How I spent my Sunday at Ironman Boulder and this week’s 1-Page Health News

by Dr. Glenn Hyman’s Denver Chiropractic Center:

My oldest son Andrew and I spent this Sunday volunteering at the Ironman Triathlon. We were a part of my triathlon club, Altitude Multisport Club’s aid station on the bike. Andrew and I were sent down the road to warn athletes on the bike about bumps on the railroad tracks. We had a great time yelling “Bump ahead!” for hours on end. Congratulations to our many patients who did the race!

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Andrew and I out on the course.

And here’s the 1-Page Health News.

Exercise: Cardio & Motor Fitness Skills Improve Academic Performance.
Most would agree that being physically active during childhood offers many benefits to mental and physical health. A new study indicates that cardiorespiratory capacity and motor ability have a strong influence on brain health and academic performance. The study involved 2,038 children and collected data on physical fitness, body composition, and academic performance. The findings suggest that efforts should be made to promote physical activity that encourages children to exercise aerobically and engage in motor tasks that develop physical speed, agility, and coordination.
The Journal of Pediatrics, June 2014

Chiropractic: Farming is Hard on the Body.
Agricultural workers often compromise their musculoskeletal health due to ergonomic risks associated with their jobs. Using a sample of data from the National Health Interview Survey that’s believed to represent the two-million agricultural workers in the United States, researchers estimate that 24% of farm workers experienced back pain and 10.5% experienced neck pain during the previous 90 days.
Journal of Agromedicine, June 2014

Wellness/Prevention: Cocoa Extract Could Prevent Alzheimer’s.
Alzheimer’s disease is predicted to affect nearly 16 million Americans by 2050. Researchers are hopeful that cocoa extract could be a possible preventative treatment. Lavado, an extract from cocoa, may reduce or block damage to nerve pathways in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, thus reducing symptoms such as cognitive decline. According to the researchers, lavado cocoa extract could pave the way for new treatments, but further studies are needed to better understand how the extract works in the human brain.
Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, June 2014

Exercise: Bicycling Leads to Good Feelings.
Compared with all modes of transportation, people who ride their bicycles are the happiest, followed by automobile passengers and drivers.
Transportation, May 2014

Chiropractic: Heavy Physical Work and Low Back Pain.
Among Brazil’s urban cleaning workers (drivers, trash collectors, maintenance workers, etc.), musculoskeletal pain — and low back pain in particular — is a major public health issue. Researchers interviewed 657 workers and found that 37% have experienced back pain lasting more than one week during the previous year, and of that group, 62.8% experienced back pain within the last seven days. Workers who described bending over and twisting as part of their job functions were much more likely to experience pain in one or more anatomical regions, as were workers who frequently worked overtime. Of note, workers who performed more dynamic and fewer repetitive movements on the job were less likely to experience back pain.
Brazilian Journal of Epidemiology, March 2014

Wellness/Prevention: Elevated Blood Pressure Number Determines Risks.
New research points to the type of heart risk individuals face based on which number of their blood pressure reading is high. Researchers found that an elevated systolic blood pressure (top number) was associated with an increased risk of bleeding strokes and stable angina while those with a higher diastolic blood pressure (bottom number) were more likely to be diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Lead investigator Dr. Eleni Rapsomaniki writes, “Our estimates provide vital new information that can be used to improve patient counseling and decision-making for people with hypertension, which are currently based mainly on the risks of heart attack and stroke, and will help to focus guidelines and doctors to the cardiovascular conditions that might be more common, and in which screening and treatments are more likely to have an effect.”
The Lancet, May 2014

Dr. Glenn Hyman’s Denver Chiropractic Center 30 seconds on Thursday video

Check out How to Fire up those glutes in Dr. Glenn Hyman’s Denver Chiropractic Center’s 30 Seconds on Thursday Video.

Dr. Glenn Hyman’s Denver Chiropractic Center: Heavy Physical Work and Low Back Pain.

Among Brazil’s urban cleaning workers (drivers, trash collectors, maintenance workers, etc.), musculoskeletal pain — and low back pain in particular — is a major public health issue. Researchers interviewed 657 workers and found that 37% have experienced back pain lasting more than one week during the previous year, and of that group, 62.8% experienced back pain within the last seven days. Workers who described bending over and twisting as part of their job functions were much more likely to experience pain in one or more anatomical regions, as were workers who frequently worked overtime. Of note, workers who performed more dynamic and fewer repetitive movements on the job were less likely to experience back pain.
Brazilian Journal of Epidemiology, March 2014

Denver Chiropractor Dr. Glenn Hyman: Back Pain and Neck Pain are a Major Cause of Missed Work.

An evaluation of data concerning over 8,000 Spanish workers reveals a correlation between chronic neck and back pain, and missing one or more days of work for health-related issues. Individuals who reported having frequent neck and back pain were 44% more likely to be absent from work for more than 30 days out of the year.
Spine, May 2014

Dr. Glenn Hyman’s Denver Chiropractic: Chronic Low Back Pain Associated with Depression and Fatigue.

A survey of over 500 chronic low back pain patients who have been on work disability for between two and ten months shows that 69.7% report experiencing substantial fatigue as well. Those reporting fatigue are more likely to suffer from depressive symptoms and are also more likely to still be in pain 3, 6, and 12 months after completing their initial survey.
Pain Medicine, April 2014

Chiropractic care and Active Release Techniques from Denver Chiropractor Dr. Glenn Hyman can help.

Dr. Glenn Hyman’s Denver Chiropractic Center- the 1-Page Health News

“Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.” ~ Michael J. Fox

Mental Attitude: Let it Go.
Previous studies have shown that the inability to forgive one’s self for a wrong they’ve inflicted on another can be a factor in depression, anxiety, and a weakened immune system. The results of a new study shows that the more guilty a person feels, the less likely they are to self-forgive. However, attempting to make amends was shown to decrease those guilty feelings and make self-forgiveness easier.
The Journal of Positive Psychology, April 2014

Health Alert: Cholesterol Levels Linked to Fertility.
Couples having trouble getting pregnant may want to get their cholesterol levels checked. A study involving 500 couples found that conceiving a child took longer when both partners had high cholesterol levels than when both partners had cholesterol levels in the normal range.
National Institutes of Health, May 2014

Diet: Three Ideas for Overcoming Childhood Obesity.
To combat childhood obesity, Dr. Kristopher Kaliebe of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center has developed three simple ideas that parents and their children can follow: 1) Eat Food — Not too Much, Mostly Plants. Eating mostly raw, natural, unprocessed food eliminates the need to count calories, a large reason most diets fail. 2) Get up and move. Be active whenever possible and avoid sedentary behavior. 3) Honor silence. Avoid sensory overload from TV, the internet, gadgets, and video games and focus on the more important matters like academics, sleep, family, and hobbies.
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, April 2014

Exercise: Bursts of Intense Exercise Before Meals Helps Control Blood Sugar.
Brief bursts of intense exercise before meals helps control blood sugar in individuals with insulin resistance better than 30 minutes of moderate exercise performed once per day. Researchers found that distributing the same amount of exercise into three ten-minute, high-intensity, pre-meal exercise periods resulted in a 12% reduction in the average post-meal glucose level, an effect that was also sustained the ensuing day.
Diabetologia, May 2014

Chiropractic: Conservative Care for Lumbar Disk Injuries.
A 31-year-old male with left-sided low back pain and left leg pain received a trial of chiropractic care that included soft tissue therapy, manual mobilization, pelvic blocking, and extension exercises. His pain was almost completely resolved by his third treatment. This finding supports the ability of chiropractic care to reduce pain and improve mobility in patients with a lumbar disk herniation.
Journal of Canadian Chiropractic Association, September 2012

Wellness/Prevention: Calcium Supplementation Does Not Increase Cardiovascular Disease Risk in Women.
While recent studies have indicated that calcium supplementation may increase a woman’s risk for cardiovascular disease, a review of two decades worth of data on over 74,000 female nurses reveals that calcium supplementation is not associated with an increased risk for heart attack or stroke. Lead study author Dr. Julie Paik explains, “Our study has several distinct strengths compared to prior studies including the large number of participants, long-term follow-up, large number of cardiovascular events that were confirmed by medical record review, detailed information about diet and other cardiovascular disease risk factors, and repeated assessment of calcium supplement use over the 24-year follow up period.”
Osteoporosis International, May 2014

Dr. Glenn Hyman’s Denver Chiropractic Center: Car Accident Injuries (Whiplash) Self-Care: Part 2

 

Last month, we started the discussion of self-care options in the management of car accident injuries: whiplash or CAD (cervical acceleration-deceleration) or WAD (whiplash associated disorders). In this series, we are describing various treatment methods that you can be taught to help facilitate in the management process during the four stages of healing (acute, subacute – discussed last month; remodeling and chronic – addressed this month).

 

Like in the acute and subacute stages, many of the same self-care techniques can be applied here as well. You will NEVER “hurt” yourself with ice or ice/heat combinations (done properly), so they can be continued indefinitely. Many patients find this helpful. Using the analogy of a cut on the skin, in the acute stage, the cut is fresh and new. It is quite pain sensitive and unstable and it will continue to bleed if you don’t take it easy. After 72 hours (entering the subacute stage), the wound has an immature scab on it and it can still easily be re-injured, and if this occurs, especially by NOT self-managing properly, the recovery time can be significantly prolonged. So, “DON’T PICK AT YOUR CUT!!!” As we enter the later subacute phase (fourteenth week), the wound’s scab is quite mature, and self-care can be appropriately more aggressive. Think strengthening and activity restoration!

 

Stage 3 – REMODELING phase (14 weeks to 12 months or more): In this stage, we are now three months to a year out from the injury date and hence, we SHOULD now be more “aggressive” with care. During the late acute and subacute stages, you would have been performing exercises focused on movement restoration (range of motion / ROM exercises with LIGHT resistance) in addition to self-applied myofascial release techniques using foam rolls, tennis balls, TheraCane, and/or the Intracell (and possibly others). It is NECESSARY to continue the use of these methods, as they help reduce the chances for any scar tissue to become permanent. In this stage, we will guide you into more advanced exercises that include aerobics (walking, walk/run combinations, etc.) as studies show that whole body aerobic exercise helps MANY specific area injuries, including WAD/CAD injuries.

 

Stretching short/tight muscles, working on balance-challenging exercises (rocker or wobble boards, balance beams, gym balls, eyes closed specific action movements) are VERY IMPORTANT, as they retrain your neuromotor system and reintegrate neural pathways that have been disrupted by the injured tissues and retrain faulty movement patterns you’ve developed from compensating due to pain. Strengthening exercises will include the core since the head sits on the neck, the neck on the trunk, the trunk on the legs, and ALL of this sits on the feet (so we’ll even consider stabilizing the sub-talar joint at the ankle and if pronation is excessive, foot orthotics can help whiplash patients)!

 

Stage 4: CHRONIC (Permanent): ALL OF THE ABOVE can be employed after the one to two year point to “maintain” your best level of function. If you still have pain, try to “ignore it” and KEEP MOVING, stay active, stay engaged in work, family activities, and DON’T let the condition “win.” AVOID CHRONIC DISABILITY by staying active and fit!

 

We realize you have a choice in whom you consider for your health care. If you or someone you know needs help recovering from car accident injuries, call us at 303.300.0424, or use the “Make an Appointment” function on our website www.denverback.com.

Dr. Glen Hyman’s Denver Chiropractic Center: Whiplash Self-Care: Part 1

 

Whiplash is a condition that can occur from MANY causes – in fact, anything that results in a sudden change in the head/neck position. Usually, there is a rapid acceleration that injuries the soft tissues around the neck area by stretching them beyond their limits. Hence, the more accurate terms for whiplash are, “cervical acceleration-deceleration” or CAD as it describes the mechanism of the injury and “whiplash associated disorders” (WAD) describing the degree of injury.

 

Most commonly, when we think about whiplash, we immediately envision a motor vehicle collision (MVC), but prior to the invention of the automobile, the term “railroad spine” was coined to describe injuries to the neck from crashes that occurred between trains. Since then, due to pilots landing planes on aircraft carriers, sports injuries, and the rise of the automobile, this once rare condition has affected MOST of us at some point in time!

 

Today’s topic will focus on self-care. What can you and I do for ourselves WHEN we suffer a CAD injury? Since there are different levels of injury severity, keep in mind that EACH CASE IS UNIQUE and we will ONLY be discussing general options. So ALWAYS let your symptoms guide you in the process of care – that is, if you feel a sharp, piercing/stabbing, activity or movement stopping type of pain, STOP!!! Don’t further injure your tissues!!! We will discuss a common WAD II injury (soft-tissue injury limiting motion but not injuring nerves) and we’ll look the acute and sub-acute stages of the injury.

 

Stage 1 – ACUTE: The inflammatory phase (up to 72 hours). ICE is necessary to decrease swelling (inflammation). Limit motion but try NOT to use a collar unless you have no choice as even small movements that avoid the sharp/knife-like pain are better than no movement at all. A collar may be needed when driving (especially if the roads are bumpy)! Anti-inflammatory herbs like ginger, turmeric, boswellia, bioflavonoid, and others reduce inflammation WITHOUT irritating the stomach, liver, kidneys, and will NOT inhibit the chemicals needed for healing (like NSAIDs do!). Chiropractic care with Active Release Techniques Soft Tissue Treatment SHOULD begin ASAP after an injury. We may only use gentle manual traction and/or mobilization, also staying within reasonable pain boundaries. It’s been well proven that early movement is best!

 

Stage 2 – SUB-ACUTE: The repair phase (72 hours to 14 weeks). Ice can continue if it helps control pain. You can also alternate ice and heat at 10/5/10/5/10 minutes, starting and ending with ice (it “pumps” the tissues). Cervical range of motion (ROM) exercises with LIGHT resistance (use 1 or 2 fingers against the head and push in a forward, backward, sideways, and rotating directions first with “isometrics” – not moving the head, and when tolerated, “isotonic” – moving the head against the LIGHT pressure applied in BOTH directions within the range that avoids sharp/knife-like pain. Movement, strength, pain, and coordination are ALL better managed when light resistance + motion is used vs. not moving (isometrics). Self-applied methods of performing “myofascial release” (which we will teach you) include: Self-massage, the use of a tennis ball and/or foam roll and others. During this repair phase, chiropractic adjustments and Active Release Techniques Soft Tissue Treatments REALLY help!!! We will continue this discussion on the next page…

 

Denver Chiropractic Center’s 1-Page Health News May 12, 2014

85 degrees last Sunday, 32 degrees yesterday, supposed to be 90 next Sunday- gotta love spring time in the Rockies! We hope all of you moms had a great Mother’s Day. Here is this week’s 1-Page Health News…

Diet: Green Tomatoes Could be the Answer to Bigger, Stronger Muscles.
Tomatidine, a compound in green tomatoes, appears to stimulate muscle growth and improve muscle strength and endurance in mice. If their findings translate to human subjects, investigators believe tomatidine may be used as part of a treatment for age-, illness-, and injury-related muscle atrophy.


The Journal of Biological Chemistry, April 2014Diet: Green Tea May Help Reduce Blood Sugar Spikes.
Research involving mice subjects reveals that specimens fed corn starch in addition to an antioxidant found in green tea called epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) had a much smaller post-meal blood sugar spike than mice fed corn starch alone. According to the researchers, the amount of EGCG fed to the mice is equivalent to what you’d consume in 1.5 cups of green tea and if forthcoming studies on humans confirm their findings, it could help individuals better control their blood glucose levels following a meal.
Molecular Nutrition and Research, November 2012

Exercise: Women’s Exercise Performance Can Improve After Taking Iron.
Investigators at the University of Melbourne found that women who were iron deficient or anemic experienced significant fitness improvements after taking an iron supplement.
Journal of Nutrition, April 2014

Chiropractic: Expert Recommended.
After assessing the available evidence on risks and benefits, an expert panel recommended spinal manipulation of the neck as an appropriate treatment for patients with neck pain.
Task Force on Neck Pain and its Associated Disorders, 2008

Wellness/Prevention: Smartphone App Helps with Jet Lag?
A new Smartphone app called Entrain can help fight the frustrating issue of jet lag while traveling to different time zones. The app lets a user know when they need to be exposed to the brightest light possible and when they need to shelter in a dark environment in order to help regulate the body’s internal clock. Its developers hope their app can also help improve the health and quality of life for pilots and flight attendants, as well as shift workers.
PLOS Computational Biology, April 2014

Research Supports Chiropractic Care.

Commentary by Dr. Scott Halderman of the Department of Neurology at the University of California, Irvine in response to an evidence report on the effectiveness of manual therapies, including spinal manipulation: “There was a time, not long ago, when there was little or no evidence to support the practice of manipulation that is the mainstay of chiropractic practice… There has, however, been a rapid growth in the number of clinical trials that have studied the effectiveness of manipulation, mobilization, and massage over the past 20 years and… there is now little dispute amongst knowledgeable scientists that manipulation is of value in the management of back pain, neck pain, and headaches that make up 90% or more of all patients who seek chiropractic care.”
Chiropractic & Osteopathy, February 2010