Degenerative disk disease (DDD), which could affect any one of us as we age, may be particularly problematic for people who are overweight. To understand why, take a step back and consider the construction and function of your spine.
The spine is made to help support the weight of your body. It’s designed to keep your weight balanced and evenly spread. For example, the vertebrae are positioned from smallest to largest: small in your neck (cervical spine) and greatest in your low back (lumbar spine). They grow in size because the lower parts of the back must support the most weight.
Your intervertebral discs�the cushions between your vertebrae�increase in size, also. Only because they need to absorb and adjust to the most weight, they are thickest in the lumbar spine.
The back must be functioning accordingly in order to ensure all of its structures are healthy. Nonetheless, in degenerative disc disease, their capability to properly operate are altered and often lost. Intervertebral discs gradually become less effective at absorbing and cushioning your motions. Joints, including the facet joints, may subsequently transform as they readjust to changes in the disc; and they may not move as easily, making it harder for your own body to take and distribute weight.
Extra weight puts additional stress on the back. In the event that you are overweight and have DDD, then you’re stressing and straining your vertebrae and discs much more. The excess weight might even accelerate the degenerative processes because the elements of your spine will need to work more to carry the additional weight�and the harder they work, the quicker they may wear out or degenerate.
A diagnosis of degenerative disc disorder might be the motivation you need to become more physically active to get rid of extra weight, stop smoking or make other lifestyle changes to benefit your back and overall health and wellness. Your doctor or alternative healthcare provider can offer helpful suggestions about lowering your body weight and enhancing your general well-being.
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic and spinal injuries and conditions. To discuss options on the subject matter, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .�
By Dr. Alex Jimenez
Additional Topics: Weight Loss Eases Back Pain
Back pain and symptoms of sciatica can affect a majority of the population throughout their lifetime. Research studies have demonstrated that people who are overweight or obese experience more back complications than people with a healthy weight. A proper nutrition along with regular physical fitness can help with weight loss as well as help maintain a healthy weight to eliminate symptoms of back pain and sciatica. Chiropractic care is also another natural form of treatment which treats back pain and sciatica utilizing manual spinal adjustments and manipulations.
Travel arrangements are in place for the UTEP men�s basketball team�s trip to Costa Rica Aug. 15-20.
The Miners have games scheduled versus McGill University on Aug. 16 and Aug. 17 (both at 7 p.m.), and the University of British Columbia on Aug. 18 (11:30 a.m.). All three games will be played at the Ciudad Deportiva, Av. Francia Hatillo #2 in San Jose and all games will be governed by FIBA rules.
Cultural aspects of the trip will include a city tour, visits to the Holy Spirit Orphanage and Crocodile Bridge, and a Zip Line experience.
The Miners will play three games on their first foreign tour in 12 years.
The Miners will leave El Paso on Tuesday morning, Aug. 15, and fly to Dallas. They will connect on American Airlines Flight #986 to San Jose (Costa Rica), departing DFW Airport at 2:50 p.m. Arrival at San Jose Juan Santamaria International Airport in Costa Rica is set for 6:02 p.m. local time.
The team hotel for the first three nights (Aug. 15-17) is the Costa Rica Marriott San Jose. The team hotel for the last two nights (Aug. 18-19) is the Los Suenos Marriott Ocean & Golf Resort. The Miners will return to El Paso on Sunday, Aug. 20. The return flight to Dallas from San Juan (Costa Rica) is American #2436, departing at 6:55 a.m.
The Miners will scrimmage at the Don Haskins Center on Saturday, Aug. 12 prior to embarking on their trip. Details will be announced in July.
Doctor of Chiropractic, Dr. Alexander Jimenez discusses chiropractic care for back pain.
Back pain, especially lower back pain, is a constant for many people in El Paso and around the world. Chiropractors have always been known as �back pain doctors� to a certain degree, and while they can treat a much wider range of ailments, this moniker is certainly true. El Paso chiropractic care for back pain includes a range of individualized treatments designed to remove the pain permanently.
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Some Facts About Back Pain
One estimate places the number of back pain sufferers in America at roughly 31 million.
Here are some other interesting facts that illustrate just how serious the problem is:
A 2010 report entitled Global Burden of Disease placed lower back pain as the leading cause of disability around the world.
Back pain is one of the most common reasons for missed work days and the second-leading reason for doctor�s visits behind infections in the upper-respiratory tract.
50 percent of all working Americans say they experience back pain symptoms each year.
Mechanical issues cause the majority of back pain cases, meaning they are not the result of an underlying health condition.
Conservatively, Americans spend about $50 billion on back pain.
Some experts say that as much as 80% of the population will experience back pain at some point in their lives.
Why Do I Have Back Pain?
The causes of back pain can vary quite a bit. With so many muscles, bones, ligaments, and joints all working together in a complex structure, strains and other injuries leading to back pain are common. You may be experiencing back pain due to improper lifting, poor posture, stress, being overweight, a past sports injury, or a car accident. Conditions like arthritis and osteoporosis also cause back pain, as does disease that originates in certain internal organs.
Chiropractic To The Rescue
Chiropractic care is a safe and effective way to treat many types of back pain. With proper chiropractic care for back pain, you will have greater mobility and fewer flare ups. For many patients eliminating the side effects of prescription pain medication is a welcomed benefit they never even considered. Chiropractic treatment focuses on the underlying cause of the back pain while most conventional treatments focus on the symptoms. When only treating the symptom or the pain you may experience relief, but whatever is causing that pain will still be there.
Reputable chiropractors will also suggest lifestyle changes you can make to help prevent back pain from returning. These include maintaining a healthy weight, avoiding prolonged sitting, staying active throughout your life, staying hydrated, wearing low-heel shoes, stretching your body, and using proper body posture. By helping yourself and receiving high quality chiropractic care, back pain should be a thing of the past.
You don’t need to scald your hands to get rid of germs. For effective hand hygiene, water temperature matters less than time, new research states.
The finding runs counter to U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines recommending that food establishments and restaurants deliver water at 100 degrees Fahrenheit for hand washing, the researchers said.
Scientists at Rutgers University in New Jersey said they found that cold water is as effective as hot in getting rid of harmful bacteria and other germs. What’s more important, they said, is that people scrub their hands with soap for at least 10 seconds.
“People need to feel comfortable when they are washing their hands, but as far as effectiveness, this study shows us that the temperature of the water used didn’t matter,” said Donald Schaffner, a specialist in food science at the university.
And, using cold water saves more energy than warm or hot water, Schaffner pointed out.
“Also, we learned even washing for 10 seconds significantly removed bacteria from the hands,” he said in a university news release.
For the study, the researchers contaminated the hands of 21 volunteers with high levels of a harmless bacteria several times over six months. The participants were then asked to wash their hands in 60-degree, 79-degree or 100-degree water.
The amount of soap the people used didn’t affect the findings. The researchers noted that more study is needed to determine exactly how much soap and what types are best for removing potentially harmful germs.
Referring to the FDA guidelines for the food service industry, Schaffner said their findings suggest a policy change is in order.
“Instead of having a temperature requirement, the policy should only say that comfortable or warm water needs to be delivered,” he said. “We are wasting energy to heat water to a level that is not necessary.”
The study appears in the June issue of the Journal of Food Protection.
UTEP�s freshman Emmanuel Korir was named the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCA) National Athlete of the Week on Tuesday morning.
Korir�s 800m performance at the Brutus Hamilton Challenge was one of the most impressive by any freshman in NCAA during a regular season meet. Korir clocked in a time of 1:43.73 to garner the second-fastest time in NCAA history just behind Donavan Brazier�s record of 1:43.55 in 2016.
The Kenyan came through the first 400m in about 52.48 seconds and pushed the final lap in 51.25 seconds for a negative-split, crossing the finish line eight seconds before the nearest competition.
The mid-distance runner is one of only three men in history to have personal-bests under 1:44 (800m) and 45.00 (400m). Korir (21, Kenya), Mark Everett (22, USA) and Alberto Juantorena (25, Cuba).
This is Korir�s third national weekly honor and he will return to the track when UTEP hosts the Conference USA Outdoor Championships on May 11-14 at Kidd Field.
For live updates and breaking news be sure to follow @UTEPTrack on Twitter and uteptrack on Instagram.
Following an impressive performance at the Brutus Hamilton Challenge, Emmanuel Korir (800m) and Lilian Koech (800m) were named C-USA Tack Male and Female Athlete of the Week, the league office announced Tuesday Afternoon.
Korir clocked in a time of 1:43.73 to garner the second-fastest time in NCAA history just behind Donavan Brazier�s record of 1:43.55 registered in 2016.
The mid-distance runner is one of only three men in history to have personal-bests under 1:44 (800m) and 45.00 (400m). Korir (21, Kenya), Mark Everett (22, USA) and Alberto Juantorena (25, Cuba).
Koech clocked a personal-best 2:04.68 winning the 800m run. Her time ranks eighth in the country and third in the league.
This is Korir�s second C-USA outdoor weekly honor and Koech�s first of the season.
The Miners will return to action when UTEP hosts the Conference USA Outdoor Championships on May 11-14 at Kidd Field.
For live updates and breaking news be sure to follow @UTEPTrack on Twitter and uteptrack on Instagram.
Doctor of Chiropractic, Dr. Alexander Jimenez shares a few tips on how to prevent back pain, treating injuries and stretching.
Since chiropractors see the results of poor lifestyle choices on a daily basis, it�s only natural to formulate opinions and offer tips to patients so they can help themselves. From sore backs, necks, shoulders, irregular sleeping patterns to back pain, we provide help in a wide range of areas. Here are 3 tips from a El Paso chiropractor that will help keep your body operating efficiently.
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1) Try Not To Sit So Much
Sitting seems like a relatively innocent activity, but the negative effects that prolonged sitting creates are numerous. Extensive sitting has always been associated with back pain and spinal issues, but recent research also suggests a link between too much sitting and heart disease. If you have a sedentary job like so many people do, make a point of getting up and moving around at least once per hour. You can take phone calls standing up, buy an adjustable standing desk, do deep knee bends, jumping jacks or just go for a quick walk. The key is to stand up and move around to relieve pressure and stay healthy.
2) Get Injuries Treated Promptly
Another important tip from a El Paso chiropractic team is to get quick treatment if you�ve suffered an injury. A little twist or tweak now can lead to years of discomfort and improper muscle function if you just leave it alone. It�s always wise to apply ice to injuries to help reduce swelling, but visiting a chiropractor as soon as possible will help with the healing process and keep your muscles and joints functioning at full capacity.
Leaving minor injuries may not cause a great deal of pain, but the effects will be felt in the future. Many people end up using various pain medications or having reduced mobility as they get older because they chose to leave an injury alone.
3) Incorporate Stretching Into Your Day
Treating injuries promptly is a good idea, but preventing them altogether is even better. Keeping your muscles, tendons, and ligaments flexible with daily stretching will help you avoid many common injuries. You can incorporate the stretches into your morning routine or as part of your daily workout regimen. As you age, those muscles will become tighter and tighter leaving you prone to injury. Working for long hours hunched over a desk also shortens muscles and opens the door to injury. Stretching tips from a El Paso chiropractor include your hamstrings, quadriceps, calves, chest, hips, and back. It only takes a few minutes a day, but you�ll notice the results for the rest of your life.
Doctor of Chiropractic, Dr. Alexander Jimenez gives insights into selecting a chiropractor.
One of the most common questions I get asked as a doctor is how do I find a great chiropractor in El Paso?� In some cities there are dozens to choose from and it can be difficult to know if the doctor you are considering is right for you.� This article will help to walk you through the steps that I would use to find a great doctor to take care of me.
Most patients choose their chiropractor based on the look of the outside of the office or how nice their website is.� I agree that a doctor that keeps up their office and that has a great website is probably a good choice, but there�s more to it than that.� Chiropractic is a very diverse profession so there are some deeper questions to ask.
To Know If A Chiropractor Is Right For You Is To Talk To Them
Learn about who they are as a person and why they became a chiropractor.� There are many different styles of adjusting and many different philosophies in the chiropractic field.� When you find a passionate doctor you have found what you�re looking for.
Ultimately you need to find someone that really cares about you and your well being.� A doctor that is going to be focused on your health and that has a plan to get you back on track.� If you feel uncomfortable then do your homework and you�ll find the best choice for you.
If you have been struggling with a health condition and it feels like you�re going around in circles, I encourage you to give us a call today.� If for any reason we feel that we cannot help you we will get you pointed in the right direction.� We are here to be a resource for you in any way that we can.
Today Is A Great Day To Improve Your Health
If you live in El Paso we encourage you to give our team�a call today.� Our friendly staff will setup a time for you to come in and learn about who we are and what we can do for you.
Feeling bad about skipping a day? Taking rest days from your workout may actually be healthier for your bones and body than a nonstop fitness streak, according to a small new study.
The preliminary research, presented at the American Physiological Society�s annual meeting, found that women who were Olympic rowers had more signs of inflammation and lower levels of bone-building protein in their blood during their most intense weeks of training, compared to recovery weeks that included days off.
These protein fluctuations may be a warning that training without adequate recovery could lead to injury or bone loss, study authors say.
In general, exercise is good for bone health. Bone mineral density, an indicator of bone strength, typically increases with regular physical activity, especially the weight-bearing type. But experts have often wondered if too much exercise could have the opposite effect, especially for female athletes. That can be a difficult thing to measure, says Nigel Kurgan, a graduate student in the Centre for Bone and Muscle Health at Brock University in Canada, because elite athletes may also follow strict dietary patterns that could also negatively affect bone health.
To help account for this, Kurgan decided to study 15 female heavyweight rowers training for the 2016 Olympic games. Rowers have a high incidence of stress fractures and are at increased risk for bone loss�but because these women weren�t competing in the sport�s lightweight category, restrictive eating and low-calorie diets were less likely to play a role.
At several points during the nine-month study, Kurgan took blood samples from the rowers to measure levels of two proteins in their body: osteoprotegerin (OPG), which stops bone mineral loss, and sclerostin (SOST), which inhibits new bone formation. The rowers� training ranged from 12 to 21 hours a week.
Levels of OPG decreased over the course of the study, indicating that the athletes were indeed at risk for bone loss. The highest levels of bone-growth-inhibiting SOST corresponded with the weeks with the highest training volumes, and vice versa. Inflammation in the body also increased during the most intense training periods.
The researchers also tested the rowers� bone mineral density at the beginning and the end of the study, and found no change. But they say that the consequences of intense training may only become evident after longer periods of time.
�We are learning that regardless of whether you eat well or not, the systemic inflammation of intense training�unless you bring it down from time to time�creates an issue for bone cells and all kinds of tissue,� says co-author Panagiota Klentrou, professor and associate dean in the department of kinesiology at Brock University. �When you�re at peak training volume, you also have to incorporate time for the body to recover.�
This theory likely applies to all levels of athletes, not just Olympic hopefuls, Kurgan says.
Recovery is important for other reasons, too: Muscles need time to repair themselves from the stress of hard training, and the body needs rest and adequate fueling to maintain high levels of functioning. A 2016 study in Frontiers in Physiology found that two days in a row of intense, CrossFit-style workouts lowered levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines in the body, suggesting a potential drop in immunity.
With further research, it�s possible that scientists could develop a blood test to let athletes know when they�re overdoing it, says Klentrou. �There may be markers that coaches can monitor to see if they have to adjust their training volume,� she says.
Amateur athletes don�t need to take such elaborate approaches, she says. �If they monitor the symptoms of their body and watch for signs of exhaustion and poor recovery from hard workouts, I think they�ll be pretty safe.�
You may think you eat food to fuel your body but that’s not all it does. Emerging research shows that what you eat actually influences the composition of your microbiome, which can help you feel healthier and lose weight.
“We have entered the gut-health era of diet and nutrition and it will be here for a long time indeed. The science is simply too persuasive to suggest otherwise,” top expert Jeannette Hyde says.
Microbiome is the term used for the bacteria, particularly those living in the intestines.
Hyde, a London-based certified nutritional therapist, is the author of “The Gut Makeover: 4 Weeks to Nourish Your Gut, Revolutionize Your Health and Lose Weight,” a popular book in the U.K., which was published here on May 2.
Here are excerpts from her recent interview with Newsmax Health.
Q:Why is our microbiome important?
A: Our microbiome communicates with our hormones to keep them balanced, it influences how aggressively we extract calories from food eaten, and it also communicates with our immune system and signals to our brain.
Q: What is a healthy microbiome like?
A: A healthy microbiome is dominated by beneficial bacteria and contains lots of different varieties of bacteria. An unhealthy microbiome is dominated by nasty types of bacteria, with the good ones left in the minority, and also has little variety of bacteria.
Q: What health problems does an unhealthy microbiome cause?
A: When the microbiome is out of balance, or deranged, we may experience digestive issues such as chronic bloating, wind, loose stools, constipation, or alternating between the two.
Q:How does a healthy microbiome help you?
A: A healthy microbiome is important to have a healthy microbiome keeping your weight, mood, and immune system in check. Early studies are also showing that eating foods to enhance the microbiome can lead to improvements in memory and mood, and autoimmune disorders to name a few
Q: How does the typical American (Western) unbalance the microbiome?
A: In the Western diet we often have a lot of grains (usually dominated by wheat) so there is very little variety of color, and the color beige dominates. It’s also often high in sugar, artificial sweeteners, and unhealthy trans fats. Artificial sweeteners can disrupt your microbiome too.
Q: Why is eating for your microbiome better than counting calories for weight loss?
A: The microbiome has been shown to influence on our hunger hormones, so a deranged microbiome could knock your hunger hormones out of balance, giving you cravings all the time.
Q: What is your diet for a healthy microbiome?
A: My diet features a low-grain Mediterranean diet in which you bombard your gut with diversity of plants, satiating proteins, and good oils such as extra virgin olive oil. After 2 weeks, you can add in foods that have healthy bacteria, like fermented milk kefir and smelly unpasteurized cheese Roquefort full of bacteria to plant in your gut, or sauerkraut or miso if you can’t tolerate dairy.
Here are Jeannette Hyde’s 6 tips for a healthy microbiome:
Bombard your body with diversity. It really can make food enjoyable having lots of different ones to look forward to. Get into the habit of trying to get as many different types of vegetables into each meal – chop lots of different fresh herbs on top, throw over a handful of pomegranate seeds, grate some carrot.
Drink fermented milk kefirevery day like medicine. It’s a convenient and delicious way to get tens of billions of beneficial bacteria into your gut in one sitting. You can blend it in a blender with fruit and nuts or mix it with extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and a bit of garlic for a delicious salad dressing.
Make cold potatoes your friend – potatoes have been demonized for too long! They can be very good for your microbiome and consequently your weight. When potatoes cool down they form resistant starch, a type of fiber which cannot be digested in the top half of the digestive tract, making you feel full, and survive all the way to your colon where you gut microbes dine out on them.
Enjoy flax seeds. Often fairly inexpensive, flax seeds, known also as linseeds, are super foods for your gut bacteria and produce a fuel to keep your gut lining in good repair. You can use them in a shake each morning. It’s simple good housekeeping for the microbiome.
Eat Slowly. Eating slowly is so important to good digestive health. If we wolf down our food, undigested food can reach the colon and lead to a deranged microbiome, bloating, hunger and more. It’s such a simple action, and costs no money, and can deliver big results.
Try a 12-hour overnight fast. This is an easy way to give your microbiome a good long stretch to regenerate, and can help rebalance your hunger hormones so you feel less hungry generally.
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