LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Healthy Kids

Are You a Smoking Parent? Shocking Info You Need to Know

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secondhand smoke and kids
OOZ / Dollar Photo Club

I grew up in a household with two smoking parents. I was the one hanging my head out the car window with the dog.

I can’t go back and change the fact that my parents smoked.  Luckily, their smoking did not influence me to begin my own life-draining habit.  So I escaped the damage.

Or so I thought.

I’m pretty sure the days of parents blowing smoke directly into their children’s faces for laughs are pretty much over.  These days, this same act would almost certainly be accompanied by a visit from child protective services.  But even the most conscientious of smokers can’t protect their children from damage.  This is because few smokers seem to be aware of the concept of third-hand smoke.  Sure, we all know about secondary smoke and passive smoking.  And if you do your best to not smoke around your kids and not smoke in the car you’re going to fully insulate your kids from your bad habits.

Not true.

Cotinine is a compound that shows up in the blood of those who have been exposed to cigarette smoke.  This includes both smokers and the children of smokers.  The higher to cotinine levels, the higher the exposure.  With that in mind, if you are a smoker and you care about your child or children’s health (which I’m sure you do), then you need to pay attention to this particular study.

In it, researchers looked at the carotid arteries of adults who had been exposed to cigarette smoke TWENTY-SIX YEARS earlier.  Here’s what they found:

  • The percentage of children without any cotinine in their blood levels was highest in non-smoking households (84%), followed by one smoking parent (62%) and households where both parents smoked (43%).
  • Two and a half decades later, the adults who were raised in a smoking household were 70% more likely to have hardening of their carotid arteries.

This is not good news.  This means that the damage to the blood vessels begin as a child as a result of this early exposure to indirect smoke.  And, in all likelihood, it is an ongoing process.  The hardening of the arteries does not happen as a child, but rather is the end result of a decades-long progression of the damage that started way back when.

But it gets worse:

  • Even in those households were parents were conscientious about not exposing their children (referred to as good “smoking hygiene”) and whose children had no detectable blood levels of cotinine there was still a 60% higher risk of hardening of the arteries.
  • For those children who parents really didn’t focus on protecting their children (poor smoking hygiene–the children had detectable blood cotinine levels) there was a whopping 400% increased risk of hardening of the arteries in the carotid arteries of the neck.

400%.

If you are a parent who smokes, you need to take a hard look at just how much of an effect this is going to have on your kids.  And it’s not an IF, it’s a HOW MUCH.  And we can see that, even it you do not directly expose your kids to cigarette smoke, they are suffering the damage of your lifestyle choices.

Period.

 

Childhood Obesity Stats: Run if the Pediatrician Gives This

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childhood obesity statistics antibitotics
Dmitry Naumov / Dollar Photo Club

While the incidence of childhood obesity seems to have leveled off, it remains one of the biggest concerns for the future health of our population.

Every pediatric journal I read continues to highlight the concern and the aspects that are contributing to the increasing waistlines of our children.  Almost immediately the need to have our children be more active was hoisted to the top of the interventions to be promoted.  From Michelle Obama decrees, statewide Healthy Children initiatives and McDonald’s commercials, the push has been towards getting our kids moving more.

If only it was  simple.

When that didn’t seem to be doing the trick, the focus has started to (rightfully so) shift to cutting back on calories and avoiding sugary snacks and drinks.  And pediatricians have been leading the charge for getting our kids healthier.

But what if pediatricians are playing a major role in childhood obesity??

Regular readers of this blog will know where this is going.  It is now crystal clear that the bacteria in our collective guts play a massive role in all aspects of our health, with obesity and autoimmune conditions topping the list.

I frequently say that mainstream medicine remains decades behind the medical research, but in few instances is this problem as glaring as the intertwined issue of gut bacteria, probiotics and antibiotics.  It has only been recently that I have been reading in authors in medical journals discussing the overuse of antibiotics on the destruction of the normal bacteria in the gut.

The problem with antibiotic overuse has always been highlighted as antibiotic resistance.  But while this IS a concern, it is dwarfed by the fact that antibiotics decimate the diversity of the bacteria in the gut.  In this manner, antibiotics may greatly increase the risk of obesity, devastating autoimmune conditions and psychological disorders.

While we don’t know everything yet (and probably never will) about how the hundreds of different bacterial species in your gut interact with your health, current research is pointing to diversity as being very important.  With this in mind, in this particular study, researchers looked at the links between antibiotic use in a group of 6114 boys and 5948 girls and the later development of obesity.

The results are a little scary:

  • Children who were exposed to antibiotics in the first 2 years of life were, on average, heavier than kids who did not get antibiotics.
  • The effect was strongest in those exposed in the first 6 months to macrolides (broad spectrum antibiotics–think Azithromycin, Chlarithromycin and Erythromycin).  Specifically, boys were 72% more likely to be heavier and give 77% more likely to be heavier than the un-antibioticized children.
  • In addition, those children who had more than one exposure to antibiotics were 80% more likely (boys) and 87% more likely (girls) to be overweight.

These are significant numbers.  And it wouldn’t be so scary if antibiotics were used for life-threatening diseases instead of being used in conditions like low grade fevers, coughs and ear infections.  It is rare for a child to escape the prescription pad in his or her first two years of life.

So, the next time your child’s pediatrician wants to write a prescription for an antibiotic, first find out if your pediatrician thinks that antibiotics could contribute to obesity in children.  If your doctor gives you a strange look, it is absolutely time to find one that has cracked a medical journal in the past decade.

Childhood Food Insecurity: The Damage it Wreaks

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childhood food insecurity
Arpad Nagy-Bagoly / Dollar Photo Club

In a perfect world, all children would have access to the foods they need to grow strong and healthy. In reality, though, food insecurity of all too common.

The definition of food insecurity from the USDA is “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.”

In other words, short of stealing food, those experiencing food insecurity really do not know when the next meal is coming.  In 2013, in the US alone, 8.6 million children experienced food insecurity.  This is out of 73.6 million children (2013 stats).  Almost 12%.

Luckily, our hunter-gatherer genes were designed for incredible hardships of starvation.  But here’s the difference, our hunter-gatherer ancestors, when they finally got food after starvation, it was high quality, unprocessed food.  The reality of today’s times is, that when a starving child gets food, it may very well be chips, enriched wheat flour bread or a chunk of cheese.  The starving body does not do well when fed these foods (quite frankly, even the non-starving body does not do well with these foods…).

So why do kids get these foods?  Several bad reasons:

  1. It has been established that lower socioeconomic neighborhoods have more access to fast food restaurants as well as convenience stores, as opposed to grocery stores with fresh produce.
  2. The parents of these children may not understand that products made by major confectionary companies like Nabisco, Quaker and Kraft really do not make high-quality products.
  3. Probably the biggest offender is Federal subsidies that support low quality staple foods like corn and wheat rather than fresh fruits and vegetables.

This particular article really drives home just how bad the situation is.  In it, researchers looked at 3605 fourth- and fifth-grade children whose schools participated in the Network for a Healthy California–Children’s PowerPlay! campaign.  These children were asked to complete a 24 hour food diary as well as Child Food Security Assessment questions.  Here’s what they found:

  • Childhood food insecurity was present in 60% of the children.
  • These experiences included cognitive, emotional, and physical awareness of food insecurity.
  • Those kids who had higher food insecurity had a higher intake of calories, fat, sugar, and fiber and a diet lower in vegetables.
  • These kids also 17 min/day less physical activity.

Pretty much a perfect storm of future health problems.  We already know that childhood maltreatment may shorten lifespan and that it also greatly increases the risk that a child may suffer migraines later in life.  Add to the list now that these children will likely be at greater risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

I just spoke with a patient (adult) yesterday who was having food security problems.  We had a discussion about her options, which included, here in Phoenix, Market on the Move, where you can get 60 lbs of produce for $10.  Yup.  $10.  That would solve several families’ worth of food insecurity for a few weeks.  Granted, this is only one local resource, but if you look hard enough most communities have resources for GOOD food available.

 

Second Hand Smoke and Your Child’s Mental Health

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WILL THIS GET YOU TO QUIT SMOKING?

We all know that smoking is bad for us, and yet this alone is not enough to make us quit.  Somehow, we all think we will escape the near certainty that smoking will cause a slow, painful, medically-ridden premature death.  Statistically, it is much like playing video games instead of working because you are sure that this Lotto drawing is yours..  But that’s you.  What about those you care about?  What if smoking was destroying THEIR mental health, leading to depression, aggression, anxiety and ADHD?  Is this enough?  We all want our children to be happy and well adjusted and lead a wonderful life.  If you know that smoking is destroying the chances of this (and this study suggests that it does), is THIS enough to get you to quit?

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Overmedicating Our Children; Just How Common is it?

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overmedicating our kids
Tony Northrup/Dollar Photo Club

The vast majority of doctors practice years behind the evidence, but pediatricians seem to be the worst of the lot.

And this is not based just on my opinion; there are multiple research studies supporting this stance.  Take the instance of antibiotics.  For well over a decade now, researchers have been almost screaming about stopping the overuse of antibiotics.  When the recommendations never seemed to reach the doctors, public health officials took the message directly to the patients.

Then there is the issue of using acid-blocking drugs in infants.  Research has found that almost none of the prescriptions written were evidence-based.

Most pediatricians are militant about vaccinations.  Yet, if you ask them about things like the Th2 cytokine shift, true effectiveness of vaccinations, duration of immune responses to specific vaccinations and whether or not we even need some vaccinations (hepatitis B in a newborn, for example) they are not aware of these concepts.

Interestingly enough, it seems like this disconnect with the medical literature only runs one way; many physicians seem very ready to adopt the information given by the drug companies while staying oblivious to the actual research on drugs and vaccinations.  The adoption of drugs for uses that are off-label is lightning fast when compared to how long it takes for physicians to stop using these same drugs when future evidence finds that the drugs were either unsafe or not effective.

This particular study just feeds the idea the prescribing practices in 2313 pediatric patients of 46 general practices in southwestern France.   Here’s what they found:

  • 85% (1960) were exposed to at least one prescribed drug.
  • Among children with prescriptions, 37.6% were given at least 1 off-label prescription.
  • 6.7% of the medicated kids were given at least 1 unlicensed drug.
  • The off-label prescribing involved an unapproved indication (56.4%), a lower dosage (26.5%) or higher dosage (19.5%) than specified, age not labeled (7.2%), incorrect route of administration (3.5%) and contraindication (0.3%).

I think the most shocking thing about this study is the very high percentages of kids that were given medications.  Are our kids really that sick that the bulk of them need to have a medication for what they were presenting for?  Are there so few situations where reassurances and simple recommendations are enough?

Beyond this concern, the off-label use was over a third.  Not being a physician who writes prescriptions (and therefore could be wrong), the only route I can see the idea of off-label uses getting promoted is via the drug companies themselves.  Since these uses are generally not in peer-reviewed medical literature, the information has to come from other sources.

If this is the case, then you are leaving your child’s health in the hands of the drug companies.  Not something I would be willing to do.

 

Probiotics and Daycare; Good Combination

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ANTIBIOTICS GREATLY INCREASE THE RISK OF DAYCARE PROBLEMS.

The first evidence that bacteria may play a beneficial role in health was in 1904.  Over a hundred years ago and allopathic medicine STILL has little recognition that the presence of normal bacteria is important.  To date, I have never had a patient come in whose pediatrician recommended probiotics, either prophylacticaly or post-antibiotic.  The problem is that the evidence in support of maintaining a healthy bacterial flora in the gut is overwhelming.  There is absolutely no question that these bacteria are supposed to be there.  Antibiotic use, C-section, formula feeding and pregnant women who have had antibiotics w/o following up with probiotics all are known to alter the flora of the gut.  This particular study, only one of many, finds that probiotics supplementation drastically cuts down the risk of upper respiratory tract infections and gastrointestinal infections for children in daycare.  Around a 40% reduction.  Given this, we can strongly say that antibiotic use will INCREASE risk the same amounts.  And still allopathic medicine remains blissfully unaware of the relationship.

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Psychotropic Practice Patterns for Youth–A 10-Year Perspective

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Psychotropic Practice Patterns for Youth–A 10-Year Perspective.
The idea that utilization of psychotropic meds for youth is closing in on adult levels that drops my jaw. Are our children that disturbed? And, even if they were (which I strongly doubt…) would anyone out there like to bet their right arm against the fact that these drugs in no way interfere with proper neurological development? Remember that the brain is plastic–it is constantly regenerating itself. The old adage that killing off brain cells in college never to be replaced is not true. Those new cells being produced are being bathed in meds that we have no true long term studies (unless you consider 3 years long in the life of a child) showing their safety.

Psychotropic Practice Patterns for Youth: A 10-Year Perspective – Click here for more information.

Pregnancy Weight Gain and Childhood Obesity

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BREAKING THE CYCLE OF CHRONIC DISEASE BEGINS HOW EARLY?  Based on previous posts, this shouldn’t be a trick question.  The answer is before pregnancy. In this study, women who gained excess weight during pregnancy had children that, at 9 years of age, had pretty much EVERY risk factor for heart disease elevated.  A literal time bomb that will explode decades before it exploded for the parents.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we need to stand up for the health of our children by taking better care of ourselves during pregnancy.  This goes for BOTH the dad and the mom.  The decisions you make today are either helping your child grow up healthier, or you are loading a bullet in the chamber.  Decide.  You can’t sit on the fence.