition for all of your life, it will slowly decrease the blood flow to the brain. When you decrease the blood flow to the brain, it deprives the brain of oxygen, sugar and so forth. Metabolites are not cleansed out of the brain since the brain does not have any lymphatic systems there. The ceberalspinofluid (CSF) is decreased due to abnormal posture in the spine that makes it harder to travel up to the brain. When you have these two affects occuring, it creates havoc to the brain and to the body. Since we are talking about AD, I will talk about the brain. As lack of blood flow and CSF occurs, over a period of time of years, it will start to have an affect on the brain. There are many other factor that take part of this process to accelerate it. I am not saying this is the only way but this is the most common contributor. As stated above, Alzheimer's disease is a state of chronic dementia. There are four types of dementia but most common is Alzheimer's disease. When you deprive the brain of blood and CSF fluid, it will decay, shrink and create plaque (beta amyloid).

What are ways to help prevent Alzheimer's disease?

1. Chiropractic care. Every time a person receives an adjustment, there are a million reactions that occur instantaneously that are all positive for the body but I will mention a couple here. After receiving an adjustment, your body increases the blood flow and oxygen to the brain. An adjustment will decrease oxidative stress in the body, spike your immune system for about 6-7 hours which increases microglia (cleans things in the brain) which may prevent plaque of the brain and fire a variety of neurons in the brain which helps give food to your brain.

2. Exercise is crucial! I call this Vitamin M for movement. The more movement you have in the body, the more nutrients for the brain as explained in number 1. Cross-crawl exercises are amazing for the brain and will help stimulate the neurons that will feed the brain. Exercise will help detoxify the body, lower blood pressure and 59 other benefits on how it helps your overall health. Meditation and yoga is a great benefit for the mind and the body!

3. Diet and Nutrition is huge. Average American consumes about 150lbs of sugar per year. This creates havoc not only on our bodies but our nervous system - specifically the brain. If we consume foods that are pro-inflammatory in our bodies, it will only increase our chances or effects of Alzheimer's disease. Some things to contain in your diet is a high quality fish oil, great source of anti-oxidants (blueberries, noni, goji berries, acai, mangosteen, blackberries, natural cacao powder - contains the highest orac level per cup), a great source of B-complex because when the body is always in a stress environment, these are one of the first to be depleted. This is why people who are stressed out, feel fatigued.

4. Mercury exposure. It can come from a flu vaccine or any type of vaccine that contains mercury or aluminum. Research shows, if you have taken the flu shot more than 8 times in the last 10 years you have an 80% chance of getting Alzheimer's. It also shows, a diet with aspartame (splenda, equal, nutrisweet) will increase your chances of Alzheimer's since this creates havoc for our nervous system and our body. If you have silver amalgams in your mouth, get rid of them for they leak mercury into your body and look up on youtube mercury fillings and see a video that shows you what happens when you have mercury in your mouth.

5. Vitamin D - a study that is only a theory at the moment shows that diabetes may be a cause of Alzheimer's and vitamin D acts like insulin. Vitamin D is known as a neuro-hormone more than a vitamin since it affects a vast amount of our bodies.

6. Cardiovascular heart nutrition - Garlic, CoQu10 (antioxidant) and folate have been shown to help reduce the chance

7. Relationships - as we age, we decline in relationships. People don't visit as often and today's society looks down upon the elderly rather than respect and learn from them. As they have less interaction with society and people, their brain loses out on the interaction from the millions of neuron activity that occurs with interacting with someone. I believe this to be a huge effect. Enough the elderly for you can learn a thing or two. Always remember, they have been on this planet longer than you and probably with their experience, can help you in one way or another. Next time you see an elderly person, just say hello and see how they are doing. If they are bitter, it is not because they are mean and don't like people. Most of the time, they are bitter because as much as they want company in their life, they don't get it.

Empower yourself to understand the benefits of health. If we have a clearly functioning nervous system, well maintained diet, adequate sleep (7-9hrs), long term exercise program (for life), positive mindset, healthy relationships, balanced financials and time management, life is amazing. Do not fall into the sick care model where they wait until you have something rather than creating health within your body. Just think about it. Go into a hospital and talk to a doctor and ask him how can I be healthy and live to have a optimal quality of life for the rest of my life? Is a medication or surgery going to do that for you? I didn't think so. Get informed and get adjusted...

Resources

1. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/03/Fruit-and-Vegetables-Increase-Cognitive-Performance.aspx

2. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/04/01/10-million-baby-boomers-face-alzheimer-s-epidemic.aspx

3. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/01/23/how-to-erase-your-phone-remotely-if-you-lose-it.aspx

4. http://www.chiroweb.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=44623

5. https://www.acatoday.org/content_css.cfm?CID=1247

6. http://www.altmd.com/Specialists/Upper-Cervical-St-Louis/Blog/An-Interesting-Correlation-Alzheimers-Chiropractic

7. http://www.livescience.com/health/081224-starvation-alzheimers.html

Deepak Chopra Articulates the Chiropractic Message

The following article appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. Deepak Chopra very clearly articulates the major tenet of the chiropractic message: that the innate intelligence of the body is far superior to anything that can be added, from the outside in. I took the liberty of making a simple substitution of “innate intelligence” (a chiropractic concept) for Chopra’s term “healing system”. As Chopra clearly states below, Chiropractic’s fundamental concept of relying on the body’s own innate intelligence and ability to self regulate, adapt and heal IS the answer to the so-called “health care crisis”:

Do You Want a Health Care System or a Healing System?

The current debate over health care reform has been about politics and money. There is no escaping either factor. Huge vested interests are spending millions of dollars a day to pressure Congress into minimal reform. But even if the political system were pure as snow, an aging American population makes it inevitable that the health care system is going to grow more and more expensive. These external factors fill the news every day, obscuring a simple fact: Your health depends far more on the healing system your body’s own innate intelligence than the health care system. The healing system innate intelligence is inside your body. Its intricacies are just now being fully explored, but certain broad trends have become clear.

• The healing system Innate intelligence is more flexible and powerful than previously thought. For example, the brain can heal itself, a finding that seemed impossible a few decades ago.

• The healing system Innate intelligence is highly sensitive to outside conditions. Stress and emotional discomfort, for example, can severely compromise your ability to heal.

• Healing affects your genes and how they are expressed. An expressed gene is an active one, and this activity turns out to be far more responsive to your state of mind-body health than previously thought. The old image of fixed genes is rapidly changing to a conception in which the body’s genetic material is eavesdropping on all the experiences in your life. In short, a gene isn’t a thing; it’s a process.

• The healing system Innate intelligence is automatic, but your lifestyle choices make a huge difference in the efficiency of healing.

These factors hold true throughout your life, and if we simplify them to one sentence, this would be it: Change your life and you change your healing system. That may sound like the advice we get constantly about proper diet, exercise, and stress management. But with new evidence showing up every day that lifestyle affects an incurable disease like Alzheimer’s, for example, it’s becoming clear that your own healing system will always be the front-line defender of your well-being, not your doctor or the drug companies. So-called lifestyle diseases used to be restricted to conditions like heart disease, obesity, and type II diabetes, where a link with improper diet was easily demonstrated. Now a wider range of disorders is being linked to lifestyle choices, not by one-to-one correlations but through more general trends. That is, no one can predict exactly which disease you might contract due to poor lifestyle choices, but at the same time, reversing those poor choices has a broad effect in improving your power to heal.

Some recent statistics bring home how crucial it is to rely on the healing system your body’s own innate intelligence rather than the healthcare system:

• 58 million Americans are overweight; 40 million obese; 3 million morbidly obese

• Eight out of 10 people over 25 are overweight

• 78% of Americans don’t meet basic activity level recommendations

• 25% are completely sedentary

• 76% increase in Type II diabetes in adults 30-40 years old since 1990

The statistic that really jumps out has to do with sedentary lifestyles. We are addicted to sitting on the couch watching beautiful, slim, fit actors and athletes on television, with a steady increase in other sedentary activities like surfing the Internet and playing video games. In addition, these activities are reaching into younger age groups, making children less active and therefore more inclined to obesity. Yet the simple fact is that the alternative to being sedentary isn’t joining a gym. The greatest benefit of exercise occurs when you move from being sedentary to light activity like walking, doing housework, gardening, and climbing the stairs. Exercise at higher levels will bring increased benefits, certainly, but this first step brings the biggest single improvement in health. Being sedentary is more harmful to you than forgetting to jog three times a week. In addition, at least one study has shown that when overweight adults are put into groups that walk, jog, or run every day, the group that lost the most weight were the walkers.

Thrashing out health care reform is a defining issue for the coming decade and an inescapable duty. Having said that, I urge you to look inward rather than outward. The most perfect health care system can’t do as much for you, on a daily basis, or do it as cheaply as your own healing system innate intelligence. The evidence is there, waiting to be acted upon.

Authors Note: In the interest of maintaining the integrity of the original article, all occurrences were substituted equally.

www.chiropracticunity.com

Gluten Sensitivity – Who should be tested?

Their is a great degree of confusion as regarding individuals who should be screened for gluten sensitivity/intolerance?

Because research has shown that as many as 40% of all Americans may be gluten sensitive, and that 1 in 100 have a severe form of this sensitivity causing the the autoimmune intestinal disease, celiac sprue, a case can be made that everyone in America should be screened for gluten sensitivity.

However, there are people with various risk factors or diseases that are at greater risk of having gluten sensitivity who should undoubtedly be tested.

These conditions include:

• Microscopic colitis (inflammation of the colon)
• Relatives of those with celiac disease or gluten-sensitive individuals including
• Chronic diarrhea of unknown origin
• Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
• Inflammatory bowel disease
• Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD)
• Hepatitis C
• Liver disease of unknown origin
• Dermatitis herpetiformis
• Diabetes mellitus
• Degenerative disc disease
• Colon Cancer
• Thyroid disease
• Psoriasis
• Any autoimmune diseases (common ones include):

• Hashimoto’s thyroiditis
• Lupus
• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Sjogren’s syndrome
• Scleroderma
• Dermatomyositis

• Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia
• PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome)
• Asthma
• Migraine Headaches
• Osteoporosis
• Iron deficiency
• Failure to thrive (FTT) or short stature in children
• Down’s syndrome
• Mothers of kids with neural tube defects
• Female infertility (includes those with multiple miscarriages)
• Peripheral neuropathy
• Cerebellar ataxia (unexplained dizziness)
• Seizure disorders
• Psychiatric disorders (Schizophrenia and bipolar)
• Depression
• Alcoholism
• Autism
• ADHD/ADD

Can an Unhealthy Spine Affect Internal Organs?

The Scientific Fact

THE WINSOR AUTOPSIES

 As early as 1921, the medical profession validated chiropractic. Henry Winsor, a medical doctor in Haverford, Pennsylvania asked the question:

"Chiropractors claim that by adjusting one vertebra, they can relieve stomach troubles and ulcers; by adjusting another, menstrual cramps; and by adjusting others conditions such as kidney diseases, constipation, heart disease, thyroid conditions, and lung disease may resolve – but how?"

Dr. Winsor decided to investigate this new science and art of healing- chiropractic.

DISSECTIONS

After graduating from medical school, Dr. Winsor was inspired by chiropractic and osteopathic literature to experiment. He planned to dissect human and animal cadavers to see if there was a relationship between any diseased internal organ discovered on autopsy and the vertebrae associated with the nerves that went to the organ.

As he wrote:

"The object of these necropsies (dissections) was to determine whether any connection existed between minor curvatures of the spine, on the one hand, and diseased organs on the other; or whether the two were entirely independent of each other."

UNIVERSITY PERMISSION

The University of Pennsylvania gave Dr. Winsor permission to carry out his experiments. In a series of three studies he dissected a total of seventy-five human and twenty-two cat cadavers. The following is Dr. Winsor’s description of his findings:

"221 structures other than the spine were found diseased. Of these, 212 were observed to belong to the same sympathetic (nerve) segments as the vertebrae in curvature. Nine diseased organs belonged to different sympathetic segments from the vertebrae out of line. These figures cannot be expected to exactly coincide…for an organ may receive sympathetic filaments from several spinal segments and several organs may be supplied with sympathetic (nerve) filaments from the same spinal segments. In other words, there was nearly a 100% correlation between minor curvatures of the spine and diseases of the internal organs."

DR. WINSOR'S FINDINGS:

Heart Disease = All 20 cases with heart and pericardium conditions had the upper five thoracic vertebrae misaligned (T1-T5)

Lung Disease = All 26 cases of lung disease had spinal misalignments in the upper thoracic area Stomach Disease All nine cases of stomach disease had spinal misalignment in the mid-thoracic (T5-T9) area.

Liver Disease All 13 cases of liver disease had misalignments in the mid-thoracic area (T5-T9)

Gallbladder All five cases with gallstone disease had spinal misalignments in the mid-thoracic area (T5-T9)

Pancreas All three cases with pancreas disease had spinal misalignments in the mid-thoracic area (T5-T9)

Spleen All 11 cases with spleen disease had spinal misalignments in the mid-thoracic area (T5-T9)

Kidney All 17 cases with kidney disease were out of alignment in the lower thoracic area (T10-T12).

Prostate and Bladder Disease All eight cases with prostate disease had the lumbar vertebrae misaligned

Uterus Two cases with uterine conditions had the second lumbar misaligned

IN CONCLUSION

Dr. Winsor’s results are published in The Medical Times and are found in any medical library. Winsor was not alone in his findings. Similar studies by other researchers have confirmed Dr. Winsor’s conclusion that degenerated and misaligned spines have a high correlation with disease processes.

Despite the continued research and literature correlating the maintenance of health with the maintenance of the spine and the nervous system, chiropractic is the only modern health profession that takes this approach toward health. An unhealthy spine and nerve pressure will cause the body to function at less than 100%. When the body is not functioning properly, it is more susceptible to disease. A chiropractic spinal check-up and adjustment can help in the care and prevention of sickness and disease through a properly functioning nervous system.

POST-SCRIPT

Dr. Henry Winsor’s insights and research are prophetic. Scientists from many parts of the world that continued to research the relationship between spinal misalignments (vertebral subluxation complex) and internal organ disease have expanded upon his studies. This field of somato-visceral disease relationship (its scientific term) is one of the fastest growing and most exciting areas of research in the health care sciences – and chiropractic thrives as its leading advocate.

Reference: All quotes from: Winsor, H. Sympathetic segmental disturbances – II. The evidences of the association, in dissected cadavers, of visceral disease with vertebral deformities of the same sympathetic segments, The Medical Times, November 1921, pp./ 267-271

Contributed by Nancy Appleton, Ph.D
Author of the book Lick The Sugar Habit

In addition to throwing off the body's homeostasis, excess sugar may result in a number of other significant consequences. The following is a listing of some of sugar's metabolic consequences from a variety of medical journals and other scientific publications.

1. Sugar can suppress your immune system and impair your defenses against infectious disease.^1,2

2. Sugar upsets the mineral relationships in your body: causes chromium and copper deficiencies and interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium. ^3,4,5,6

3. Sugar can cause can cause a rapid rise of adrenaline, hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children.^7,8

4. Sugar can produce a significant rise in total cholesterol, triglycerides and bad cholesterol and a decrease in good cholesterol.^9,10,11,12

5. Sugar causes a loss of tissue elasticity and function.¹³

6. Sugar feeds cancer cells and has been connected with the development of cancer of the breast, ovaries, prostate, rectum, pancreas, biliary tract, lung, gallbladder and stomach.^{14,15,16,17,18,19,20}

7. Sugar can increase fasting levels of glucose and can cause reactive hypoglycemia.^21,22

8. Sugar can weaken eyesight.²³

9. Sugar can cause many problems with the gastrointestinal tract including: an acidic digestive tract, indigestion, malabsorption in patients with functional bowel disease, increased risk of Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis.^{24,25,26,27,28}

10. Sugar can cause premature aging.²⁹

11. Sugar can lead to alcoholism.³⁰

12. Sugar can cause your saliva to become acidic, tooth decay, and periodontal disease.^31,32,33

13. Sugar contributes to obesity.³⁴

14. Sugar can cause autoimmune diseases such as: arthritis, asthma, multiple sclerosis.^35,36,37

15. Sugar greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections)³⁸

16. Sugar can cause gallstones.³⁹

17. Sugar can cause appendicitis.⁴⁰

18. Sugar can cause hemorrhoids.⁴¹

19. Sugar can cause varicose veins.⁴²

20. Sugar can elevate glucose and insulin responses in oral contraceptive users.⁴³

21. Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.⁴⁴

22. Sugar can cause a decrease in your insulin sensitivity thereby causing an abnormally high insulin levels and eventually diabetes.^45,46,47

23. Sugar can lower your Vitamin E levels.⁴⁸

24. Sugar can increase your systolic blood pressure.⁴⁹

25. Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children.⁵⁰

26. High sugar intake increases advanced glycation end products (AGEs)(Sugar molecules attaching to and thereby damaging proteins in the body).⁵¹

27. Sugar can interfere with your absorption of protein.⁵²

28. Sugar causes food allergies.⁵³

29. Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy.⁵⁴

30. Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.⁵⁵

31. Sugar can cause atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.^56,57

32. Sugar can impair the structure of your DNA.⁵⁸

33. Sugar can change the structure of protein and cause a permanent alteration of the way the proteins act in your body.^59,60

34. Sugar can make your skin age by changing the structure of collagen.⁶¹

35. Sugar can cause cataracts and nearsightedness.^62,63

36. Sugar can cause emphysema.⁶⁴

37. High sugar intake can impair the physiological homeostasis of many systems in your body.⁶⁵

38. Sugar lowers the ability of enzymes to function.⁶⁶

39. Sugar intake is higher in people with Parkinson's disease.⁶⁷

40. Sugar can increase the size of your liver by making your liver cells divide and it can increase the amount of liver fat.^68,69

41. Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney such as the formation of kidney stones.^70,71

42. Sugar can damage your pancreas.⁷²

43. Sugar can increase your body's fluid retention.⁷³

44. Sugar is enemy #1 of your bowel movement.⁷⁴

45. Sugar can compromise the lining of your capillaries.⁷⁵

46. Sugar can make your tendons more brittle.⁷⁶

47. Sugar can cause headaches, including migraines.⁷⁷

48. Sugar can reduce the learning capacity, adversely affect school children's grades and cause learning disorders.^78,79

49. Sugar can cause an increase in delta, alpha, and theta brain waves which can alter your mind's ability to think clearly.⁸⁰

50. Sugar can cause depression.⁸¹

51. Sugar can increase your risk of gout.⁸²

52. Sugar can increase your risk of Alzheimer's disease.⁸³

53. Sugar can cause hormonal imbalances such as: increasing estrogen in men, exacerbating PMS, and decreasing growth hormone.^84,85,86,87

54. Sugar can lead to dizziness.⁸⁸

55. Diets high in sugar will increase free radicals and oxidative stress.⁸⁹

56. High sucrose diets of subjects with peripheral vascular disease significantly increases platelet adhesion.⁹⁰

57. High sugar consumption of pregnant adolescents can lead to substantial decrease in gestation duration and is associated with a twofold increased risk for delivering a small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infant.^91,92

58. Sugar is an addictive substance.⁹³

59. Sugar can be intoxicating, similar to alcohol.⁹⁴

60. Sugar given to premature babies can affect the amount of carbon dioxide they produce.⁹⁵

61. Decrease in sugar intake can increase emotional stability.⁹⁶

62. Your body changes sugar into 2 to 5 times more fat in the bloodstream than it does starch.⁹⁷

63. The rapid absorption of sugar promotes excessive food intake in obese subjects.⁹⁸

64. Sugar can worsen the symptoms of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).⁹⁹

65. Sugar adversely affects urinary electrolyte composition.¹⁰⁰

66. Sugar can slow down the ability of your adrenal glands to function.¹⁰¹

67. Sugar has the potential of inducing abnormal metabolic processes in a normal healthy individual and to promote chronic degenerative diseases.¹⁰²

68. I.V.s (intravenous feedings) of sugar water can cut off oxygen to your brain.¹⁰³

69. Sugar increases your risk of polio.¹⁰⁴

70. High sugar intake can cause epileptic seizures.¹⁰⁵

71. Sugar causes high blood pressure in obese people.¹⁰⁶

72. In intensive care units: Limiting sugar saves lives.¹⁰⁷

73. Sugar may induce cell death.¹⁰⁸

74. In juvenile rehabilitation camps, when children were put on a low sugar diet, there was a 44 percent drop in antisocial behavior.¹⁰⁹

75. Sugar dehydrates newborns.¹¹⁰

76. Sugar can cause gum disease.¹¹¹