LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Healthy Living in a Toxic World

ARE YOUR “8 GLASSES A DAY” OF WATER KILLING YOU? 7 WAYS TO HALT THE DAMAGE

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Regular readers of Rantings already know where this is going. The dogma associated with what we think is healthy in society today is clearly killing us, and it begins with plastic.

Somewhere, somehow, the concept of needing to drink 8 glasses of water per day started. Maybe it was started for altruistic, but misguided reasons. Certainly dehydration is a bad thing. But that does not mean that taking it to its extreme is going to magically give health. After all, healthy kidney function is going to keep a pretty steady level of hydration in our blood. It’s not like drinking more water is going to magically override kidney function and allows us to retain more water. And while water (as a H2O molecule) is required for detoxification, water is NOT the limiting factor and drinking more water will NOT drive detoxification in the body.

This dogmatic drive to drink more water has invariably led to a massive increase in the amount of bottled water consumed. Besides being devastating for the environment around us, the Bisphenol A (BPA) that is used in the making of flexible plastics has clearly led to an increase in several chronic diseases.

The question I have is, just what is the breaking point when the evidence against BPA becomes so hard to ignore that the EPA finally shuts the use of BPA down?

Don’t think we’ve reached that yet, although the FDA has at least come out admitting that just MAYBE BPA is not good for us. While in the same breath stating that its use is so ubiquitous in industry that it is near impossible to restrain its use. So much for protecting us.

This particular article looks at the association of BPA exposure and heart disease and confirmed earlier studies that found a link between urinary BPA levels and coronary artery disease. While the increased risk was not Earth-shattering (around 13% increased risk), it is still an increased risk that can be eliminated only if someone is aware of it.

Besides plastic water bottles, there are many additional sources of BPA exposure that you need to be aware of.  Following these tips can help reduce your exposure:

  1. Don’t microwave plastic food containers
  2. Avoid plastic containers when possible, especially those marked with recycle codes 3 or 7
  3. Reduce your use of canned foods
  4. Use glass, porcelain or stainless steel containers, especially with hot food or liquids
  5. Use baby bottles that are BPA free
  6. Be carfeul when handling thermal credit card receipts
  7. Avoid canned soda (which you should be doing anyway…)

ADVERSE EFFECTS OF INHALED CORTICOSTEROIDS IN FUNDED AND NONFUNDED STUDIES – (03-17-08)

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Adverse Effects of Inhaled Corticosteroids in Funded and Nonfunded Studies

In this study, authors looked at the results and how they were portrayed when the studies on asthma medications were funded by a pharmaceutical company. The funded studies were less likely to find that a side effect was statistically significant, and even more importantly, the authors of the funded studies, when adverse effects were significant, were 3.68 times as likely to describe the drug as “safe” in the conclusions.

The problem is that a busy clinician reading just the abstract without a good idea of what odds ratios or relative risks are may be misled into think the drug is “safe.” Of course, we are assuming that most clinicians actually READ medical literature… The bottom line is that, over the past few years, we have seen that the data supporting medication is flawed in every step of the process, from design to data crunching right down to the wording to describe the data.

Read entire article here

SELECTIVE PUBLICATION OF ANTIDEPRESSANT TRIALS – (08-25-08)

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Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials

There are many who view chiropractic as being unscientific and think there is no evidence to support its use. This attitude permeates much of alternative medicine. Closer to reality, there is research to support alternative medicine, and massive volumes to support functional medicine. Rarely, however, is money to be made on the basis of a published article or two.

This is not true for pharmaceutical research. Quite the opposite. It has gotten to the point that the bias inherent in drug research is so massive and widespread that one has to step back and look and wonder if ANY is truly valid. I can tell you from my standpoint, as someone who reads a lot of medical literature, the evidence supporting MOST of what mainstream medicine does is shaky at best, downright dangerous at worse.

In this particular review, it was found that when the negative studies were thrown into the mix with all the other studies, there is NO evidence to support the use of antidepressants in normal clinical use. It’s not that there are isolated cases of positive response–there are. But for the number of patients on antidepressants given the very weak evidence of benefit (and a long litany of nasty side effects) it is inexcusable. Exercise 3 days a week shows improvements in mood dwarfing medication’s effects. But few stand to make billions on treadmills alone.

Read entire article here

BABY CARE PRODUCTS: POSSIBLE SOURCE OF INFANT PHTHALATE EXPOSURE – (08-25-08)

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Baby Care Products: Possible Source of Infant Phthalate Exposure

Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org) is unquestionably at the forefront of identifying and educating the public on environmental exposures. I use and refer to this site frequently and always urge others to do the same, with some additional thought to making a donation. Phthalates are petroleum products that are used in plastics. They are known endocrine disruptors and can interfere with thyroid and reproductive function. Any identifiable exposure to them should be eliminated.

But the general public is not typically aware of the exposures their little ones are getting. Everyone is aware of lead, the phthalate exposure is much more prevalent, even in the womb. For our family, we have elected to use organic, expensive shampoo and bubble bath. Think about how long a child is soaking in a bath–it is worth the extra expense to me to by organic. Besides, we keep Keegan’s hair short so an $8 bottle of shampoo will last 6 months. Incidently, EWG just got a law passed limiting the use of phthalate containing plastics to be used in any product for infant or toddler use. Sounds like a good idea to me.

Read entire article here

SMALL MOLECULES THAT REGULATE LIFESPAN – XENOHORMESIS – (11-17-08)

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Small molecules that regulate lifespan: evidence for xenohormesis

The concept of xenohormesis is gaining ground quickly in the medical literature. Basically, there exists evidence that our bodes can sense cues from our environment (usually via the GI tract) that can prepare us for hardship. If there are environmental stressors (draught, disease, etc…) that are experienced by organisms lower on the food chain (plants, wild game, etc..), these organisms produce stressor compounds that will allow them to adapt to these more stressful environment.

Take a plant under draught conditions–this plant may produce protective chemicals to allow it to survive the draught. When a higher organism eats the lower organism these protective chemicals then trigger protective mechanisms in the higher organism. Sort of like sending the message of “danger” upstream. The ramifications of this are massive–tiny molecules that can change our physiology either positively or negatively. With this knowledge we have to rethink greatly the concept of free range animal products, organic produce, etc.

Read entire article here

Are we eating more than we think? Illegitimate signaling and xenohormesis as participants in the pathogenesis of obesity.

This editorial brings further to light the potentially drastic results of xenohormesis, to include damage from chronic stress, artificial sweeteners, abused livestock and chemically grown produce.

Read entire article here

MECHANISM OF ACTION OF NIACIN – (11-24-08)

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Mechanism of Action of Niacin

While I have been aware of niacin’s beneficial aspects on lipids for quite some time, I personally have not recommended niacin to patients, mainly because I’ve viewed it from a pharmaceutical perspective, mistakenly believing that it will lower lipid levels at a superficial level while leaving underlying physiological abnormalities untouched. Well…looks like we can all be wrong sometimes.

This article suggests that niacin actually has cellular effects that shift serum lipids from to a less atherogenic profile (i.e. from a low density fatty molecule to a more dense protein molecule). So, while lifestyle changes still need to be implemented, niacin may well prove to be a powerful ally in getting lipid levels under control and protecting our vasculature in the process.

Read entire article here

EFFECTS FROM PARTICULATE AIR POLLUTION – (11-24-08)

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Effects From Particulate Air Pollution and Protection by Dietary Methyl Nutrients and Metabolic Polymorphisms

It is no surprise that we are literally bombarded by environmental toxicants from air, water and food. Typically blood samples of the average American can demonstrate over 200 environmental toxins. 200. So what do we do? First, reducing our exposures as much as possible by paying attention to organic foods, air cleaners, natural cleaners, natural hygiene, etc… Despite all this, we still will have exposure so we need to do what we can to support our bodies’ ability to deal with this burden.

This particular study looks at the protective factor of methylation factors (methionine, B6, B12, folic acid, betaine…) on the impact of air particulate matter on cardiac function, as well as the negative impact of genetic SNPs decreasing methylation ability on this same air particulate matters’ effect.

Read entire article here

INCREASED EXPOSURE TO STATINS IN PATIENTS DEVELOPING CHRONIC MUSCLE DISEASES – (11-24-08)

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Increased exposure to statins in patients developing chronic muscle diseases: a 2-year retrospective study

While we’re on the topic of well accepted by the public but poorly represented in the literature we need to bring up the statin class of drugs. Despite the fact that every (I’m generalizing here…) primary care doctor in this country feels that “prevention” of heart disease means using a statin drug, the research on its efficacy for primary prevention of CVD is almost nil. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the research on the side effects slowly continues to mount.

This study looks at patients who have been diagnosed with chronic muscle disease (polymyositis, dermatomyositis, etc..) and found that these patients had a much, much higher chance of having had exposure to statins (2.73 times the risk), and this risk went up even higher when these patients also had used proton pump inhibitors for control of stomach acid production.

Read entire article here