LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Asthma

Dietary Antioxidants and Asthma in Adults – (01-10-02)

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Dietary Antioxidants and Asthma in Adults

I’m not going into a long tirade about fruits and veggies being an integral part of a healthy life and how very few people here in the US even come close to 5+ servings per day. Instead, I will use this article to press a very important issue. Rarely is asthma treated with anything other than pharmaceutical drugs that deplete bone and stunt growth, and yet there is compound research that shows that asthma indeed can be affected by lifestyle choices. We need to start making those recommendations.

AJRCCM — Abstracts: SHAHEEN et al. 164 (10): 1823

Read entire article here

Systemic Activity of Inhaled Steroids in 1-3-Year-Olds with Asthma – (03-07-02)

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Systemic Activity of Inhaled Steroids in 1-3-Year-Olds with Asthma

It should not be any great surprise that inhaled medications make it into the systemic circulation and have side effects distant from the treatment site. Asthma is a condition that I feel is poorly managed and lifestyle changes are rarely recommended to safely affect the course of the disease. Avoiding asthma in the first place involves maintenance of healthy intestinal flora, avoidance of antibiotics taking a rational approach to vaccination. Managing asthma takes these factors into consideration as well as eating a more unprocessed diet.

Pediatrics — Abstracts: Anhøj et al. 109 (3): e40

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Use of isotonic nebulised magnesium sulphate – (07-14-03)

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Use of isotonic nebulised magnesium sulphate as an adjuvant to salbutamol in treatment of severe asthma

Anytime we can use a natural therapy to replace or add to current therapies I feel it is a good thing.

In this study, magnesium used as an inhaler along with salbutomol was more effective at increasing the volume that patients experiencing a severe asthma attack.

Read entire article here

Start Early to Protect Your New Baby From Allergies

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Ask any allergy-suffering adult how much allergies suck and you’ll likely get an earful.  Sneezing, watery eyes, sinus headaches, itchy eyes…it’s enough to make life miserable.  When you combine this with asthma, curling up in the back of a dark cave seems greatly appealing.

Certainly anything you can do to protect this same scenario from playing out in your children would be welcome.  Luckily, this is not purely up to chance and genetics.

It may be largely up to probiotics.

This is not going to be the first time I have touted the extreme benefits of a healthy bacterial flora on many aspects of health.  Conversely, destruction of normal bacterial flora in a newborn, infant or toddler can wreak havoc to their immune system for decades to come, if not for the rest of his or her life.  It is that critical.

This particular study looks at the use of Lactobacillus reuteri from pregnancy (in the moms) through one year (in the infants) on the development of IgE mediated allergy against ovalbumin (egg whites), birch tree and cat.  Basically, the supplementation calmed down the immune response to all of these allergens for at least 2 years.

Don’t wait for your pediatrician to keep up with the medical literature and make these types of recommendations.  In general, pediatricians are far more likely to vaccinate (contributes to allergies and asthma via a Th2 cytokine shift, in case you were wondering…) and give antibiotics for viral infections than they are to recommend probiotics.  The closest I have heard is the recommendation to use a product like Florastor, which will absolutely NOT restore the normal bacterial flora in the gut after taking antibiotics.

If you have (or are expecting) a little one, the time to be proactive at protecting the delicate balance of his or her immune system is NOW.  The use of medications later may never allow that balance to be regained.  The only thing that may come close is the use of sublingual immunotherapy, but more on this in a future post.

Based on the mounting evidence, if your child’s pediatrician does not recommend or at least discuss probiotics with you, should you find a new one?

 

Pregnant and Have Allergies? You’re Going to Need This

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Pregnancy is rough enough as it is. Worsening allergies in pregnancy just makes it worse. Can you  do something to spare your unborn child the same fate?

Turns out that the answer may be yes, and the fix may be pretty simple.  But first, let’s go over some other factors during pregnancy that we already know contribute to problems in the as-yet unborn child.  The fist that pops to mind is the seemingly innoculous Tylenol.  Yes, I know that your OB told you to stay away from ibuprofen during pregnancy because of the potential side effects.  As an alternative, many are still recommending Tylenol / acetaminophen as a safe alternative.  It’s not.  In an older blog post, we discussed the links between paracematol (Tylenol) use during pregnancy and allergies and asthma in the child.

This actually makes sense because it is well accepted that Tylenol use is linked to development of allergies in an adult.

Other pregnancy factors that play a role in the child’s health include:

  1. Artificial sweeteners and sugar sweetened beverages have been linked to preterm birth. (Tweet this)
  2. Antidepressant use in 3rd trimester increases risk of infantile convulsions by 490%. (Tweet this)
  3. Eating polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) (from grilling meat) in pregnancy is linked to ADHD and anxiety.
  4. Heavy exposure to a commonly used pesticide has been linked to brain damage in the infant.

There are others, but you get the idea.  The choices you make during pregnancy play a huge role in the future health of your child.  Some of the above may be a little more challenging, so I’ll give you an easy and inexpensive tool.

Vitamin D.

Yup.  How’s that for simple?  We already know that low vitamin D levels are linked to the development of obesity in children and wheeze in children.

This particular study looks at vitamin D levels in cord blood and what effect they had on development of eczema in the infant’s first year.  In particular:

  • Mom’s vitamin D levels were related to supplement use and sunlight (based on the season during testing) and NOT dietary intake (don’t rely on your milk to help you here)
  • When vitamin D cord blood was below 75 nmol/L (30 ng/ml) the risk of developing eczema was 266% higher. (Tweet this)

The bottom line is that vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy seems like a pretty good idea along with the use of probiotics to maintain a healthy bacterial flora in the mom.  Stick with nursing instead of formula and add in some probiotics occasionally during the first few months and the risk of eczema should be almost zilch.

Given the increasing evidence, should ob/gyn’s be recommending vitamin D to all their pregnant patients?

HERBAL MEDICINES MORE EFFECTIVE IN RESPIRATORY TRACT INFECTIONS – (03-15-04)

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Effectiveness of an Herbal Preparation Containing Echinacea, Propolis, and Vitamin C in Preventing Respiratory Tract Infections in Children

Are you sitting down for this one?? I’m being a little dramatic because I’m SURE you heard about a natural and safe method that lowered episodes and severity of respiratory infections BY HALF all over the news. Front page, no doubt. Headline story on the 10:00 news. CNN broadcasts…

Arch Pediatric Adolesc Med — Abstracts: Cohen et al. 158 (3): 217 –

Read entire article here

USE OF CHIROPRACTIC MANIPULATION TO TREAT ASTHMA – (10-13-04)

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Chronic asthma and chiropractic spinal manipulation

I came across this one in my musings and thought it was interesting. This is one of those issues that is pushed by some DCs but the evidence is not all there yet.

This study found a 34% reduction in patient rated severity in their asthmatic symptoms–not something to be discounted lightly. My opinion? I think that there are patients whose asthma is mediated by the nervous system and will respond favorably to manipulation. And, since the safety of CMT is very, very high compared to the medications used to treat asthma, there is no disadvantage to attempting a trial period. However, I would also include a diet free of processed foods and refined carbs as well (which is probably why I won’t be invited to a clinical trial of a single modality any time soon…).

Entrez PubMed –

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EFFECTS OF VACCINATION AFTER 14 YEARS OF AGE – (09-01-03)

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Effect of neonatal BCG vaccination on atopy and asthma at 7 to 14 years

This study builds on the previous, but there is a very important point not to miss here.

This study showed effect AS FAR AS 14 YEARS AFTER THE VACCINATION!! I cannot begin to express how frustrated I get when researchers and clinicians look for immediate reactions (within a few days) and say the vaccine does not cause problems. We are missing the most potentially harmful cause of vaccinations–increased atopic diseases such as allergies and asthma. We have traded childhood diseases for lifelong chronic disease.

Geez–the drug companies have got to love this one–mandated vaccinations that they make money on only to have the children develop chronic conditions that will require a lifetime of medications!! That would be the equivalent of performing adjustments in my office that would permanently damage the patient so they would need to come in again and again for the rest of their lives!! And the initial treatments were mandated by the government!!! What a racket, huh?

Entrez-PubMed

Read entire article here