Wellness
Clinic Wellness Team. A key factor to spine or back pain conditions is staying healthy. Overall wellness involves a balanced diet, appropriate exercise, physical activity, restful sleep, and a healthy lifestyle. The term has been applied in many ways. But overall, the definition is as follows.
It is a conscious, self-directed, and evolving process of achieving full potential. It is multidimensional, bringing together lifestyles both mental/spiritual and the environment in which one lives. It is positive and affirms that what we do is, in fact, correct.
It is an active process where people become aware and make choices towards a more successful lifestyle. This includes how a person contributes to their environment/community. They aim to build healthier living spaces and social networks. It helps in creating a person’s belief systems, values, and a positive world perspective.
Along with this comes the benefits of regular exercise, a healthy diet, personal self-care, and knowing when to seek medical attention. Dr. Jimenez’s message is to work towards being fit, being healthy, and staying aware of our collection of articles, blogs, and videos.
by Dr Alex Jimenez DC, APRN, FNP-BC, CFMP, IFMCP | Diets, Fitness
One in three Americans is overweight and another third are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But while carrying too many extra pounds can increase your risk for heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers, health experts say a little bit of flab may actually be healthy.
But there is a kind of “Goldilocks Effect” — not too much, not too little — when it comes to body fat.
“Researchers have concluded that fat is actually a vital organ that releases hormones and sends special signals to the brain,” notes Dr. Holly Lucille, ND, RN. “Fat is an important macro nutrient and like any other macro nutrient, the quality makes a difference. Having the right kind of fat on your body is both protective and important.”
Jeffrey Friedman, a molecular biologist at Rockefeller University was among the first scientists back in the 1980s to discover that there was more to fat than merely storing calories. In his experiments with mice, he found that fat produces a hormone called leptin which is released into the bloodstream and binds with the areas in our brain that are responsible for appetite.
His lab’s obese mice had a genetic defect in their fat that prevented the manufacture of leptin which gave them the signal to stop eating. Humans with the same genetic defect can eventually eat themselves into obesity and premature death.
So, losing weight becomes a double-edged sword. When we lose fat, we lower our levels levels of leptin, the appetite off switch, and we become hungrier than before.
Leptin also affects our muscles and thyroid hormones so that lower levels of leptin slow down our metabolism. This combined effect drives us to regain weight. It may also explain why extreme dieters who lose vast amounts of weight in short periods of time nearly always gain it all back — and then some, scientists say.
Scientists also know that fat affects the size of our brains. People who are genetically leptin-deficient have smaller brain volume in some areas as do patients who are suffering from eating disorders such as anorexia which leave them malnourished. Leptin is also helpful in healing wounds and strengthens our immune system by activating T-cells.
“What’s important is the quantity and quality of your stored fat,” Lucille tells Newsmax Health. “The ‘good’ type of fat is called subcutaneous and is found directly under our skin in places such as our abdomen thighs, buttocks, and arms.”
Subcutaneous fat is easy to grab with your hand and tends to shift as the body changes position.
The so-called “bad” type of fat is visceral fat which is stored under the stomach wall, nestled against our internal organs. This type of fat can become inflamed and lead to diabetes and heart disease. It tends to be firmer and dense.
But experts warn that excess body fat of either kind is unlikely to be health-promoting. It’s important to keep fat levels at their optimal levels which can vary according to age and sex.
In general, women with more than 30 percent body fat are considered to be overweight and for men, the threshold is more than 25 percent.
Dr. Cate Shanahan, author of “Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food,” tells Newsmax Health that women, especially need a body composition of at least 10-12 percent fat in order to produce enough estrogen to cycle regularly and to maintain normal libido.
And as we age, a little more fat can enhance our looks.
“As we age we lose that facial body fat and our hormones simultaneously fall,’ she says. “Body fat helps support normal estrogen levels and therefore contributes to normal bone density — a critical factor in healthy aging after the age of 65.
“But that minimum percentage must be subcutaneous fat. When the visceral fat reaches more than 2 percent of our body composition it can lead to poor insulin sensitivity and potentially the beginnings of diabetes.”
The good news is that the “good” fat can fight the “bad” fat. By making a substance called adiponectin, subcutaneous fat helps take circulating fats out of your veins and into the subcutaneous tissues where they belong.
This hormone also reduces visceral fat. Exercise helps release adiponectin which is why sumo wrestlers can be both fat and fit. They exercise seven hours daily which keeps their visceral fat under control.
Experts say we should embrace the new science of fat, and Shanahan quotes an old French proverb that praises fat more poetically: “After a certain age a woman must choose between guarding her figure at the price of a hollow face.”
“I think the take away message of the new research is that we must keep a healthy level of fat to reduce our risk of disease while maintaining optimal body function,” notes Shanahan. “But don’t rationalize and run with the theory that eating bad fats are good for your health. You still need to choose your fats wisely and keep them within healthy levels.”
by Dr Alex Jimenez DC, APRN, FNP-BC, CFMP, IFMCP | Anti Aging
If you think that you can improve your brain by playing brain-training games, save your time and money, say researchers from Florida State University.
“Our findings and previous studies confirm there’s very little evidence these types of games can improve your life in a meaningful way,” said Wally Boot, an expert on age-related cognitive decline and an associate professor of psychology at FSU.
A growing number of people believe that brain training protects them against memory loss associated with aging. “Brain challenges like crossword games are a popular approach, especially among baby boomers, as a way to try to protect cognition,” said Neil Charness, professor of psychology and a leading authority on aging and cognition.
The belief is fueling the brain-training industry, which has become a billion-dollar business. Games are available online and through mobile apps for about $15 a month. But the Federal Trade Commission is looking at companies’ brain-boosting claims, and fined one for false advertising.
“More companies are beginning to be fined for these types of inflated claims and that’s a good thing,” Boot said. “These exaggerated claims are not consistent with the conclusions of our latest study.”
For their study, the FSU team focused on whether brain games could improve the “working memory” needed for a variety of tasks. They set up one group of people to play a specially designed brain-training video game called “Mind Frontiers,” while another group of players performed crossword games or number puzzles.
Researchers tested whether the games enhanced players’ working memory and therefore improved other mental capabilities, such as reasoning, memory and processing speed.
That’s the theory behind many brain games: If you improve overall working memory, which is fundamental to so much of what we do every day, then you can enhance performance in many areas of your life. “The thing that seniors in particular should be concerned about is, if I can get very good at crossword puzzles, is that going to help me remember where my keys are?” said Charness.
The team examined whether improving working memory transfer would translate to better performance on other tasks, something the researchers called “far transfer.”
“The answer is probably no,” says Charness.
What does work to improve aging brains? Exercise, he says, and predicts that “exer-gaming,” which combines exercise with� brain games, will increase in popularity.
“If your real goal is to improve cognitive function and brain games are not helping, then maybe you are better off getting aerobic exercise rather than sitting in front of the computer playing these games,” he said.
One activity that might fit into the area of exer-gaming is dance. A study at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that dance was the� most effective way to reduce the risk of dementia.
Seniors who took part in brain-stimulating activities such as reading, writing, and doing puzzles, lowered their risk of dementia by as much as 47 percent. �Ballroom dancing, which combines thinking � remembering how to perform dance patterns � reduced the risk of developing dementia by an astonishing 67 percent.
by Dr Alex Jimenez DC, APRN, FNP-BC, CFMP, IFMCP | Natural Health, Wellness
Many people are exposed to dangerously loud sounds at work and at play, and most of them don’t wear ear plugs or take other steps to prevent hearing loss, a recent U.S. study suggests.
Almost 49 million adults work in very noisy conditions, and more than one-third of them never use hearing protection, the study found. Among leisure pursuits, firearms pose a particular risk and just 59 percent of the 35 million U.S. gun users represented in the study wear hearing protection all the time.
“The problem here is both the number of people using firearms and the potential noise-inducing hearing loss from the repeated gunfire,” said senior study author Dr. Neil Bhattacharyya of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
“A rifle has an extremely loud single burst of sound and if you are firing hundreds of rounds, that can be very damaging, particularly without hearing protection,” Bhattacharyya said by email.
To assess how often U.S. adults are exposed to loud noise and how regularly they take steps to protect against hearing loss, researchers examined 2014 survey data representing 240 million people.
Overall, 22 percent were exposed to “very loud” sounds at work requiring them to shout to be heard at arm’s length. The exposures were for at least four hours a day, several days a week.
Roughly one in five people were exposed to loud sounds outside of work, and 62 percent of them didn’t use hearing protection, researchers report in The Laryngoscope.
With firearms, researchers found that one in five people who shot more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition in the past year never used hearing protection. Most of the firearm-related noise exposure came during recreational shooting.
Lawn mowers were the most common source of non-occupational noise exposure.
Almost two-thirds of people around loud noises during recreational activities never used any hearing protection.
One limitation of the study is that it only included one year of survey data, the authors note. It also didn’t have medical records to document specific hearing or health problems associated with noise.
“Untreated hearing loss is associated with increased stress, depression and social withdrawal, and may exacerbate problems for those with cognitive changes such as dementia,” said Dr. Jennifer Derebery of the House Ear Clinic and Institute and the University of California Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine.
If people aren’t sure whether the noise around them is loud enough to damage their ears, they can get a sound meter app for their phone and use ear plugs or other protection whenever the app shows the sound is too loud, Derebery, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
And there are good options for people to wear when they still need to hear the sounds around them, a concern for many hunters and concert goers.
“There are outstanding electronic ear muff and ear plug options that solve many of the complaints that recreational shooters and hunters have related to conventional hearing protection,” said Colleen Le Prell, an audiology researcher at the University of Texas at Dallas who wasn’t involved in the study.
“They allow quiet sounds, such as speech and sounds the hunter might be making as they walk, to be not only delivered but amplified, which can be very useful with someone who already has some hearing loss,” Le Prell said by email. “Hearing loss can be prevented, with the consistent and correct use of hearing protection devices.”
by Dr Alex Jimenez DC, APRN, FNP-BC, CFMP, IFMCP | Natural Health, Wellness
Many studies have found that the first 1,000 days after conception have a strong influence on a person’s life expectancy and susceptibility to chronic disease. Low birth weight is one of the main markers used to identify stress in early life, such as poor nutrition during gestation, but it can be used only until birth — about 280 days — and is far short of the first thousand days.
But researchers from the University of Washington suggest that an asymmetric lower face is a strong marker that also suggests early life stresses.
“Asymmetries in the skull and teeth have been used for decades by anthropologists to mark environmental stress, but they have only rarely been used in living populations,” said Philippe Hujoel, a professor in the UW School of Dentistry.
“Such lower-face asymmetries can be assessed by looking at the dental bite in the permanent teeth — an exam that can be completed in seconds and with more certainty than a mother’s recall of birth weight and more ease than a search for a birth certificate.”
Hujoel described a crooked, or asymmetric, bite as the teeth biting backward or forward on one side of the face and normally on the other side.
He emphasized that crooked teeth, overbites and underbites are different than an asymmetric bite and can be associated with both asymmetric and symmetric bites.
Hujoel and his colleagues studied data gathered from 1966 to 1970 in a group of 6,654 U.S. adolescent 12- to 17-year-olds. The study found that one in four had lower-face asymmetries.
“Lower-face asymmetries were common in a generation that became typified by an epidemic of diabetes and obesity in adulthood,” noted Hujoel.
He says that further research is needed to identify whether lower-face asymmetries can predict chronic diseases in living populations in the same way that skull asymmetries have been associated with degenerative diseases in long-deceased populations.
Earlier studies have linked facial symmetry with health, but a British study published in 2014 found no links. It did, however, find a small correlation between symmetry and higher IQ.
by Dr Alex Jimenez DC, APRN, FNP-BC, CFMP, IFMCP | Natural Health, Remedies, Wellness
It’s that time of the year again when spring brings forth all her colorful glory — along with a host of potential allergens.
“It’s definitely pollen season,” Dr. Andy Nish, an allergy and asthma specialist from Gainesville, Ga., tells Newsmax Health. “And while we can help control our immediate environment, pollens can blow in from miles away to make our lives miserable.”
Allergies are the sixth leading cause of chronic illness in the United States with an annual cost in excess of $18 billion. More than 50 million Americans suffer from allergies each year.
Allergic rhinitis, often called hay fever, is a common condition that causes symptoms such as sneezing, stuffy nose, watery eyes and itching of the eyes, nose or the roof of the mouth.
You can try using antihistamines when the pollen hits and a nasal steroid prior to the onset of your seasonal woes, says Nish. But experts agree that natural remedies may be just as effective without the potential side effects of decongestant medications.
“When a person with an allergy encounters the offending substance, the immune system interprets it as the enemy,” Dr. Ellen Kamhi, Ph.D, tells Newsmax Health. “To help ward off the intruder, the human body activates antibodies and releases a substance called ‘histamine.’
“Allergy medications are called antihistamines because they attempt to turn off this natural, albeit overzealous body reaction. The result is that other body tissues get into the battle and impose a number of unpleasant side effects for the allergy sufferer. These can include annoying reactions such as rashes and scratchy throat but may become frightening, such as a closed throat and difficulty breathing.”
Kamhi says it’s important to identify the trigger and try to eliminate it from your environment.
“Interestingly, you may be eating honey made from the exact flower pollen that you are sensitive to,” she says. “The use of natural, nutritional herbs and supplements may be an extremely useful therapy to beat allergies along with changes in diet and lifestyle.”
Here is her recipe for an anti-allergy cocktail:
- 2000 milligrams powdered, buffered vitamin C.
- 100 milligrams B-6.
- 1000 milligrams magnesium.
- 1000 milligrams calcium.
- 250 milligrams bioflavonoids.
Mix the above ingredients in ½ glass of water and drink twice daily during an allergy attack.
Other helpful allergy-fighting herbs include:
Bromelain. This digestive enzyme from pineapple and quercetin, one of the bioflavonoids work well together to offset an allergic reaction
Milk thistle. This herb acts as a protector and regenerator of the liver and helps repair damaged tissue caused by allergens while supporting the actions necessary to deal with the accompanying symptoms.
Echinacea and goldenseal. These two herbs also work together to combat both the discomfort of allergies as well as reduce excess mucous from the nasal and respiratory tract, says Kamhi, the author of “The Natural Medicine Chest.”
Licorice. This is the most widely studied adrenal herb and has anti-inflammatory actions similar to the glucocorticoids — which are produced by healthy adrenals — that help resolve allergic reactions.
Green tea. This popular beverage is widely recognized as one of the best super foods for many conditions and it’s also beneficial for allergies. It contains a potent antioxidant called epigallocatechin or EGCG that impacts allergies at a cellular level by reducing inflammation.
Nish says that you can also reduce allergens by keeping windows in your home and car closed during the pollen season.
“Stay indoors during high pollen days and don’t dry laundry outdoors. Avoid bathing or brushing your pets outside as they can carry pollen into the home,” he adds.
“Buy a humidity gauge and try to aim for between 40 and 50 percent humidity in the home to deter unwanted houseguests like dust mites and mold. If the percentage is higher, you may want to invest in a good dehumidifier.”
by Dr Alex Jimenez DC, APRN, FNP-BC, CFMP, IFMCP | Fitness, Health, Wellness
The perfect pair
When walking you need your shoes to handle that repetitive heel-to-toe rolling motion. After all, “a 150-pound woman’s body encounters between 900,000 and 1,350,00 pounds of impact over a three-mile walk,” says Paul Langer, DPM, author of Great Feet for Life.
So make sure your kicks are comfy and supportive—a poor fit can lead to injury. And choose ones that are secure across the instep and in the heel, but roomy enough to wiggle your toes. Here, shoes that will protect your feet whether you’re fitness walking or simply commuting.
Watch the video: How to Burn More Fat When Walking for Exercise
by Dr Alex Jimenez DC, APRN, FNP-BC, CFMP, IFMCP | Fitness, Health, Wellness
This article originally appeared on Time.com.
Running is a simple and efficient way to exercise: all you need is a pair of shoes. It’s been shown to lower a person’s risk for heart disease and cancer, possibly by regulating weight and blood pressure. Now a recent study, published in the journal Progress in Cardiovascular Disease last month, reports that people who run tend to live about three years longer than those who don’t.
The researchers, who have studied the benefits of running in the past, decided to look at available research and investigate whether other forms of exercise like walking and biking provide the same benefits, or if runners have a special advantage.
The study’s authors found that while other types of exercise like walking and cycling were linked to a longer lifespan, it wasn’t to the same degree as running. The researchers calculated that a one-hour run may translate to an additional seven hours added to a person’s life. The benefits capped out at about three years, and the researchers found that the improvements in life expectancy leveled out at about four hours of running per week. More running wasn’t found to be significantly worse for a person, but the researchers say there are no further apparent longevity benefits.
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However, the researchers only found an associational relationship between running and longevity. Their data showed that people who run tend to live longer lives, but not that running specifically increases a person’s lifespan. Runners tend to have other healthy lifestyle behaviors like maintaining a healthy weight, not smoking and only drinking low-to-moderate amounts of alcohol, the authors note. Still, the findings suggest running is an especially effective form of exercise.
RELATED: 7 Running Injuries and How to Avoid Them
The study also found that runners who also do other types of physical activity have the same lower risk of early death, though combining running with other exercise is “the best choice,” the researchers write. (Federal guidelines recommend both aerobic exercise, like running, and strength training for optimal health.) They also acknowledge that it’s not yet clear how much running is safe, or if a person can run too much.
“Running may have the most public health benefits, but is not the best exercise for everyone since orthopedic or other medical conditions can restrict its use by many individuals,” the authors concluded.
