3 dangers...

A Trifecta You Don't Want To Cash In

What's Right For You?

You might be thinking, "What's right for me? I want to have a healthy diet. I want to do regular exercise. I want to get enough sleep. How do I know what's right?" First, what works for someone else may not necessarily achieve the same results for you. One person may love the elliptical machine for aerobics. Another may say that running is the only way to go. Biking, fast walking, swimming timed laps - they all work. The exercise you want to do - the one you like and makes you feel good - that's the one for you. Likewise with rest. You may read that everyone needs 8 hours of sleep every night. Next month you may read about some hot-shot that thrives on 6 hours per night. What's right? The amount that helps you feel active, alert, and well-rested. Some nights you need a little more. Sometimes you can get by on 5 or 6 hours. Bottom line - what works for you works for you. The key is to be consistent and intend to want to be healthy and well.

High serum glucose. High cholesterol. High blood pressure. This is a trifecta you definitely don't want to have. This combination of laboratory findings is known as metabolic syndrome, a new medical term that has been in existence for less than ten years. It's well-known that there is an epidemic of obesity in America. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. Thirty percent of American children are overweight or obese. The numbers continue to increase. The United States is also in the midst of an epidemic in diabetes. Eight percent of Americans over age 20 have diabetes - one in twelve people. Again, the numbers are increasing. Recently, public health researchers discovered that people who were overweight and had diabetes also had high blood pressure - the combination of findings was termed metabolic syndrome. The implication is that if a person has one or more of these abnormal findings, he is at risk for the others. If a person has high blood glucose she is at risk for high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol. Being overweight increases the risk of developing diabetes and developing cardiovascular disease - heart attack and stroke. ^1,2,3
The statistics and medical conclusions are sobering, and yet there is good news. Each of these serious disorders - diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure - is a lifestyle disease. Lifestyle contributes significantly to developing any and all of these conditions. Making long-lasting changes in the way we live has long-lasting effects on our health and well-being. Lifestyle recommendations are not breaking news. Everyone knows about the benefits of healthy nutrition and regular vigorous exercise. Research has consistently shown that diet, exercise, and proper rest significantly improve one's health. The great challenge is to cause people to engage in these activities which are in their own interest.
An additional important lifestyle change is to engage in regular chiropractic care. Chiropractic care ensures optimal functioning of the nerve system which ensures optimal functioning of all other body systems. If the nerve system is over- or understimulated, physiology will break down in various ways and disease will result. Chiropractic care balances nerve system activity via gentle manipulation of spinal joints. Proper function of the spine results, with normalization of nerve activity. Chiropractic care enhances all other lifestyle activities. Healthy nutrition and regular exercise can have maximum benefit when your spine and nerve system are functioning properly.
¹McNaughton SA, et al: Dietary patterns, insulin resistance, and incidence of type 2 diabetes in the Whitehall II Study. Diabetes Care 31(7):1343-1348, 2008
²Brunner EJ, et al: Dietary patterns and 15-y risks of major coronary events, diabetes, and mortality. Am J Clin Nutr 87(5):1414-1421, 2008
³Roman B, et al: Effectiveness of the Mediterranean diet in the elderly. Clin Interv Aging 3(1):97-109, 2008

Strike a Chord

Strike a Chord

Tuning Your Instrument

When your piano is out of tune you call in the piano tuner. Likewise with your violin, cello, or bass fiddle. If you want to do more than just sing in the shower, you start taking singing lessons to learn how to sing on key. Using your body is exactly the same. You're a fan of "Dancing with the Stars" and think "hey, I want to do that!" So you begin ballroom dance lessons and study the mambo, tango, swing, and fox trot. Your body gains sophisticated knowledge. It learns how to create musical movement. Your body itself needs to be functioning harmoniously for you to be able to create graceful, harmonious movement, whether in ballet, salsa, football, or basketball. Chiropractic care helps ensure harmonious functioning by balancing the interactions of nerves, bones,  muscles, and joints. The access to this physiologic balance is the spinal column, the primary focus of chiropractic care.

Physicians and scientists have often called the human body a beautiful instrument.  The sense in which this metaphor is applied is primarily mechanistic. The human body is a beautiful instrument in that its parts mesh properly and each component performs its function superbly.

The metaphor "beautiful instrument" can be also be interpreted from the perspective of music. Just as playing the piano, the cello, or the saxophone can create wonderful tones, harmonies, and melodies, the workings of the human body may also create beautiful music.

The movements of the planets, stars, and constellations have been termed the "music of the spheres". Patterns of motion of the celestial bodies are precise, regular, and harmonious. These reliable patterns allow sailors to navigate safely and confidently on the open ocean, and allow farmers to determine their planting seasons with high levels of accuracy.

The human body, as awe-inspiring and as beautiful as the Eagle Nebula, the Andromeda Galaxy, or the rings of Saturn, possesses internal mechanisms as precise and complex as those astronomers are able to observe in the deepest regions of space. The music the body creates is similarly as beautiful.

In music, a major chord is a simultaneous combination of three notes - the root, a major third, and a perfect fifth. If you want to play a C major chord you strike (or hold) a C, an E, and a G. If you're playing an F major chord, you play an F, an A, and a C. In a sense, this system describes a musical code. Your body has many such codes.

The genetic code is one example. Every protein in your body is composed of a precise sequence of amino acids. Substitute glycine for valine or glutamine for serine and you've got a completely different protein. Precision in manufacture means your body works the way it is supposed to work, with no errors or failures.

Proteins such as hemoglobin or insulin are built exactly the same way every time. This level of 100% accuracy is made possible by the genetic code. Each amino acid that makes up hemoglobin or insulin has its own corresponding genetic sequence which is composed of three pieces of information - just like a major chord. ¹

We can say that wellness is a state of physiologic harmony. ^2,3 We become unwell when we're "out of tune". At such a time our internal chords aren't being played properly - "notes" aren't being put together properly or are being played out of sequence.
Chiropractic care can help restore musical balance.

By making sure the spine is in alignment, chiropractic care helps restore precision and harmony to all the functions of the body. Proteins are built properly, enzymes function at the right time and in the right proportion, biochemical reactions take place efficiently, and health and wellness is the result.

¹Martinez-Mekler G, et al: Universality of rank-ordering distributions in the arts and sciences. Public Library of Science (PLOS) Mar 19, 2009 (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004791)
²Heber D: An integrative view of obesity. Am J Clin Nutr Nov 18, 2009 (abstract online - http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/ajcn.2009.28473Bv1)
³Endler PC, et al: Sense of coherence and physical health. A "Copenhagen interpretation" of Antonovsky's SOC concept. Sci World J 20(8):451-453, 2008