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.