California Breakfast

Regular Chiropractic Care and Healthy Eating

Eating good, nutritious food is a primary component of long-term health and wellness. Healthy eating supports the growth and development of sound, strong bodies and is a key factor in cognitive functions such as creativity and effective decision making. In addition, a nutritious diet helps us obtain restful sleep and restore our capabilities in preparation for the new day. Although most of us hardly ever think about what's happening physiologically when we eat — what's under the hood, so to speak — we must digest our food properly and metabolize the nutrients efficiently in order to derive maximum benefit from our diet. But nerve interference can disrupt these critical processes. By correcting spinal misalignments and removing sources of nerve interference, regular chiropractic care helps ensure that our gastrointestinal, endocrine, and circulatory systems are functioning appropriately. Regular chiropractic care helps support optimal digestion and metabolism, thus enabling us to get the most out of the good foods we eat.

The mystery writer Raymond Chandler, author of "The Big Sleep" and "The Long Goodbye", famously extolled a "California breakfast" of orange juice and a cigarette. Of course, this was back in the bad old days when lighting up was part of most people's morning ritual. Today, although the orange juice might remain, a healthy breakfast consists of various nutritious replacements for the non-nourishing cigarette.

The importance of eating a good breakfast has been widely promoted in countless public health campaigns, yet many people persist in rushing past this critical meal, jumping right in to their daily work activities while bolting down an oat bran muffin or, worse, a toaster pastry. Such behavior does not support a healthy lifestyle and is especially deleterious for children and teenagers.

From the adult perspective, a lack of sufficient nutritional energy resources will negatively impact a person's work performance. In the absence of appropriate blood glucose levels, your body will seek out other energy sources such as stored fat. The metabolic demands of utilizing fat for energy are much greater than those of processes that use glucose. Over the course of a morning, such inefficient metabolism leads to tiredness, fatigue, and even a headache. Other body systems suffer, especially the digestive system and the nerve system.1,2 For example, the primary source of energy for your brain is glucose. If you've had a less-than-nutritious breakfast, the supply of glucose reaching your brain is substantially reduced. As a result, your thinking gets muddled. Creativity and decision-making processes degrade. Your overall effectiveness as a human being becomes markedly reduced.3 The negative consequences can only be imagined.

It may be fairly considered that young people depend even more on their brains than do adults. Their brains are responsible, in addition to everything else, for coordinating the growth and development of their entire bodies. The nerve system is the body's master system and the brain is the command and control center of the nerve system. Proper nutrition, critical for long-term health and well-being of all persons, is even more important for children and teenagers. Habitual lack of a healthy, nutritious breakfast leads to an unending list of problems for young people as they get older and become adults.

It is a truism that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Every meal is necessary and valuable, but a complete breakfast sets the tone for how things will go for the next 12 to 18 hours. Taking the time for breakfast is well worth the effort. When your energy stores have been replenished, you're ready for action. You might need to get out of bed 15 minutes earlier, but this change in routine will soon become a useful new habit. All of your family members will benefit by taking this time to take care of themselves.
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Riding the Brakes

Regular Exercise and Regular Chiropractic Care

Whether you run or walk, play tennis or play basketball, lift weights or work-out with medicine balls, regular chiropractic care is an essential component of your exercise method of choice. We exercise because we want to, because we want to be healthy and well for all the years of our lives. Importantly, regular chiropractic care helps us achieve these health and wellness goals. Regular exercise makes demands on many of our physiological systems, especially on the musculoskeletal, cardiorespiratory, and endocrine systems. In order for these systems to respond properly, your nerve system must be operating at peak efficiency. By detecting and correcting areas of spinal nerve interference, your chiropractor helps your nerve system — your body's master system — coordinate the activities of all your body's other systems. As a result, regular chiropractic care helps you get the most out of your exercise time and helps you obtain high levels of health and well being.

We're all familiar with the highway driving experience of being behind a person who is continually braking for no apparent reason. This is especially problematic if you're in the left-hand lane. You're zipping along at the posted speed limit and suddenly the brake lights of the car in front go on. You have to immediately react and hit your brakes. If this happens more than a couple of times, you look for the first opportunity to pass this unskilled driver. The person riding their brakes may thoughtlessly cause a serious traffic problem or worse. Metaphorically, you may be physiologically "riding the brakes" without knowing it, creating ongoing problems for your long-term wellness and well-being.
For example, many of us are not aware that lack of regular vigorous exercise results in a slowing down of our metabolism. Without such exercise, our daily metabolic processes simply do not operate at peak levels. In the absence of critical energy demands imposed by regular vigorous exercise, a low level steady state takes over. Fat cells accumulate, reflexes dull, and our overall sense of awareness deteriorates. But your body is a finely crafted machine and it is designed to fulfill very high performance metrics. The aphorism, "what you don't use, you lose" applies specifically to human physiological performance. Without regular vigorous exercise, you're riding your physiological brakes and your body systems will degrade accordingly.

The good news is that these entropic effects can be reversed. Our bodies are dynamic and remarkably adaptive. Beginning or renewing an exercise program will quickly result in noticeable benefits. Many people will begin observe such benefits within four to six weeks. The important health benefits derived from regular vigorous exercise include slowing of the heart rate, increased capacity of the heart to pump blood, increased capacity of the lungs to take in oxygen, accumulation of lean muscle mass, increased creative abilities, increased ability to focus and perform useful work, and improved restful sleep.

These benefits all derive from any basic exercise program that includes some form of strength training and some form of cardiovascular exercise. Thirty minutes per day, five days a week, is the recommended standard. A program that incorporates three days of cardiovascular exercise and two days of strength training, or three days of strength training and two days of cardiovascular exercise, will be sufficient to derive maximum results. Cardiovascular exercise includes walking, running, swimming, bicycling, cross-country skiing, and sports such as basketball and lacrosse. Strength training should comprise routines including exercises for the chest, back, shoulders, arms, and legs. Certain forms of exercise such as yoga simultaneously incorporate strength training and cardiovascular exercise.

Most important is the consistency of exercise. What works for one person may not work for another. Find the types of exercise that you like to do and want to do and keep going. There will be times when you need to take a break for a week or two. Trust your instincts and return to your exercise program as appropriate. Encourage your family members to participate so that everyone can achieve peak performance, health, and wellness.
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Health Statistics and You

Preventive Care is the Best Care

In health care, an ounce of prevention is worth very much more than a pound of cure. If you can prevent health problems from happening, you save a great deal of time, effort, and money. Also, by avoiding the frequently ongoing stress and anxiety associated with treatment of a chronic illness, you and your family conserve precious, irreplaceable personal resources such as peace of mind.A comprehensive preventive care program incorporates a healthy food plan, consistent regular exercise, and regular chiropractic care. Regular chiropractic care, focusing on the spinal column and targeting nerve interference, is a key resource in your health care program. Regular chiropractic care provides the framework so that your body can function at peak efficiency, thus helping ensure your long-term health and well-being.

We are awash in numbers, thanks in large part to the proliferation of personal mobile devices and the wrong-headed use of so-called big data.¹ But applying statistical tools to the same set of data can support competing theories and lead to contradictory results. Such conflicting outcomes, known as antinomies if you remember Philosophy 101, cannot logically co-exist, and the field of statistics gets a bad reputation as a result. But big data can provide substantial value for people as individual patients. The key is to set some ground rules and understand the limitations of statistical investigation.
First and foremost, it's important to gain some clarity regarding the concept of false positives in regards to health. This statistical construct is familiar to all of us, although we may not be aware of it. If one of your doctors sends you for a laboratory test and the results are "positive", you'll be sent for follow-up tests until a final determination is made. If the final test turns out "negative", then the earlier results represented a false positive. The test results said you had the condition or disease, but in fact you did not.
False positives create numerous serious problems, not the least of which is the emotional toll of stress, anxiety, and fear experienced by the patient and her family and close friends. This is especially true when the suspected disease is a malignancy or other serious, life-threatening condition. It's useful and empowering for people to learn that 5% of all test results are falsely positive right from the start. Medical tests are designed this way. The 5% false positive rate is a necessary part of statistical analysis. It's built-in to the statistical design. In other words, test values that represent "normal" are obtained by cutting off the bottom 2.5% and the top 2.5% of a large sample of results from people who are "normal" for the thing being tested, such as white blood cell count or hemoglobin level.
Thus, 5% of normal people automatically have false positive results. Another way of stating this outcome is to consider that if you undergo a panel of 20 blood tests, one result (5% of 20) will be positive no matter what.
The vast majority of patients are not familiar with the statistical concept of false positive results.² With a basic understanding of this construct and its implications, patients could ask their doctors meaningful questions such as, "What do the test results mean?,", "Have you considered the possibility of a false positive result?," and "How will the additional tests you're recommending affect decision-making in my case?"
Posing such questions is tremendously empowering for you, the patient, and helps reestablish equity in the doctor-patient relationship.³ As a health care consumer, a little knowledge goes a long way. Gaining more than a little knowledge by reading articles on diagnostic methods and health care decision-making will further strengthen your own process as a patient.
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¹Bates DW, et al: Big data in health care: using analytics to identify and manage high-risk and high-cost patients. Health Aff (Millwood) 33(7):1123-31, 2014
²Paddock SM: Statistical benchmarks for health care provider performance assessment: a comparison of standard approaches to a hierarchical Bayesian histogram-based method. Health Serv Res 49(3):1056-73, 2014
³Stacey D, et al: Decision aids for people facing health treatment or screening decisions. Cochane Database Syst Rev 28;1:CD001431, 2014

When the Cure Is Worse than the Disease

Regular Chiropractic Care and Chronic Disease

Regardless of the prescription medication you may or may not be taking, regular chiropractic care helps provide a strong platform for managing the effects of chronic disease. Although the ultimate causes of chronic diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes are largely unknown, nerve interference may be reasonably postulated as a key contributor to the development and maintenance of these conditions. If as a result of nerve interference, your body's cells, tissues, and organs are not receiving timely and accurate information from your brain, then a host of symptoms may develop. Over time, chronic disease may be the unwanted outcome. Regular chiropractic care helps eliminate nerve interference by detecting, analyzing, and correcting spinal misalignments that result from normal, everyday circumstances involving work and stress. By helping restore spinal function and reducing irritation to the nerve system, regular chiropractic care provides an environment in which chronic disease is less likely to flourish and your health and well-being can be maximized.

Chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes have increasingly high prevalence in world populations.¹ Such prevalence is rising despite extensive use of prescription medications. Problematically, many people have two or more concurrent chronic disorders and are taking multiple medications. But frequently the various physicians are not in contact and are not aware of the patient's complete list of current prescriptions. No single physician or nurse is managing the patient's array of medications. As a result, potentially harmful drug interactions are a common occurrence.^2,3 Mistakes are made and patients may suffer serious side effects. In such adverse circumstances, the cure in fact may be worse than the disease.
In today's health care systems, people as patients need to be good custodians of their own care. In many health systems, a patient is lucky if he or she is able to spend more than five uninterrupted minutes with their doctor. Physicians are rushed and harried by numerous responsibilities related to management of their offices, all of which take precious time away from patient interactions. In such an environment, patients need to be proactive to do their best to ensure that recommended treatment is actually going to be helpful, rather than potentially harmful. This is a very difficult task, as most people do not have backgrounds that will help facilitate understanding of such decision-making. But especially for those with a chronic disease, it's critically important to master at least a basic level of information regarding their condition and various types of treatment.
In addition to expanding one's knowledge base, an important long-term strategy is to begin to make lifestyle choices that will support good health. Appropriate and effective lifestyle choices include regular exercise, a healthy diet, and sufficient rest. All three of these key components of good health can be started right now. An exercise program should consist of five 30-minute sessions of vigorous exercise every week. A healthy diet consists of daily selections from all five major food groups: fruits, vegetables, grains, proteins, and dairy. A daily diet should include at least five servings of fresh fruit and vegetables every day. Regarding sufficient rest, 7-8 hours of sleep per night is a good average for most people. If you're not waking up feeling rested and refreshed, you're probably not getting enough sleep.
Ultimately, each of us is responsible for our own health and well-being. Prescription medication may be necessary, but of course such treatment is primarily directed toward the effects of a person's disease or disorder. Changes in lifestyle are required to address the underlying causes of such conditions. Beginning to institute and maintaining healthful lifestyle choices will provide long-term benefit for the welfare and well-being of our families and ourselves.
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¹Bauer UE, et al: Prevention of chronic disease in the 21st century: elimination of the leading preventable causes of premature death and disability in the USA. Lancet 384(9937):42-52, 2014
²Rotermann M, et al: Prescription medication use by Canadians aged 6 to 79. Health Rep 25(6):3-9, 2014
³Marengoni A, et al: Understanding adverse drug reactions in older adults through drug-drug interactions. Eur J Intern Med 2014 Oct 10. pii: S0953-6205(14)00282-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ejim.2014.10.001. [Epub ahead of print]

The Platonic Ideal

Regular Chiropractic Care and Ongoing Wellness

Regular chiropractic care is an important component of any health, fitness, and wellness program. Whether you're engaged in upgrading your diet, beginning or enhancing a program of regular, vigorous exercise, or launching a meditation or awareness practice, regular chiropractic care helps provide the physiologic framework by which you can achieve the greatest benefit from your wellness activities. In order to derive optimum benefit from your diet, fitness, and wellness programs, your nerve system must be functioning at peak capacity. Your nerve system is your body's master system. Accurate and timely flow of information is required between your nerve system and other systems, such as your digestive, hormonal, and cardiorespiratory systems. Interruptions in the flow of these signals or miscommunications will prevent you from obtaining maximum value from your healthy diet and exercise activities. By detecting and correcting spinal misalignments that cause nerve irritation, regular chiropractic care helps ensure that all your body systems are working together in harmony. As a result, regular chiropractic care helps you and your family achieve long-term health and well-being.

Plato's Ideas were perfect templates, of which everything we perceive are tangible representations. But the Ideas were not to be found in the world around us. Rather, they were conceptions of rational thought, transcendental objects of knowledge existing in a realm beyond our own. And yet, Plato's Ideas continue to be a source of inspiration and wonder, more than 2400 years after he first described them. These ethereal notions continue to function as critical guideposts, significant markers along our various life journeys, standing for ideal outcomes we are striving for and hope to achieve.
For example, we all have our own ideal image of what physical fitness is supposed to look like. These ideal images may vary from person to person, but each image ultimately derives from a Platonic Idea of physical human beauty, strength, and musculoskeletal proportion. Our conundrum, if we care about health, wellness, and fitness, is how we're going to go about achieving our ideal. As we proceed along our path to optimal physical fitness, it's very important to keep in mind that the Idea, as such, is not an actual part of our world. We will fail if we seek to achieve such perfection. A reasonable goal is to do what needs to be done and continue to do our best in all such endeavors.
A primary major access to physical fitness is starting and maintaining a healthy, nutritious diet. Such a diet involves making consistent choices from all of the five food groups, that is, fruits, vegetables, grains, protein foods, and dairy products. Each of us has our own specific preferences, and some of us may have specific requirements, such as being gluten-free or lactose-free, but the requirement for variety and obtaining the nutrition provided by each group remains the same for everyone. Importantly, international health agencies strongly recommend eating five portions of fresh fruits and vegetables every day. In the United States, this recommendation has been termed, "Five to Stay Alive".
A healthy diet, maintained over months and years, provides across-the-board benefits for fitness and wellness. When combined with a program of regular vigorous exercise, healthy eating results in conversion of unneeded fat to lean muscle mass, weight loss, and an enhanced sense of well-being. Research consistently demonstrates that a healthy diet reduces the risk of high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke.¹ A healthy diet reduces the risk of cancer, diabetes, and obesity.² Thus, a healthy diet not only helps us achieve our own representation of the Platonic Idea of physical fitness. A healthy diet helps us achieve our own demonstration of other important Platonic Ideas, those of happiness and harmony.^{3
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1}Koutsos A, et al: Apples and cardiovascular health--is the gut microbiota a core consideration? Nutrients 7(6):3959-3998, 2015
²Esposito K, et al: A journey into a Mediterranean diet and type 2 diabetes: a systematic review with meta-analyses. BMJ Open 2015 Aug 10;5(8):e008222. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008222
³Richard A, et al: Associations between fruit and vegetable consumption and psychological distress: results from a population-based study. BMC Psychiatry 2015 Oct 1;15(1):213. doi: 10.1186/s12888-015-0597-4

Climbing the Hill

Regular Chiropractic Care and Healthy Exercise

Regular vigorous exercise is critically important for retaining and maintaining optimal good health. But injuries may happen, disrupting our plans and best intentions. It's difficult to prevent random injuries, which by definition occur without cause or warning. One key to prevailing in your long-term exercise program is to minimize the likelihood of injury by maximizing your fitness potential. Preventable, rather than random, injuries are often caused by tightness and/or imbalance of muscles that support spinal movement and spinal weight-bearing. These muscles include the erector spinae, quadratus lumborum, longissimus thoracis, and longissimus cervicis. These spinal stabilizers assist in all forms of exercise and their optimal functioning is required for any maximal effort. By identifying and correcting misalignments of spinal vertebras, regular chiropractic care helps ensure full and free movement of these important spinal muscles. As a result, regular chiropractic care helps you and your family get the most benefit out of the time you spend exercising, helping you to improve your long-term health.

Climbing a hill is a useful metaphor for activities involved in accomplishing a major goal, overcoming longstanding obstacles, or achieving a noteworthy milestone. But you must be prepared to engage in such a climb. Striking out without a metaphorical map, compass, bottle of water, or raingear will consistently result in limited success or actual failure. From a health and fitness perspective, climbing a hill may represent a real, concrete process. When you're out on your daily walk or run, unless you live and train entirely at sea level you're going to encounter changes in elevation. If you live in mountainous regions such as Southern California or along the Appalachian Trail, such variations in terrain require greater levels of aerobic capacity. Unless you want to spend your exercise time huffing and puffing, climbing a hill in the literal sense necessitates a high level of cardiovascular fitness.
Cardiovascular fitness may also be termed cardiorespiratory fitness.¹ Such fitness refers to heart and lung capacity. With increased cardiorespiratory fitness, your heart's stroke volume increases. In other words, your heart pumps more blood with each beat than it did prior to attaining such fitness. More blood pumped per beat means your heart works less to achieve the same result. Your heart becomes more efficient, your blood pressure goes down, and your cells and tissues receive more nutrition more quickly.^2,3 Similarly, with increased cardiorespiratory fitness your lungs take in more air with each breath. Such increased lung capacity means more oxygen is available to cells and tissues more quickly. Your entire cardiorespiratory system becomes more efficient. You're expending less metabolic energy and obtaining greater metabolic returns. Cardiorespiratory fitness substantially improves your overall health.
Attaining the goal of cardiovascular (cardiorespiratory) fitness involves the same type of thoroughness as that involved in achieving family and business-related goals. You plan your work and then work your plan. Interval training is a proven method of enhancing cardiovascular fitness, a method that is both mentally and physically challenging. Accomplishing your interval training goals also provides a great deal of fun and personal satisfaction.
Interval training involves alternating intense and slow periods of activity. Let's say you run three days a week, you average approximately 12 minutes per mile, and you run 3 miles per day. Now you'll substitute one interval training day per week for one of your regular running days. On your interval training day, you'll begin by lightly jogging 1 mile. Then you'll run 1/4 mile at 2:45, that is, slightly faster than your regular 3-minute per 1/4 mile pace. You'll continue with 1/4 mile at a very light recovery pace. Next, you'll repeat the sequence of fast (2:45) 1/4 mile followed by the slow recovery 1/4 mile. Repeat the sequence once more, add 1/2 mile of lightly jogging cool-down, and you've run your daily 3-mile quotient. Going forward, you may infinitely vary your interval training sequences, running 1/2 mile, 3/4 mile, and 1 mile interval distances at slightly faster than your race pace. You'll get faster gradually as your cardiovascular fitness and aerobic capacity increase. Within 6 months of engaging in consistent interval training, climbing hills may seem no more difficult than running on flat ground. Not only will you have become much more fit, you will have made tremendous gains in overall health and well being.
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¹Lavie CJ, et al: Exercise and the Cardiovascular System: Clinical Science and Cardiovascular Outcomes. Circ Res 117(2):207-219, 2015
²Myers J, et al: Physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness as major markers of cardiovascular risk: their independent and interwoven importance to health status. Prog Cardiovasc Dis 57(4):306-314, 2015
³Nayor M, Vasan RS: Preventing heart failure: the role of physical activity. Curr Opin Cardiol 2015 Jul 3. [Epub ahead of print]

Going for the Gold

Regular Chiropractic Care and Long-Term Health

Having your musculoskeletal system in top working order is a prime requirement for maximizing the benefit of the time you spend exercising. When your muscles, ligaments, tendons, and joints are functioning properly, without undergoing any inappropriate stress and strain, then you're able to exercise at your peak, engage in full effort, improve your strength and endurance, and have fun in the process. Regular chiropractic care helps make these outcomes possible by detecting and correcting spinal misalignments and nerve interference. By removing these roadblocks to biomechanical performance, regular chiropractic care helps ensure that you get the most benefit out of all your daily activities, including exercise. Whether your preferred method of exercise is walking, running, swimming, biking, yoga, strength training, or any combination of these activities, regular chiropractic care helps you achieve your fitness and long-term health goals.

It seems that at least once a month, some sort of senior fitness competition is featured on the sports page of local and national newspapers. The Senior Olympics was the forerunner of these types of events, and the designation quickly morphed into the National Senior Games. Soon localities and municipalities began hosting their own senior track, swimming, and ironman competitions. Sociologists would call this a trend.
However, just as younger national-class competitive athletes and professional sports stars are not representative of the population at large, none of these senior athletes is representative of seniors as a group. The important takeaway from the surge of senior athletic events is that anyone at any age can become physically fit and maintain high levels of health and fitness. It's not necessary to achieve an extraordinary level of competitive fitness. What is necessary is to be a person who is fit, healthy, and well.^1,2
With very few exceptions, any person, regardless of her or his current status, can become physically fit. The steps to take have been well described over many decades. Broadcast, print, and online media are saturated with articles and programs dedicated to teaching people how to lose weight and start exercise programs. In reality, everyone knows what he or she needs to do. One big step is portion control. Most adults consume far too many calories per day, much more than they need to maintain daily metabolic requirements. In contrast, for most adults, a daily diet containing 1800 healthy calories per day would result in substantial weight loss. The next big step is to begin and maintain a long-term exercise program, consisting of at least 30 minutes of exercise five days a week. A healthy diet and regular exercise, maintained over time, will result in ongoing high levels of physical fitness and wellness.³
But, if everyone knows what steps to take to accomplish these goals, why isn't everyone physically fit? The answers, for specific individuals, may be complex, but the overall answer is lack of motivation. Merely knowing how to do something isn't enough. You have to want to do something. You have to have the desire to do it. There has to be something in it for you. Having your spouse, doctor, or even religious counselor tell you you need to lose weight and start exercising will never get you to stick with the program. In order for you to make meaningful change, you must provide the motivation yourself.
Importantly, this internal motivation needs to be ongoing. There may be times when you do some binge eating or stop exercising. But the secret is to find the means of re-motivating yourself and returning to your fitness programs. By doing so you will derive tremendous satisfaction and gain real, long-term health and wellness.
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¹Buford TW, et al: Optimizing the benefits of exercise on physical function in older adults. PM R 6(6):528-543, 2014
²Hills AP, et al: Physical Activity and Health: "What is Old is New Again". Adv Food Nutr Res 75:77-95, 2015
³Myers J, et al: Physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness as major markers of cardiovascular risk: their independent and interwoven importance to health status. Prog Cardiovasc Dis 57(4):306-314, 2015

Your Fellow Travelers

Regular Chiropractic Care and Optimal Health

The integrity of our functioning as physiological beings is in large part determined by the level of functioning of the body's master system, the nerve system. Optimal functioning of the nerve system directly impacts the health of our symbiotic relationship with the 100 trillion commensal microorganisms occupying our gastrointestinal tracts. But things can go wrong within the nerve system itself, most frequently as a result of nerve interference. Nerve interference is caused by physiological irritation and inflammation of spinal nerves, the nerves that transmit information from the brain, via the spinal cord, to the rest of the body. Nerve interference delays signal transmission or causes the wrong information to be transmitted. The result may be pain, other symptoms, or actual disease, depending on the locations of specific nerve irritation and the amount of time such irritation has persisted. Regular chiropractic care detects and corrects sites of spinal nerve interference. By helping restore nerve system integrity, regular chiropractic care helps you and your family obtain long-term health and well being.

It has long been known that over evolutionary time the human organism developed in tandem with a vast host of microbial fellow travelers. The 100 trillion microorganisms inhabiting our gastrointestinal tracts assist in numerous physiological processes critical to our health and well being. The intestinal microbiome (commensal microorganisms) helps maintain the integrity and function of the lining of the small intestine, helps us digest our food properly, and assists in training our immune systems to appropriately recognize friends and foes.^1,2 Alterations in composition of the intestinal microbiome (dysbiosis) lead to many disorders and diseases, including celiac disease, osteoporosis, autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes. Thus, dysbiosis needs to be considered in the evaluation and treatment of many common conditions. Fortunately, many forms of conservative management are available for dysbiosis, including use of probiotics and prebiotics.
Probiotics are formulations of live microorganisms that contain large numbers of colony-forming units, primarily lactobacilli and bifidobacteria.³ Taken as dietary supplements, probiotics persist in the gastrointestinal tract for several days and compete successfully with resident microorganisms. Probiotic bacteria help repair damaged linings of the small intestine, enhance nutrition, and suppress inflammatory intestinal reactions. Importantly, probiotic bacteria ferment undigested carbohydrates in the large intestine and produce nutrients for "good" microorganisms, helping restore the normal composition of commensal microorganisms.
Prebiotics are selectively fermented ingredients (foods) that target specific microorganisms and help restore balance in the intestinal microbiome. The primary targets are bifidobacteria and lactobacilli. By providing dietary substrates, prebiotics stimulate  growth of specific bacteria and act to restore a more healthful composition of the intestinal microbiome. Many prebiotics are found naturally in foods such as garlic, onions, asparagus, and leeks. However, an effective means of obtaining prebiotics is to add prebiotic ingredients to bread, yoghurt, and drinks. In order to obtain full benefit, prebiotics and probiotics must be consumed regularly.
Dysbiosis is frequently the result of intolerance to gluten, a class of proteins found in wheat, barley, and rye. Chronic immune and inflammatory reactions to gluten peptides often lead to disturbances in intestinal microorganism homeostasis. Other conditions such as acute intestinal infection disrupt the intestinal epithelial barrier and lead to dysbiosis. The good news is that alterations in composition of the intestinal microbiome are usually correctable by supplementation with probiotics and prebiotics. The key to effective management is knowledge and awareness of the possibility of dysbiosis and access to appropriate methods of natural supplementation.
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¹Chistiakov DA, et al: Role of gut microbiota in the modulation of atherosclerosis-associated immune response. Front Microbiol 2015 Jun 30;6:671. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2015.00671. eCollection 2015
²Purchiaroni F, et al: The role of intestinal microbiota and the immune system. Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci 17(3):323-333, 2013
³Hajela N, et al: Gut microbiome, gut function, and probiotics: Implications for health. Indian J Gastroenterol 34(2):93-107, 2015

To Lift or Not to Lift?

Strength Training and Regular Chiropractic Care

Engaging in a program of strength training provides numerous benefits for adolescents, young adults, and older adults. Strength training also represents a long-term commitment. The health and fitness gains you achieve via strength training are obtained over months and years, not days and weeks.Strength training does involve the possibility of injury and it's important to minimize this risk as much as possible. No one wants to endure two or more weeks of downtime owing to a soft tissue injury that could have been avoided. One specific method of helping to ensure safe exercise sessions involves strict attention to proper technique. The second specific method is regular chiropractic care. All of the physical work involved in strength training is based upon effective spinal biomechanics. Regular chiropractic care is focused on restoring optimal spinal alignment and detecting and correcting sources of nerve interference. By engaging in regular chiropractic care, you're helping to ensure your ability to perform vigorous physical activity and reap the rewards of long-term health.

If a great Shakespearean protagonist had, anachronistically, joined a gym, his internal existential inquiry might have been, "To lift or not to lift?". Many centuries later, the identical inquiry, or controversy, persists. Joining a gym (health club) usually implies the new club member is going to engage in strength training in one form or another. Such exercise provides an abundance of benefits and is a valuable lifestyle choice for most people. But the possibility of injury exists. The key to safe, beneficial exercise is to learn how to do strength training correctly, then develop a plan, and follow the plan.
Government health and wellness guidelines recommend doing 150 minutes of (at least) moderate exercise per week. This translates to at least 30 minutes of exercise five times per week. Strength training is an important component of any exercise program designed to fulfill these recommendations. In combination with cardiorespiratory exercise, strength training greatly improves muscular capabilities and endurance. Your body becomes fit, toned, and honed, and as a result, you become much better equipped to successfully manage the mechanical stresses and strains that everyone encounters during the course of a normal day.^1-3
If you are new to strength training or haven't done this form of exercise in a while, then the most important rule is to start slowly. Scientifically determine how much weight you should be lifting by experimentation. Choose a very light weight and see whether you can do eight repetitions with that weight comfortably. If it's difficult to do eight reps, then start over with the next lighter weight. If it's too easy to do eight reps, then start over with the next heavier weight. If eight repetitions feels just about right, then that's the weight with which to begin that particular exercise. Follow these steps for each of your exercises and you'll have established your beginning routine on a personal and safe foundation.
Strength training need never become boring, as you can change your routine with almost infinite variety. For example, for a 12-week period you could do chest and back exercises one day, then leg exercises a second day, and shoulder and arm exercises a third day. You would do your cardiorespiratory exercise on the remaining two days (for a total of five weekly days of exercise). During a different 12-week period, you could do cardiorespiratory exercise on three days and do arm and leg exercises on one day and chest, back, and shoulder exercises on a second day. Or you could choose to "work light" and exercise all your body parts on a single day. You could do your total-body strength training two or three days a week, filling in the other days with cardiorespiratory exercise. The only guideline in the context of these routine designs is whether the routine works for you. If it works, then it works.
As with all exercise programs, the more consistent you are, the greater long-term benefit you'll derive. Be sure to build-in recovery time by taking a week off here and there for rest and recharging. A modern Hamlet would find his or her exercise time enjoyable and rewarding, and would answer the perplexing question with a resounding, "Yes. I will lift."
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¹Granacher U, et al: The importance of trunk muscle strength for balance, functional performance, and fall prevention in seniors: a systematic review. Sports Med 43(7):627-641, 2013
²Grier T, et al: The effects of cross-training on fitness and injury in women. US Army Med Dep J Apr-Jun:33-41, 2015
³Liu Y, et al: Effects of combined aerobic and resistance training on the glycolipid metabolism and inflammation levels in type 2 diabetes mellitus. J Phys Ther Sci 27(7):2365-2371, 2015
These are very good points. With expanded research funding it may be possible to fulfill the assumptions of parametric analysis with greater confidence.

Your Hardware / Your Software

Regular Chiropractic Care and Nerve System Health

The main components of your nerve system's "hardware" are the neurons, that is, the nerve cells themselves. There are more than 100 billion neurons in the brain and several hundred trillion synapses connecting these nerve cells. It is estimated that you have more neuronal connections in your brain than the number of stars in the sky. As your body's master system, your nerve system controls the functioning of every cell, tissue, and organ that comprise your body. Thus, the health of your nerve system is critical to your health and well being. Problems arise when spinal misalignments are present. Such biomechanical dysfunction causes spinal nerve irritation and nerve interference. The result of nerve interference is musculoskeletal pain and symptoms of various diseases. Regular chiropractic care helps maintain the health of spinal nerves and your nerve system by removing nerve irritation and nerve interference. Thus, the short- and long-term benefit of regular chiropractic care is enhanced health, wellness, and well being.

The metaphor linking the human brain with computer hardware is now so well known that it features regularly in news media stories. But computers have only been with us since Colossus and ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer) were constructed in the mid-1940s. The metaphor linking the code embedded in human DNA and computer software is less frequently cited. The general public only became aware of the concept of computer software in the early 1980s, with the launch of IBM's Personal Computer in 1981 and Apple's Macintosh computer in 1984. In contrast, our genetic code has been evolving for 2 million years.
We could consider computer hardware the metaphorical analog of the human nerve system, consisting of the brain, spinal and peripheral nerves, and neurons (nerve cells).^1,2 The nerve system comprises the physical structures that initiate and transmit electrical signals that control the physiological processes of your cells, tissues, and organs. Activities involving your heartbeat, your breath, your digestion, and hormonal function are all regulated and directed by interaction with the nerve system.
Computer software provides encoded instructions for programs that run on the processors, memory banks, buses, and drives of the computer hardware structure. Such programming is analogous to our genetic code, which contains instructions for the growth, development, and functioning of every cell in our bodies. The nerve system carries out its functions based on instructions derived from the DNA contained within its cells.
Computers and the software they run on do not require much maintenance. You certainly don't want to spill coffee on your keyboard and you don't want crumbs to wander into any open ports or drive slots. You do want to backup your files and run security checks periodically. But that's about it. In contrast, the human body requires a fair amount of upkeep in order to ensure optimal performance. Many people are unwilling to do 30 minutes of vigorous exercise 5 times a week. Many people will not take the time to shop for nutritious food and prepare healthful meals.³ But if you engage in these important activities on a regular basis, you will go far to securing long-term health for yourself and your family.
Most of us put a lot of thought into decisions concerning our computers and the software we're going to run on them. We take good care of these helpers of our personal and business activities. But few of us are similarly conscientious when it comes to taking care of our own health and well-being. It would profit all of us greatly to take such care of our metaphorical hardware and software, that is, the physical and physiological structures that keep us healthy and well.
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¹Cash SS, Hochberg LR: The emergence of single neurons in clinical neurology. Neuron 86(1):79-91, 2015
²Xu J, et al: What does a neuron learn from multisensory experience? J Neurophysiol 113(3):883-889. 2015
³Asher G, Sassone-Corsi P: Time for Food: The Intimate Interplay between Nutrition, Metabolism, and the Circadian Clock Cell 161(1):84-92, 2015

The Common Core

Core Strength and Regular Chiropractic Care

When you begin a core muscle strengthening program, it's important to ensure that your spinal biomechanical structures are functioning at their optimum. Proper functioning of your spinal vertebras is especially significant in the context of core muscle strength. The presence of spinal misalignments causes tightness of small muscle groups that connect adjacent vertebras and of large muscle groups that connect spinal regions such as the mid back and low back. Muscle tightness leads to pain and persistent tightness leads to pain that may last for days, weeks, or months. Core muscle strengthening becomes very difficult in the presence of such tightness and pain. In fact, when spinal misalignments are left uncorrected, attempting to perform core exercises may even cause injury. By detecting, analyzing, and correcting spinal misalignments, regular chiropractic care helps restore normal biomechanical function to your spine and, correspondingly, to the rest of your musculoskeletal system. As a result, regular chiropractic care helps you get the most benefit from your core strengthening activities and helps you become healthier overall.

Core strength is critical for everyday activities such as placing heavy grocery bags into the trunk of your automobile, carrying a gallon jug of milk from the refrigerator to the dining room table, and even walking to the mailbox. When your core strength is diminished, even bending over to pick up a pencil may result in a serious spinal injury. Weakened core musculature causes simple, daily physical activities to be problematic. When standing up from a seated position or getting into a car causes you to experience twinges in your back, you may be sure your core muscles are not working in the manner for which they were designed.
Your core muscles consist of the four abdominal muscles – the transversus abdominis, internal obliques, external obliques, and rectus abdominis – and back muscles such as the erector spinae, longissimus thoracis, and multifidi. The most important core muscle may be the transversus abdominis, a sheet of horizontally oriented muscle that lies underneath the other abdominal muscles and provides deep mechanical support to the low back and pelvis. Similarly important are the multifidi, a group of small, powerful, deep spinal muscles that interconnect pairs and series of vertebras.
In times past, when the concept of work meant actual physical labor, there was no need to pay attention to training the core. In those days, your core muscles were being trained all day long by lifting, carrying, pushing, and pulling loads with heavy resistances and/or bending, digging, hoeing, planting, and raking. Working on a farm or in a factory provided more than sufficient exercise for the core. But in today's developed world, farming and manufacturing jobs have been greatly reduced and the large majority of work is done in the so-called service sector. In the 21st century, people living in developed nations spend the largest portion of their day sitting at a desk. In such circumstances the core musculature will weaken drastically, unless specific attention is paid to training these muscles.^1,2
The good news is that a wide variety of exercises are available for training the core. Most of them require no equipment. Many of them may be done at home and do not even require a gym membership. For example, yoga provides thorough and complete exercise for core muscles. Self-motivated persons might only need a yoga DVD and a yoga mat, minimizing financial cost and doing their yoga training at home. For others, taking yoga classes at a gym or yoga center might be more appropriate. But yoga is only one possible solution. Numerous highly efficient core exercises may be done on a physioball. Dynamic exercises such as the plank provide substantial core benefit and the only equipment requirement is a mat. Other dynamic exercises include squats, gluteus bridge, lunges, jumping jacks, and the grapevine.
When you spend the time to make sure your core musculature is strong, daily physical activities begin to be done with ease and grace. Back pain and other mechanical aches and injuries fade into memory.³ The overall result is a body that works efficiently and optimally. Thus, a strong core helps provide for a lifetime of health and well-being.
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¹Kumar T, et al: Efficacy of core muscle strengthening exercise in chronic low back pain patients. J Back Musculoskel Rehabil  2014 Dec 2. [Epub ahead of print]
²Granacher U, et al: Effects of core instability strength training on trunk muscle strength, spinal mobility, dynamic balance and functional mobility in older adults. Gerontology 59(2):105-113, 2013
³Huxel Bliven KC, Anderson BE: Core stability training for injury prevention. Sports Health 5(6):514-522, 2013

Tips for Good Hip Health

Walking, Running, and Regular Chiropractic Care

We take a lot for granted as far as our bodies are concerned. Essentially we're given our bodies for free, and it's often hard to value and care for something we're given but didn't actually earn. Unfortunately, as many of us learn, without care our bodies will break down, possibly sooner rather than later. Entropy is a universal principle, and ongoing work is required to maintain order and function in all systems and all machines. Regular chiropractic care is an example of such ongoing work. A healthy nerve system is required for optimal functioning of all your other physiological systems including the cardiorespiratory, digestive, immune, and hormonal systems. When your nerve system isn't functioning properly, these other systems break down. Regular chiropractic care removes nerve interference, making it possible for all the other systems of your body to do their jobs. From a biomechanical perspective, balance is restored and stress points are removed, making it possible to engage in and enjoy activities such as walking and running over many years of a healthy life.

Having a pair of healthy hips is a key to healthy aging. But healthy hips are not only important for people in their 60s, 70s, and beyond. Your hips are one of your most important structural components, regardless of how old you are. Whether you're 20, 30, or 40, your hip joints provide biomechanical support to your entire body. Thus, keeping your hips healthy is a necessary consideration for everyone who wants to be healthy and well throughout a long life.
Healthy hips do not happen automatically. Your body's physiology follows the biomechanical principle of "use it or lost it". Muscles, bones, and joints that do work on a regular basis are strengthened and enhanced. Those musculoskeletal elements that don't do much physical work are broken down, so that molecular building blocks such as amino acids and nutrients such as calcium can be put to better use elsewhere. In other words, if you're haven't done much exercise in a while, weight-bearing joints such as the hips, knees, and ankles will begin to degrade. However, even as these joints lose optimal structural integrity, gravitational forces persist. The long-term result of such weakened joints is strains and sprains, degenerative arthritis, and possibly other inflammatory conditions. These disorders likely involve daily ongoing pain, which may become moderate or severe.
In the absence of conservative treatment and rehabilitative exercise, such conditions may ultimately require joint replacement. These procedures are becoming increasingly common, with total hip replacements and total knee replacements being performed on younger and younger patients. For example, annual rates for total hip replacement in the United States in patients aged 45 and older have almost doubled between 2000 and 2010.¹
Importantly, many hip joint problems can be prevented by instituting appropriate lifestyle changes. As the cause of many of these degenerative conditions is long-term lack of use, the solution lies in activity and physical work. In Western nations, physical labor is becoming increasingly uncommon. Most of us work in service-type industries and spend most of our days sitting at a desk. As a result, physical work is now typically obtained by engaging in regular, vigorous exercise. By performing five 30-minute sessions of vigorous weight-bearing exercise every week, we will restore and maintain sufficient healthy stress on our muscles, bones, and joints.
As these musculoskeletal structures undergo physical loads and perform mechanical work, your body responds by making them stronger.^2-4 New blood vessels are built to supply these structures with increasing amounts of oxygen and other nutrients. New cells are built to support existing tissues. Worn-out cells are removed more efficiently. The entire musculoskeletal system is revitalized in response to regular, vigorous exercise. The long-term result is healthy hips, knees, and ankles, as well as a healthy spine. These weight-bearing structures work synergistically to help provide you with long-term health.
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¹Hospitalization for Total Hip Replacement Among Inpatients Aged 45 and Over: United States, 2000–2010. NCHS Data Brief No. 186, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, February 2015
²Qian JG, et al: Effectiveness of Selected Fitness Exercises on Stress of Femoral Neck using Musculoskeletal Dynamics Simulations and Finite Element Model. J Hum Kinet 41:59-70, 2014
³Bolam KA, et al: The effect of physical exercise on bone density in middle-aged and older men: a systematic review. Osteoporosis Int 24(11):2749-2762, 2013
⁴Hill KD, et al: Individualized home-based exercise programs for older people to reduce falls and improve physical performance: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Maturitas 2015 Apr 29. doi: 10.1016/j.maturitas.2015.04.005. [Epub ahead of print]

Time's Arrow

Longevity and Regular Chiropractic Care

Regular chiropractic care is a key component of all programs promoting healthy aging. We all grow older, but those of us who grow older and retain relatively youthful levels of health and vigor are those who have incorporated specific lifestyles into their daily habits. These health-promoting lifestyles include a nutritious diet, regular moderate-to-high intensity exercise, and sufficient rest. Engaging in these healthy behaviors provides your body with the raw materials it needs to function at peak effectiveness and efficiency. Regular chiropractic care helps ensure that your nerve system, your body's master system, provides accurate instructions to the rest of your body's systems so that you make optimal use of these raw materials. The long-term result is a process of growing older based on a foundation of health and well being.

As we get older, most of us begin to experience the acceleration of the passage of time. The sensation of time passing gets faster and faster, until for many of us weeks begin to feel like days and months begin to feel like weeks. This is very disconcerting and we'd like to be able to slow things down. We'd like to make the months and years whiz by a little less quickly. This isn't possible, of course, from the point of view of time itself, and the only comfort may lie in the fact that everyone else is experiencing similar phenomena. "Time flies" is a common expression. But there are solutions, relative ones, by which we may get a better grasp on our personal relationship to time and time's effect on our physical bodies.
The first solution is associated with the concept of present time consciousness. In other words, the more you actually experience the present moment itself, the more you will be participating in what these moments offer and the more you will be getting out of the experiences of which your life is comprised. "Being present" is a skill that gets stronger with practice. There's always the tendency for our minds to wander off on any other track than the one we want to be on, that is, being present. But with practice our ability to be present in the moment expands. One of the remarkable benefits of this practice is that our experience of time passing slows down. By being present, our hours, days, and weeks become much more meaningful. We experience more of life and the passage of time no longer washes over us like an unending series of 20-foot waves.
The second solution involves taking better care of ourselves. When we're healthy and well, each day is more enjoyable. When we're healthy and well, our physical state is not a daily concern and we're free to do what we want. We can read, study, exercise, engage in new work activities, or simply relax and watch a movie without the concerns and constraints of physical pain and disease. Our ability to participate in these unique experiences enriches our lives and makes the passage of time a joy rather than a burden. But as with the skill of being present, the skill of being healthy and well requires practice. Such practice takes the form of eating a nutritious diet,^1,2 doing regular vigorous exercise,³ and getting sufficient rest. With these practices in place, we are well on our way to increasing our long-term levels of health and wellness.
Thus, although we cannot control the actual passage of time, we can control our relationship to the phenomenon of time passing. By learning the skill of present time consciousness and practicing healthy behaviors, we become able to add more life to our years and may even be adding more years to our lives.
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¹Paddon-Jones D, et al: Protein and healthy aging. Am J Clin Nutr 2015 Apr 29. pii: ajcn084061. [Epub ahead of print]
²Royston KJ, Tollefsbol TO: The Epigenetic Impact of Cruciferous Vegetables on Cancer Prevention. Curr Pharmacol Rep 1(1):46-51, 2015
³Gonzales JU: Do older adults with higher daily ambulatory activity have lower central blood pressure? Aging Clin Exp Res 2015 May 22. [Epub ahead of print]

Your Personal Cloud

Regular Chiropractic Care Supports a Healthy Brain

When we think about taking care of our bodies, we usually don't specifically consider taking care of our brains. Oddly, the brain is an afterthought. But your brain's health and welfare is critically important to your overall well-being. Regarding brain physiology, the primary concern is the status of arteries and arterioles, the blood vessels that supply your brain cells with oxygen and other nutrients. Arterioles clogged by cholesterol- and fat-containing plaque may weaken over time and eventually burst, causing varying degrees of loss of neurologic function and even death. The primary means of prevention of such arteriosclerotic disease is to engage in regular vigorous exercise and eat consistently nutritious food selected from all five food groups. Regular chiropractic care helps you get the most out your exercise program and nutritious diet. By keeping your spine aligned and your nerve system operating at full capacity, regular chiropractic care helps you achieve optimum levels of good health, including healthy brain function.

The concept of cloud computing has become a buzzword in recent years. The notion of "the cloud" originally referred to data storage. You could backup your computer files or even an image of your hard drive to a server bank in some remote location. Now you can access fully featured software programs via the cloud, including well-known productivity and photo editing programs. Cloud computing enables you to save money you would have spent on costly software packages and frees up valuable space on your home or office networks. The only drawback involves security issues, but such issues exist on your local networks as well.
The computing paradigm has taken over more and more not only of our work day, but our recreational environments as well. As a result, it has become increasingly easy to neglect and ultimately forget about the precious components of human physiology upon which all computing systems are based, that is, our very own brain and central nervous system.
There are serious downsides to such neglect and lack of care. Most of us are aware of the need to engage in regular vigorous exercise and eat a consistently nutritious diet. We do these things because we've learned the importance of a healthy lifestyle. Of course, these healthful activities support the functioning of your brain and central nervous system. But your brain requires more than mere physiological sustenance. Your brain itself requires the performance of actual work so that it can continue to do what it was designed to do.¹ The critical function of your brain is to provide you with creative, innovative solutions to the challenges you face every day to the survival and welfare of you and your family.
Your brain is staggeringly complex. It is estimated there are more connections among your brain cells than there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Specifically, there are more than 100 billion neurons in your brain, with several 100 trillion (10¹⁴) and possibly as many as 1 quadrillion (10¹⁵) connections. This massive network is built for heavy lifting, but most of us now fritter away this priceless resource as we spend seemingly endless hours talking and texting on our cell phones and playing games on our phones, tablets, and laptops.
Now we may be developing eye-hand coordination when we lose an entire afternoon playing race car and other arcade-style games.^2,3 But as the great philosophers have known for almost 3000 years, actual thinking is the best and most worthwhile use we can make of the free gift of self-awareness we receive as humans. Only thinking will provide us with the tools and techniques we require to grow, develop, and thrive in our increasingly complex and shrinkingly small global village. But the skill (or art) of thinking is based on training. Fortunately such training is available everywhere and the cost is frequently only that of time. Reading books is the primary training ground for developing the skill of critical thinking that will make a difference in our lives. Reading books that challenge you, followed by study and practice, will hone and refine your ability to actually think and make use of your brain, your own personal cloud. Surprisingly, and possibly shockingly, everything we need for such life-enhancing thinking is available right there "within" us.

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¹Vigliecca NS, Baez S: Screening executive function and global cognition with the Nine-Card Sorting Test: healthy participant studies and ageing implications. Psychogeriatrics 2015 Mar 3. doi: 10.1111/psyg.12104. [Epub ahead of print]
²Moisala M, et al: Brain activity during divided and selective attention to auditory and visual sentence comprehension tasks. Front Hum Neurosci 2015 Feb 19;9:86. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00086
³Banerjee S, et al: Interests shape how adolescents pay attention: the interaction of motivation and top-down attentional processes in biasing sensory activations to anticipated events. Eur J Neurosci 41(6):818-834, 2015

One, Two, or Three Miles?

Regular Chiropractic Care and Injury Prevention

Cardiovascular exercise such as walking, running, biking, and swimming is a necessary component of all exercise programs. But as with all forms of exercise, the possibility for injury exists and must be accounted for. Hamstring, quadriceps, and calf muscle strains are common examples of cardiovascular exercise-related injuries. Low back muscles and ligaments may be injured as well. A complete training program is one that minimizes the likelihood of injury and is supported by regular chiropractic care. Exercise-related injuries are often the result of faulty biomechanics. Such imbalances put excessive loads on one side of your body versus the other side. As time goes on the overworked side will begin to fail, and injury to the low back or one of the large muscle groups of the leg will occur. Regular chiropractic care detects and corrects spinal misalignments, the primary source of faulty biomechanics. By helping restore and maintain optimal functioning of your spine, regular chiropractic care helps you avoid painful injuries and setbacks in your training program. The result is improved fitness, health, and long-term well-being.

Even experienced exercisers sometimes find it difficult to know how much to do. For the beginner this uncertainty represents a significant stumbling block. Fortunately well-established guidelines and protocols exist to provide assistance to all exercisers, regardless of your skill level.

 In general, the beginning exerciser requires the most instruction. The key is to build up strength and endurance slowly and not do too much too soon. In terms of strength training, the best plan is to determine at what weight you can comfortably perform three sets of eight repetitions. If you can't do three sets of eight reps at the weight you've selected, it's too heavy. If doing three sets of eight reps with the weight you've chosen doesn't feel like anything at all, then the weight is too light. Overall, of course, too light is better than too heavy. The majority of strength training injuries occur when you're attempting to train with an inappropriately heavy weight.

 For example, you've selected 15-pound dumbbells with which to perform your bench press routine. You can comfortably do three sets of eight reps. Fifteen pounds is not too light and not too heavy. During the course of your next several weight training sessions, build up to three sets of 12 reps using the 15-pound dumbbells. When you can do three sets of 12 reps successfully, the next time you do your bench press routine you'll increase the weight by approximately 10%. In other words, you'll use the next heaviest weight, which is usually 17.5 pounds in a well-equipped gym. Begin with three sets of eight reps with the 17.5-pound dumbbells, and progress over the next several sessions to three sets of 12 reps. Then you'll repeat the sequence with 20-pound dumbbells, starting at three sets of eight reps and building up to three sets of 12 reps. You'll follow this formula with all of your strength training exercises. In this way, using a safe, smart, and graduated program, you'll consistently build lean muscle mass, gain improved strength and efficiency of your cardiovascular system, and most likely lose several pounds as stored fat is converted to muscle.¹

The same principles apply to cardiovascular exercises such as walking, running, biking, and swimming. If you haven't exercised in a very long time, walking is a good method with which to begin.^2,3 On your first day, go for a normally paced 10- or 15-minute walk. Don't be concerned that your walk feels like it's over only a few minutes after it's begun. Your main focus should be on getting started, not on how much or how little you're doing in the first few sessions. Over the course of four to six weeks, build up a minute or two each session until you're able to comfortably walk for 30 minutes at a moderate pace. At this point you can begin to increase your pace gradually, building up to a 30- or 40-minute walk at a brisk pace. At this level, you're going a very good, vigorous cardiovascular workout and your heart, lungs, and other components of your cardiorespiratory system are becoming stronger, healthier, and more efficient.
In this gradual, steady, measured way, all exercisers, of whatever age, prior experience, and skill level, can gain a lifetime of benefit from their fitness programs and minimize the likelihood of setbacks or injury.
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¹Hawkins M, et al: Impact of an exercise intervention on physical activity during pregnancy: the behaviors affecting baby and you study. Am J Public Health 2014 Oct;104(10):e74-81. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2014.302072. Epub 2014 Aug 14
²Hanson S, Jones A: Is there evidence that walking groups have health benefits? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Br J Sports Med 2015 Jan 19. pii: bjsports-2014-094157. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2014-094157. [Epub ahead of print]
³Varma VR, et al: Low-intensity daily walking activity is associated with hippocampal volume in older adults. Hippocampus 2014 Dec 7. doi: 10.1002/hipo.22397. [Epub ahead of print]

20/20 Vision

Regular Chiropractic Care Supports Your Goals of Health and Wellness

When you set your sights on the goal of achieving fitness and good health, it's important to be sure your plan of action is complete. You'll establish measurable goals for three of the main pillars of good health, that is, regular exercise, a nutritious diet, and sufficient rest. In addition, a complete action plan for achieving a healthy lifestyle that lasts includes regular chiropractic care. Regular chiropractic care helps ensure that the time you're spending on obtaining a healthy diet and regular, vigorous exercise is put to good use. In order to derive maximum benefit from the good food you're eating and the cardiovascular exercise and weight-training you're doing, your nerve system, your body's master system, must be functioning at peak efficiency. By detecting and correcting misalignments of the spine, regular chiropractic care helps restore and maintain a free flow of information from your brain to your body and from your body to your brain. By removing nerve interference, regular chiropractic care enables your nerve system to do its job. The result is optimum benefit from your lifestyle activities and greater levels of health and wellness.

All of us have thought, at one point or another, and possibly more than once, "I wish I knew then what I know now." It's been famously said that "hindsight is 20/20". Our clarity of thought with respect to what we should have done is frequently much more acute than was our thinking in those past irretrievable moments. However, some things are capable of being put right to a substantial degree. We cannot go back in time, but we can take steps in the present to redress certain relative failures of ours, specifically those regarding healthy lifestyle choices.
Of course, we don't get a "do-over" regarding the past 10, 20, or 30 years of relative neglect. But the very good news is that it's not too late to get back on track and obtain higher overall levels of health and well-being. It's not too late to begin making healthy lifestyle decisions that will provide a lifetime of benefit. Starting now, by taking action in the areas of regular exercise, a nutritious diet, and getting sufficient rest, you can obtain substantial across-the-board improvement in your health.^1,2
How is it possible to gain such improvement, despite however many years of lack of attention to regular exercise and unhealthy eating? The answers lie in the dynamic nature of human physiology and the complexity of its internal feedback structures. One such dynamic process is the adaptive response to mechanical stress. For example, Wolff’s law states that bones remodel along lines of physiological stress. Exercise causes long bones and the bones of your pelvis to bear increased physiological loads during relatively short intervals. In turn, these load-bearing bones are stimulated to build new bone. Your bones become structurally stronger in response to physiological work. Similarly, large muscle groups such as the quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, pectorals, and latissimus dorsi are stimulated to increase their mass and bulk. Regular, vigorous exercise causes growth of additional muscular tissue and development of new networks of blood vessels to supply these muscles with necessary oxygen and nutrients. In addition to your musculoskeletal system becoming stronger, leaner, and more efficient, your heart and lungs develop increased capacity and become more resilient. Physiological dynamic responses are also engaged when you shift your dietary habits toward a healthy regime. No matter your current condition and circumstances, by engaging in regular, vigorous exercise and healthy eating habits you will dramatically improve your levels of fitness, health, and well-being.³
Looking back with regret as what has occurred will not help us achieve what we want to achieve in the here and now. We can apply 20/20 vision to our present choices and choose healthy lifestyle behaviors now and into the future. The beneficiaries include our families, our friends, and ourselves.
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¹Schnohr P, et al: Dose of jogging and long-term mortality: the Copenhagen City Heart Study. J Am Coll Cardiol 65(5)411:419, 2015
² Watson K, Baar K: mTOR and the health benefits of exercise. Semin Cell Dev Biol 36:130-9, 2014
³Kelley GA, et al: Effects of exercise on depression in adults with arthritis: a systematic review with meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Arthritis Res Ther 17(1):21, 2015

The Home Stretch

Regular Chiropractic Care and Effective Stretching

Starting a stretching program is appropriate for most people. As we want to get the most out of our stretching routine, it's important to ensure that our musculoskeletal system is working at peak capacity. Regular chiropractic care performs these essential services by detecting, analyzing, and correcting spinal misalignments. Left uncorrected, such misalignments cause muscles, ligaments, and joints to become tight and irritated and also cause irritation to spinal nerves. By correcting spinal misalignments, your spinal nerves are free to conduct information properly between your brain and the rest of your body. Your musculoskeletal system is enabled to do its job properly. The result is that regular chiropractic care helps to optimize the functioning of our muscles, bones, and joints, thereby making our stretching and exercise time useful, healthful, and profitable.

Thanks to effective public health campaigns regarding healthy lifestyle choices, many people have incorporated regular, vigorous exercise, a nutritious diet, and getting sufficient rest in their daily routines. For many people, an additional important component of a healthy lifestyle is regular stretching.
Regular stretching provides numerous benefits, including enhanced flexibility and adaptability of your musculoskeletal system, that is, your bones, muscles, and joints.¹ As a result, regular stretching helps improve overall mobility and range of motion. Regular stretching helps reduce injury by improving circulation, bringing increased supplies of oxygen and critical nutrients to the large muscles of your thighs and legs and the small muscles of your back. As a bonus, regular stretching helps to reduce stress. It's clear that stretching activities provide a very big return for a modest investment of time and effort.^2,3
In order to derive the greatest benefits from your stretching program, knowledge of stretching "best practices" is essential. First, it's critical to conceive of stretching as a journey rather than a destination. In stretching, we have to give up all our notions of how much we think we should be able to achieve. On any given day, our muscles will be tighter or less tight. On any given day, it will be "harder" or easier to obtain the stretchability of the day before. The best practice is to pay attention to your body, focus on what you're doing, and work with what you have on a particular day. This "centering" approach is in direct contrast to trying to force your muscles to conform to the stretching length you think they should achieve. Using force while stretching will always result in injury. Instead, the activity of stretching calls for a calm, steady, and methodical approach.
What is it that you're doing when you stretch? Primarily, you're using a process of visualization. You're visualizing the particular muscle getting "longer". When you do a stretch for your hamstring muscle group (there are three muscles that comprise this group), you have an image in your mind of the muscles of the back of your thigh and you're "seeing" these muscles lengthening. You're not actually "doing" anything other than performing the activity of the stretch itself. In other words, you're not actively making the hamstrings longer. But you are "seeing" them lengthen in your mind, and the result is an effective stretch, that is, increased length and flexibility of the hamstring group.
Pictures of the quadriceps muscle group (the muscles on the front of your thigh), the hamstring muscle group, the calf muscles (the surface gastrocnemius and the deeper soleus), and your spinal muscle groups will provide great assistance with your visualization process. Such images are widely available on the Internet. Your "Zen-like" process of visualization will make your 10 or 15 minutes of stretching time more effective and may also be applied to various other tasks throughout your day, providing additional ongoing benefits to your health and well being.
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¹Peck E, et al: The effects of stretching on performance. Cur Sports Med Rep 13(3):179-185, 2014
²Morrin N, Redding E: Acute effects of warm-up stretch protocols on balance, vertical jump height, and range of motion in dancers. J Dance Med Sci 17(1):34-40, 2013
³Avloniti A, et al: The Acute Effects of Static Stretching on Speed and Agility Performance Depend on Stretch Duration and Conditioning Level. J Strength Cond Res 2014 Jun 17 [Epub ahead of print]

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Shoulder Rehabilitation and Regular Chiropractic Care

Effective shoulder rehabilitation frequently depends on factors other than those related to the shoulder itself. For example, obtaining improved shoulder range of motion and improved shoulder girdle strength may be directly related to the functioning of your neck and the regional neck musculature. Your seven neck vertebras have a big responsibility. Not only do they support the weight of your head all day long, but they also provide a structural framework for the complex web of muscles that move your head in all directions and interface with chest muscles involved in respiration. Beyond this, regional neck muscles are closely interconnected with shoulder girdle muscles. Rehabbing the shoulder means paying attention to neck muscles as well. Regular chiropractic care helps ensure that the spinal joints and muscles of your neck are functioning at peak efficiency. Therefore, regular chiropractic care is a critical component of any successful shoulder rehabilitation program.

Many adults begin to develop shoulder pain, even though they may not have sustained a specific injury. It's important to pay attention to such shoulder issues, as a healthy shoulder joint is the key to full function of the upper extremities. We all know at least one person whose ability to perform normal activities of daily living has been significantly compromised by chronic shoulder pain. Conservative treatment may be of benefit, but the key, as always, is to prevent these problems before they occur. The primary prophylactic intervention, as is the case for most musculoskeletal conditions, is exercise.
We all agree that the human body's design is magnificent. Every component has a purpose, down to the smallest cell. Every system is deeply interconnected with every other. Miraculously, the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts. And yet, there are a few "gotchas" built-in to this ingenious design. With respect to the shoulder, the "gotcha" relates to the shoulder joint's extraordinary mobility. The shoulder joint has the greatest range of motion of all the joints in your body. But this extreme mobility comes at a price, that is, the shoulder joint is not a particularly stable joint. For example, shoulder dislocations comprise approximately 50% of all such injuries.
Shoulder pain in the absence of a specific injury often represents damage to the rotator cuff. Again, the design of the shoulder joint and surrounding soft tissues is implicated in these rotator cuff problems. The blood supply to the bones, muscles, ligaments, and tendons of the shoulder is consistently compromised during normal motion of the shoulder above 90º, as in placing an object on or taking an object down from the top shelf in a kitchen cabinet. If much of your day is spent with your arm elevated above 90º to the front or to the side, over time you may develop nagging shoulder pain. Worse, with persistent repetitive motion above 90º, nagging shoulder pain may become chronic pain that restricts activities.
The best approach to shoulder problems is to become aware of the rotator cuff's well-known tendency to develop degenerative changes. We can be proactive by doing strength-training exercises for the shoulder and incorporating these exercises in our weekly exercise program as soon as possible.^1,2 Beginning such exercises in the teenage years would be ideal. For those of us who are older, the right time to begin shoulder strength training is now. Shoulder exercises stimulate growth of new muscle fibers, increase the size of muscle fibers already in existence, and stimulate growth of nerve fibers bringing information to and from all shoulder girdle structures.
Shoulder exercises should be done once or twice a week as part of your overall fitness program. As with all exercise that's new to you, start slowly and gradually increase the level of difficulty over time.³ The result of all this activity is a dramatically improved blood supply to the shoulder region and a dramatically reduced tendency for rotator cuff degeneration and injury.
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¹Choi SH, Lee BH: Clinical Usefulness of Shoulder Stability Exercises for Middle-aged Women. J Phys Ther Sci 25(10):1243-1246, 2013
²Saltychev M, et al: Conservative treatment or surgery for shoulder impingement: systematic review and meta-analysis. Disabil Rehabil 37(1):1-8, 2015
Another example of a common issues
³Daenen L, et al: Exercise, not to exercise, or how to exercise in patients with chronic pain? Applying science to practice. Clin J Pain 31(2):108-114, 2015