LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Healthy Pregnancy

Dangers of Tylenol Use in Pregnancy; Use Chiropractic Instead

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Pregnant women are told to stay aware from steroids and ibuprofen because it can have direct effects on the developing baby, so OBs recommend Tylenol. This is a bad idea.

For starters, it has been known for a long time now that acetaminophen is linked to asthma in adults. Then someone asked if acetaminophen use in pregnancy could contribute to the development of asthma in the child after he or she is born. Turns out that the answer here is also a yes. Despite this information, OBs still recommend products like Tylenol for pain in pregnant women.

While my opinion on this topic may be slightly biased, it seems to me that chiropractic care during pregnancy is the ONLY safe approach that will in no way harm your little developing lima bean. Not only safe, but effective as well. Not too shabby.

Just in case you have no fear of your little one developing asthma from popping a few acetaminophen over the course of 9 months or so, hopefully this particular article will help sway you against over the counter wonder drugs.

From this study, I think the scariest take home message is that, out of 64,322 births (there may have been some twins mixed into these numbers, but essentially, it’s a LOT of births), over HALF had used acetaminophen during pregnancy. HALF!!! That just shocks me. Maybe it just illustrates how incredibly permissive we have become in society to drugs regardless of the situation. And understand that if there was ever a sensitive time in life it is during pregnancy.

Here’s the details of the study:

  1. Children whose mothers used acetaminophen during pregnancy were 37% more likely to have a hospital diagnosis of hyperkinetic disorder.
  2. They were 29% more likely to be on ADHD medications.
  3. They were 13% more likely to have ADHD-like behaviors at age 7.
  4. If acetaminophen was used in more than 1 trimester during pregnancy, these percentages were even higher.

Clearly there was a relationship between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and childhood behavioral problems years later. Is there any point at which society will stand up and say that ANY medication during pregnancy should be avoided unless absolutely, positively necessary?

All those pregnant women how had pain during pregnancy are likely cursing me now. However, I can tell you, from 15 years’ experience, that chiropractic care is VERY effective for most of the pains experienced in pregnancy, especially when you combine soft tissue methods along with the adjusting.

And yet, despite this, I find that few OBs will recommend chiropractic care before use of analgesics like Tylenol.

This has to change.

Nausea in Pregnancy: Do We Know What Causes It?

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It never ceases to surprise me how little we know about very common health and disease scenarios, so it’s nice when we get a peek into some of the more problematic ones.

Nausea is a pretty well accepted thing with pregnancy. No one actually looks forward to it, but most women manage to get through it. Personally, I have always felt that it somehow relates to hypoglycemia (after all, that little developing nugget in the womb is using so much glucose you can almost hear the sucking sound…). This is why it is more common in the morning and why B6 and more frequent eating seems to help in some cases.

But when the nausea gets so severe that the mere thought of food leads to projectile vomiting, nausea of pregnancy gets its own name: Hyperemesis gravidarum.

Even the name is scary. The danger in this condition is nutrient (both macro and micro) deficieny to a degree that can harm the growth of the developing baby.

The only answer that we have had for this condition is anti-emetic drugs like Compazine, Phenergan or Zofran. In same cases steroids may be used. Steroid use during pregnancy has some concerns and Zofran is ridiculously expensive.

But what if we could begin to identify factors that increased the risk of sufferering from hyperemesis gravidarum? This particular study does just that.

In it, researchers looked at what diagnostic factors may be associated with the presence of HG. Here’s what they found:

• There was no relationship between ketonuria (ketones in the urine—a sign of malnutrition) and presence or severity of HG.
• HCG, thyroid hormones, leptin, estradiol, progesterone and white blood count were not consistently related to HG.
• However, those who had HG were 320% more likely to have markers for H Pylori (the “ulcer” bacteria).

For years, I have contended that H. pylori is not the problem. Rather, H. pylori is an opportunistic pathogen that rises to the top and creates problems like ulcers only when conditions are ideal. Probably one of the most important factors I can think of is probiotics.

I know—you’re thinking, “UGH!! Not again!”

Don’t shoot me—I’m just the messenger. And yes, it is entirely possibly that probiotics early on in pregnancy (or even before) could potentially lower the chance of developing HG. I have never recommended probiotics for HG, although after this study it is definitely now going to be on the list of recommendations.

Dangers of Fertility Treatment- 2 Scary Facts for the Child

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I can understand the incredible desire to start a family and the frustration associated with infertility.

For this reason, I do truly believe that fertility specialists and fertility treatments have a place in society.  However, as I have written about before, these “specialists” do nothing more than force fertility on a woman’s body that is screaming that it is not ready for such an important event like pregnancy.

The vast majority of cases of infertility are lifestyle in nature.  Polycystic ovarian syndrome, or PCOS, accounts for about 75% of anovulatory infertility in women.  PCOS is, in almost every single case, a symptom of prediabetes.  Prediabetes is a lifestyle choice and I have covered the relationship between the choices we make and prediabetes in literally hundreds of previous article.  If you’re really devoted to make changes, you can begin to read them by clicking here.

Another big contributor to infertility includes environmental chemicals like BPA in plastic water bottles and phthalates in vinyls and plastics. Thyroid function also plays a role (which, ironically, is also heavily affected by environmental chemical exposure).

And never forget that it’s not always the woman’s fault.  There are plenty of situations where male infertility if the critical factor.

Overall, though, this means that, in couples who are experiencing infertility, the answer lies with lifestyle.  This means leading an anti-diabetic lifestyle and maintaining an ideal body weight.  All of this should be explained to you by your fertility specialist, but I find that it rarely is.  Lifestyle is pushed to the back row and treatments like Clomid and metformin get the spotlight.  If these are not effective, more advanced forms of fertility treatment like in-vitro fertilization are used.

But, regardless of the tools available, lifestyle changes are NOT OPTIONAL.  If a couple (notice I said couple and not just “woman”) are unwilling to make whatever lifestyle changes are necessary to become pregnant, then I would strongly suggest that they are not ready to become parents at this point in their lives.  This may sound harsh, but consider this–children born to couples using assisted reproductive technologies (ART) are at greater risk of heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

If a couple is not willing to make the needed changes on the front end for the pregnancy, this means they are not willing to make the same sacrifices for the child.  Not cool.  Just to clarify, I am not talking about that small subset of women who truly cannot become pregnant despite an anti-diabetic lifestyle (and I’ve had one or two in my practice lifetime).

Just in case you think I’m being too dramatic about the whole thing, I present this particular article.  While it is a mouse study looking at the long-term effects of assisted reproductive technology on the baby growing into an adult, previous research on vascular dysfunction in humans born to ART make me believe the results should translate well into humans.  Here’s what they found:

  1. The blood vessels from the ART mice had definite dysfunction (endothelial dysfunction, arterial hypertension, reduced nitric oxide production).
  2. Worse, ART mice fed a high fat diet had a 25% shorter lifespan.

Yes–when ART was used, the mice died 25% sooner.  This is a serious issue.  And many may step back and think that, because the mice were fed a high fat diet it is not the reality of what a human child would experience in his or her life, it is not relevant.  I disagree.  To me, if a couple never learned and adopted the right lifestyle for their genetics (which is likely if they had to resort to ART), they did not learn what they needed to learn to raise a healthy child.  They will pass on this not-matched-for-genetics lifestyle to the child as he or she grows and creates his or her own lifestyle for the future.

The bottom line is that, for any couple having a hard time conceiving, before you visit a “fertility specialist” to help, you should visit someone knowledgeable in teaching you how to live an anti-diabetic lifestyle.  Your future kids will thank you.

Effect of Epidural Anesthesia on Breast-Feeding of Healthy Newborns – (03-18-03)

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Effect of Epidural Anesthesia on Breast-Feeding of Healthy Newborns.

Their articles…not mine!!
J Am Board Fam Pract 16(1):7-13, 2003 Background: Epidural anesthesia is commonly administered to laboring women. Some studies have suggested that epidural anesthesia might inhibit breast-feeding. This study explores the association between labor epidural anesthesia and early breast-feeding success. Methods: Standardized records of mother-baby dyads representing 115 consecutive healthy, full-term, breast-feeding newborns delivered vaginally of mothers receiving epidural anesthesia were analyzed and compared with 116 newborns not exposed to maternal epidural anesthesia. Primary outcome was two successful breast-feeding encounters by 24 hours of age, as defined by a LATCH breast-feeding assessment score of 7 or more of 10 and a latch score of 2/2. Means were compared with the Kruskal-Wallis test. Categorical data were compared using the Mantel-Haenszel chi-square test. Stratified analysis of potentially confounding variables was performed using Mantel-Haenszel weighted odd ratios (OR) and chi-square for evaluation of interaction. Results: Both epidural and nonepidural anesthesia groups were similar except maternal nulliparity was more common in the epidural anesthesia group. Two successful breast-feedings within 24 hours of age were achieved by 69.6% of mother-baby units that had had epidural anesthesia compared with 81.0% of mother-baby units that had not (odds ratio [OR] 0.53, P = .04). These relations remained after stratification (weighted odds ratios in parenthesis) based on maternal age (0.52), parity (0.58), narcotics use in labor (0.49), and first breast-feeding within 1 hour (0.49). Babies of mothers who had had epidural anesthesia were significantly more likely to receive a bottle supplement while hospitalized (OR 2.63; P < .001) despite mothers exposed to epidural anesthesia showing a trend toward being more likely to attempt breast-feeding in the 1 hour (OR 1.66; P = .06). Mothers who had epidural anesthesia and who did not breast-feed within 1 hour were at high risk for having their babies receive bottle supplementation (OR 6.27). Conclusions: Labor epidural anesthesia had a negative impact on breast-feeding in the first 24 hours of life even though it did not inhibit the percentage of breast-feeding attempts in the first hour. Further studies are needed to elucidate the exact nature of this association.

Reflux in Infants: 3 Ways to Stop it Now

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While it’s been some time (and my memory is going with age) I still remember the first time I heard of a newborn being put on Prilosec for reflux.

Incredulous.  Stupefied.  Dazed.  All adequate descriptions for how I felt at that time.

After this time, I heard more often of cases where infants were given drugs to shut down stomach acid production.  To me, the idea borders on idiocy.  Stomach acid is critical to the digestion and absorption of nutrients.  Without good digestion we can’t thrive and grow.  It’s bad enough to use these drugs on an adult, but an infant?

An article some time back vindicated my position, finding that some 82% of prescriptions of drugs to control acid in infants were given inappropriately.

The symptoms that usually drive the prescriptions are babies that cry shortly after feeding and spit up frequently.  The answer lies not in medications, but in identifying foods allergies (this is the biggest factor in most cases) either through direct feeding to the infant or in what a breastfeeding mom is eating.  Imbalance in bacterial flora can play a role as well, leading to thrush and general irritation of the lining of the esophagus.

This particular article adds a new aspect for me that I would not have thought of.  Delayed neurological development.  Or maybe “delayed” is not the right word. “Not caught up” neurological development may be a better term.  Delayed sounds pathological, but not quite caught up sounds like just a slowing of a process that’s going to fix itself in a short time.

Researchers looked at 105 infants under 8 months of age who had feeding difficulties, delayed neurological development or delayed psychomotor development.  70 of these infants all had signs of B12 deficiency (low cobalamin levels, homocysteine levels or methylmalonic acid levels) and were given a single injection of 400 micrograms of B12.  Here’s what they found after a single month:

  1. In all the infants, the markers of B12 deficiency improved.
  2. Scoring systems for motor development as well as parent’s perceptions improved.
  3. Regurgitation alone improve 69%.

The nervous system develops at an incredible rate, both in the womb and in the first few years.  B12 is important in this process as we can see from this study.  That means that, during pregnancy you need to make sure that you’re prenatal vitamin has strong levels of B12, and NOT as the cyanocobalamin form.  While nursing a newborn this is equally as important. Incidentally–antibiotics will destroy the all-important bacteria in the gut that both show up in breast milk to balance the developing immune system, but also the bacteria that produces B12 in the gut as well.

In our office we recommend a supplement to go along with the prenatal that has B12 (as hydroxycobalamin), folic acid and B6 for all pregnant women.  Based on this study, it is possible that B12 during pregnancy may help prevent reflux and digestive problems in the first place.

In summary, three things to try if your baby is experiencing digestive problems.  1)  Identify common food allergies like dair, wheat, corn and soy and remove them from your diet.  2)  Make sure your baby is getting probiotics, whether through direct supplementation or taking them yourself if you’re still nursing.  3)  B12 supplementation.

The Bottled Water Story Just Got Scarier

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Ok. By now, unless you’re living in a cave, you know that BPA from plastic water bottles is not good for us.  So industry has been moving towards BPA free bottles.

But what if the story was so much more complex?  It always is.

First, as way of background, Bisphenol A (BPA) is not good for us and is linked to certain cancers, obesity, infertility and diabetes.  This is a good enough reason to avoid drinking out of plastic water bottles.

Next, the quality of the water in bottled water is usually an issue, as seen in Environmental Working Groups’ bottled water study.  Much of it is merely bottled tap water and concerns of chlorine breakdown products is high.

Finally, where on Earth did the idea that we need to lug around 12.5 ounces of water in the first place come from?  I have certainly addressed our society’s blind devotion to the not-backed-by-research intake of bottled water.  We just don’t need it.  Period.

And yet, despite all of this, bottled water is everywhere.  You can’t go 20 feet in a public place without seeing someone lugging one around, taking off the cap, and taking a short swig.  Most often then bottle is half full.  I just don’t get it.

Just in case all that I’ve written in the past is STILL not enough to convince you to abandon bottled water, I present this particular study.  In it, researchers looked hard to additional compounds that would block the action of either estrogen receptors or testosterone receptors.  Here’s the details:

  1. 18 bottled water products were evaluated, and 24,520 compounds were found (YES- that is 24 THOUSAND).  These compounds were further evaluated for their effects on the estrogen and androgen receptors.
  2. In 13 of the 18 products, chemicals were found that blocked estrogen.
  3. In 16 samples there were antiandrogenic substance (blocking the action of testosterone), in some cases strong enough to block 90% of the action of androgens in just 3.75 ml.
  4. In regards to estrogen, one compound rose to the top: (2-ethylhexyl) fumarate (DEHF).
  5. Despite the knowledge that the bottled waters blocked androgen action, the researchers were unable to lock in which compound was the most to blame,

Overall, this means that entire picture of the bottled water product, whether it is something in the water or from the packaging, is toxic to humans.  Period.  Stop buying and using them NOW.  Instead switch to a reverse-osmosis system (these days, you can purchase a 5 stage unit for around $100)  or a stand alone unit such as a Brita water filter.  If you use the larger, 5 gallon jugs in a dispenser, make sure you’re at least using the BPA free ones.

You’re not going to eliminate your exposure to plastics, but at least we can make a conscious effort to reduce the exposure.  Bottled water is out.  Period.

Male Infertility Problems? Could Monsanto Be to Blame?

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The blame for infertility usually falls to the female. Rarely is the evil eye cast upon the chance of male infertility problems.

As with the female half of fertility, lifestyle plays a large role in the number and viability of sperm.  Despite this knowledge, visits to fertility “specialists” are usually limited in scope to the female side of things.  This is because we can DO things to the female like give hormones to force fertility or, even more creatively, give hormones to the female to force fertility.  The best known, most successful fertility specialists will even use hormones to force fertility in the female.

On the male side, there are few things we can DO to the male to increase sperm viability.  This is because sperm is usually negatively affected by lifestyle and toxic exposures that need to be improved (with lifestyle) or eliminated (with toxic exposures).  Fertility specialists are not all that great at identifying toxic exposures that will decrease the viability of the sperm.  So what can help or harm male fertility?  Here are a few I’ve touched on over the years:

There are, of course, many other factors, but chemical exposure is high on the list.  Phthalates are compounds found in plastics as well (think “new shower curtain” smell) that are well known to affect fertility in females and males.

All of this sets the stage for this particular article, but before we get into this, you need to understand the concept of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO).

Monsanto, the archetypical evil corporation, makes (among many other toxins) the herbicide Roundup.  Roundup indiscriminately kills growing things.  It would be a bad idea for a farmer, therefore, to spray his fields with Roundup because his crops would get wiped out along with the weeds.  On a white horse rides in Monsanto.  Their scientists twist Nature, splicing in a gene into the seed so that the plant is resistant to Roundup.  Now the happy farmer can coat his fields in Roundup without having to worry about his crops dying.

This is done to a variety of crops like wheat, corn, soy and alfalfa and the process continues to creep into all crops.  So why all the hubbub over GMO crops?  Just because it is completely messing with Mother Nature’s design shouldn’t have anyone worried, should it?

Of course the answer is yes.  Roundup contains a compound called glyphosate.  Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the US, so you can be pretty sure that, unless you are eating all organic, you’re getting a hefty dose of it.  And, at least if you’re a rat in this study, it kills off the Sertoli cells of the testis (these cells support the development of sperm).

Doesn’t sound like a good thing.  Drinking away some brain cells in college is one thing, but eating away the cells that help us guys make sperm is another thing altogether.

Keep in mind that this is a rat study, but here are the specifics:

  1. Roundup exposure was given at low doses (36 ppm) for 30 minutes.
  2. This created oxidative stress and turned on multiple stress-response pathways leading to Sertoli cell death.
  3. Roundup basically led to calcium overload within the cells, which set off oxidative stress and cell death.
  4. Roundup decreased the levels of reduced glutathione (GSH) and increased the amounts of thiobarbituric acid-reactive species (TBARS) and protein carbonyls.
  5. Roundup stimulated the activity of glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, glutathione S-transferase, γ-glutamyltransferase, catalase, superoxide dismutase, and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, supporting downregulated GSH levels (basically, the cells were trying to protect themselves, albeit unsuccessfully).

So the next time you see the Millions Against Monsanto or the Occupy Monsanto FB page, instead of thinking that these are a bunch of fringe-environmentalists, it might be a good idea to listen to what they have to say.