Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Drink Soda - Get Diabetes! Recent Study Shows the Relationship Between High Fructose Corn Syrup & Diabetes

Forget the fact that it has been written about in various health and diet books for the last several years, but a recent study find a link between the consumption of high fructose corn syrup and diabetes.

The study was done linking the high fructose corn syrup (aka: HFCS) in common everyday sodas. But here's the problem with the stinking thinking of the day. You'll read or hear about excerpts of this study and stop your children, your spouse and yourself from drinking soda. But, over the past 30 years, HFCS has become the sweetener of choice FOR EVERYTHING!

Don't believe me? Go back my December of 2006 blog post Is Yogurt As Bad As Soda? Do you think it ends there? Nope! Go to your local grocery store and start reading the labels of:


1) The juice boxes & juice bags you buy your kids for their school lunch.
2) Most cranberry juice & other juices
3) Yogurt
4) For you Soy addicts - Tofutti Ice Cream
5) Most grocery store breads, yes, even including "whole wheat" breads
6) Most candies, cookies and sweet snacks (which also contain hydrogenated oils)
7) Most alcoholic drink mixers (check that bottle of sweet stuff mix with your alcohol)
8) Salad dressings
9) Most Ketchup
10) Most children's breakfast cereals
12) Hot Cocoa Mixes & Chocolate Milk Mixes
13) Gatoraide & Poweraide
14) and much much more...

The reason many of you are diabetic and pre-diabetic is because you can't get away from this un-natural man-made horrible crappy cheap as hell artificial sweetener. It should NEVER be consumed by humans (the same as hydrogenated oils should never be consumed). The only reason they put it in our food (well, in your foods because I don't eat anything with HFCS) is because it is very inexpensive to produce as compared to real sugar and therefore it makes for bigger corporate profits. Big business makes more money, we get sick and die.

Our bodies were never meant to consume it, therefore it will harm you, and eventually it will kill you. And....it will kill you ever so slowly. Apparently, diabetes is its murder weapon.

I love when science proves me right.

Again.

So, Here's To Your Health (Raising a glass of pure water)

DocT








Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.



http://www.news-medical.net/?id=29098

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Over Fed & Under Nourished....Let Food Be Your Medicine and Take Back Your Health


It’s been just over 18 months now since my personal physician told me to make some big changes in the way I eat or I’d probably die of a heart attack in 10 years.

To recap, I had just had a CTa; a 3-dimensional CAT scan of my heart so that a radiologist can check the condition of my heart’s blood vessels. By some grace of G-d, my cardiac vessels were in great shape; in-fact, they were in incredible shape. But, the problem was that my cholesterol was high, my triglycerides were high and my blood pressure was borderline. Not to mention, I was pushing the scales at just under 220lbs. So although my heart was in excellent shape, the cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure were setting me up for a hard fall in the not so distant future.

On a prescription pad Dr. Woolf wrote the name of a book: Ultrametabolism, by Mark Hyman, MD. My prescription was to read the book and to live the book…and so I did. The book in summary told me to eat whole foods, not processed foods. Told me not to skip meals or reduce my calories, but to eat the right foods at the right times to speed up my metabolism. And of course, get recommitted to exercising. All of which I did, and I did well.

It worked. After 6 months, my cholesterol, my triglycerides and my blood pressure were normal again and I weighed in at 194. To read more on out how I did this, read my blog on beating lipitor in 6 months

My struggle continues though as I’ve realized that crappy food is so abundant in our society, it’s nearly impossible to eat and snack healthfully (and tastefully) without examining the label on everything I want to purchase from the grocery store. Even Yogurt has high fructose corn syrup, the same sweetener as you will see in Coca-Cola & Pepsi and every other soda on the market and yes, another man-made substance that is slowly killing our children and ourselves. Most of the foods we consume also have hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils in them. A substance that is incredibly toxic to which scientists have said that this substance is like ingesting plastic into our bodies.

Most of you know how I felt when I stumbled onto Larabars. Which, I continue to enjoy to this day and hope to for a long long time; but, I’ve found another snack that can also be used as a meal!!!

Yes, I’ve finally found another source for not just in-between meal snack, but for real whole foods that you can replace any meal with. The Company is The Whole Food Farmacy. At a recent continuing educational seminar in Orlando, I bumped into an old schoolmate of mine. We talked and he actually had, in addition to his practice, another business that surrounded his incredibly healthy way of eating. Stephen, as I remember, would eat the entire fruit or vegetable. Stem, seeds, core, leaves and all. He left nothing over, and his business was based on healthy packaged meals made up of a multitude of whole fruits, whole vegetables whole seeds and whole grains that were in simple, easy to manage self-sealing very tasty packages. To my amazement, they tasted awesome and I immediately got as excited about this as I did when I first found out about Larabars.

Everything was packed kind of like a bag of “trail mix” and with incredible variety. I first tried something called Veggiliscious, which, I could easily chow down on in place of a bag of potato chips. They were crunchy and flavorful. There was even a spicy version too! There were so many choices from mixes of traditional fruits, seed & grains, to tropical fruits and various flavorful mixes. There were a multitude of shakes and soups as well, all made from a natural whole food source. The bags seal up like a zip-lock storage bag and they are so easy to throw in your gym bag or brief case or purse and take with you.

To put it like my California buddies…I was Stoked!!! I enjoyed the flavors, the whole food mixes were very hearty and I could easily eat one of these for a meal if I wanted. And, funny thing, I was going to and from so many classes and meeting, I actually ate 6 of my 8 meals that weekend from the Whole Food Farmacy and was totally satisfied. I simply didn't have time to sit down for a normal meal.

Now, this isn’t some fad diet, or new vitamin pill company, this company understands the benefits of whole food nutrition and packages it so it makes it easy for you to incorporate into your life. If you eat your meals from real whole foods, you will regain your health, you will lose weight and you will improve your health and recapture that long lost youthful energy again.

Top athletes are using this as part of the pre-competition preparation strategy. It’s becoming very popular with marathon runners and especially tri-athletes. Because it’s pure whole food the way we were meant to eat it. It’s just in a nice little bag.

If your kids need something good to snack on, this is absolutely the thing for you. If you’ve been wondering how to regain your health, lose that weight that somehow showed up around your waist one day, then this is for you. The Whole Food Farmacy has 13-day cleanses to kick start your quest to regain your health. If you’ve hit a plateau in your weight loss, give this a try. It’s not a “diet”, it’s not a “fast”, you’re just bombarding your system with a lot of very dense-high nutritional value whole foods. Your body will thank you for it by getting back in balance again.

It’s easy, it’s tasty and it’s extremely good for you. As with anything, check the ingredients to make sure you don’t have any allergies to the foods and if you have any questions, make sure to check with your doctor about it.

I’ve set up a website so you can check out the company’s products and if you think this is the right time to regain your health, then join the wholesale club like I did and joint me in taking back your health and the health of your family. (It’s kind of like a Costco for their whole food products). Just go to: http://www.mywholefoodfarmacy.com/ and achieve your goals in your quest to regain your health.

So, as Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine said back in the “B.C.” days, “Let food be thy medicine and let medicine be thy food”.

Healthfully Yours,

DocT

Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Personal Space.....

Being a sports chiropractor I have the opportunity to meet people who are the stars of their sports fairly often. As I have been practicing now for 16+ years, I have seen people develop from "Am" to Pro-Am level, and into the stars they are today. It's always wonderful and exciting to meet someone new who is a "big deal" in the world of sports and this past weekend was no different.

But I'm amazed how the general public treats these people. It's like they are some type of commodity; like they have some right to invade their privacy without permission. I understand being a public figure opens you up to this to a degree, but, where is the line? Where has the general respect we should have for one and another gone?
Over the many years my wife and I have been in practice we have had the opportunity to work with some very very big name people but I promise you that you will never ever see a picture of them on our wall. Movie stars, top athletes from pro sports teams, actors, actresses, musicians, movie producers, huge heads of well known public companies, politicians etc...I could go on. Yet, you would never know it.

Some other patients who've been in the office at the time when these stars have been there know, they smile, they giggle, they are proud to be under the care of the same doctor, but it's not my place to tell or show it off. As a matter of fact, under Federal HIPPA privacy laws, it's illegal for me to do so. But even before those laws, I respected their privacy. That's just how I am.

This weekend I had the opportunity to meet the tennis champion Martina Navratilova. She was introduced to me by 2 mutual friends while in Orlando. Martina is as sweet as they come. She was wonderful to have a conversation with and just a "real" person. I had the chance to spend a little time with my friends Joanne & Val to catch up and during this time, people would come over, some politely, others not, and ask Martina for an autograph and a photo. She was gracious with the autographs but she (very) politely asked one particular person not to take a photo (as she was in the middle of eating). And they did anyway. I thought it was totally rude. She couldn't have been nicer to this putz. She graciously gave him her autograph but he wanted more. What an ass!

I have very good friends who are the chiropractors for the NFL, MLB or NBA team in their city. My brother-in-law David is the sports chiropractor for the PGA and has been for years. They don't go bragging. They don't pester people for autographs and pictures. They respect the privacy of these folks and just enjoy the opportunity to have worked with them. My G-d son's father was the chiropractor at the Torino Winter Olympics and he's as humble as they come (extremely excited, yet humble...when he got picked, I heard the scream all the way from Pinecrest to Miami Beach). A real professional and a real role model all of them.

So, if you are a member of the general public or a fellow health care professional, let's all be cool. Stop pestering these people and just enjoy the fact that you spent some time with them. If there is a connection, you'll eventually develop a friendship. After all, having a relationship with someone of this stature is much more valuable than having that cheesy snap-shot anyway.

If you really want a picture of Martina why don't you visit her new web site at: http://www.martinanavratilova.com/
If you really want to get to know someone like Martina, then get to know her passions and get involved with the charitable organizations she gets involved with herself.

If you want to strive to be a champion, then learn from the champion herself with her new fitness book. And, I'm sure that if you happen to be taking a stroll one day and see Martina and asked her to sign your copy of Shape Your Self, she would do it with a smile.

This is how you get to know someone. Not just a tennis champion, but anyone. If you are into creating valuable relationships in your life and enhancing the lives of those around you; try getting involved and giving first. Rather than creating a negative situation and being just another "taker" in life.
So, go ahead and take that cheesy snap shot. That's all you'll ever have. I on the other hand, had a nice conversation with Martina and her partner and found out what nice-wonderful people they are. I'll have that memory forever. You, whoever you are, have your cheesy 1.3 mega-pixel cellphone snapshot which you'll have until you drop your phone in the toilet the next time you tinkle...Whoops.
Ethics & Professionalism always matter.
'nuff said.
DocT

Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Natural Pain Relief For Chronic Aches & Pains

Well, there are many wonderful natural treatments available to those in chronic pain. Most people are sick and tired of taking medications that make them feel nausious, light-headed or sleepy. So if you know someone in chronic pain, and it's ruining their life, forward them this nice little piece on 14-Natural Pain Relievers

To get a little more high tech and closer to home, I'd have to add Therapeutic Laser and of course chiropractic adjustments to the list (Would be #1 & 2 if I wrote the original list). Chiropractic adjustments help restore spinal and peripheral joints (shoulder, elbows, wrists, fingers, knees, ankle and toes) back to normal movement patterns and, as a result of returning the joints to their proper working order, neurologic pain receptors in the joints are turned off causing a relief of pain. Laser Therapy has a whole host of incredible benefits that you can read more about in my earlier blog post on Laser Therapy

I loved some of the suggestions in this article though. And, if you or a friend has been in chronic pain, I know they' will be willing to ry just about anything, including baking cookies.

Try them and let me know if you found them useful.

DocT

Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.

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Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Stretching: Is It Good Or Bad? You Decide

I've been looking for this for a while now. I get questions about stretching and exercise all of the time. "Doc, should I stretch before I workout, after I work out or what?".... For those other "docs", therapists and trainers out there, I'm sure you get queried the same as do I.

So, I dug back into my old computer files on a hard drive that has been taken out of service. Brushed off the dust and cob webs and found this from an August 2004 report. Let's see if this doesn't change your mind about pre-exercise or pre-competition stretching....Enjoy.

By the way, the info is out of Medicine and Sports & Exercise, a peer reviewed journal, and the commentary that followed is by Warren T. Jahn, DC, MPS, FACO, DACBSP, DABFPBoard Certified Chiropractic Orthopedist, Sports Physician & Forensic Examiner. Warren, thank you for all the work you do for our profession. It's guys and gals like you that make me proud.

Aug. 20, 2004 — Stretching impairs balance and worsens reaction and movement times, according to the results of a controlled study published in the August issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. This could be problematic for elite athletes as well as for the elderly.

"Stretching is commonly utilized to increase the range of motion around the joint and theorized to improve athletic performance," write David G. Behm, PhD, from the Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada, and colleagues. "A number of studies report that acute and prolonged stretching may actually reduce human performance through decreases in force and power."
To investigate the effect of acute lower-limb static stretching on balance, proprioception, reaction, and movement time, 16 subjects were tested before and after both a static stretching of the quadriceps, hamstrings, and plantar flexors or a control condition of similar duration. Five minutes of cycle warm-up preceded both the stretch and control conditions. In the stretch condition, subjects performed three 45-second stretches to the point of discomfort with 15-second rest periods for each muscle group. Outcomes included maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVC) force of the leg extensors, static balance measured with a computerized wobble board, dominant lower-limb reaction and movement times, and the ability to match 30% and 50% MVC forces with and without visual feedback.

In the stretch and control conditions, decreases in MVC and ability to match submaximal forces were similar. Compared with the control condition, however, balance scores were worse in the stretch condition (9.2% vs 17.3%; P < .009). The stretch condition also resulted in prolonged reaction time (increase of +4.0% vs decrease of -5.8% for control) and movement time (+1.9% vs -5.7%; P < .01).

"It appears that an acute bout of stretching impaired the warm-up effect achieved under control conditions with balance and reaction/movement time," the authors write. "A warm-up consisting of general and specific activities related to the tasks may improve performance even after 20 minutes of recovery. Considering the minute differences between winning and losing in both individual and team sports as well as the precarious balance or stability of the elderly, the low but significant percentage changes in reaction time, movement time, and balance could result in serious consequences."
Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2004;36:1397-1402

Clinical Context: Stretching has been used to improve range of motion around joints and theorized to improve athletic performance. However, recent studies have not substantiated this claim. For example, Fowles and colleagues reported in the September 2000 issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology that stretching of a single muscle group for 15 to 30 minutes led to decreases in force and power attributable to impairments in neural output and changes in the musculo-tendinous unit (MTU). A more compliant MTU could alter reaction and movement times. Stretch-induced changes to either the afferent limb muscle responses or the mechanical output would affect the ability to adapt to stability changes, ie, balance.
The authors of this study postulated that even minor changes in reaction and movement times and balance associated with stretching could have important implications for athletic performance and rehabilitation. Instead of prolonged stretching of a single muscle group, as used in previous studies, the authors used an acute bout of static stretching on three lower-limb muscle groups to determine impact on reaction and movement times, balance, and strength in healthy male subjects.

Study Highlights:
16 healthy male subjects, mean age 24 years, weight 71 kg, and height 172 cm were selected to have pretest and posttest measurements before and after two interventions (stretching vs no stretching). Both interventions included a preintervention warm-up cycle of 5 minutes at 70 rpm on a cycle ergometer, submaximal and maximal leg extension contractions, 3 trials of rapid leg movement, and balance on a wobble board.

The active stretching intervention consisted of 3 stretches for 45 seconds each to the point of discomfort with 15-second rest periods for the quadriceps, hamstrings, and plantar flexors. The stretching lasted approximately 20 minutes in total.

The control intervention consisted of 20 minutes of rest. Pretesting and posttesting (each lasting 20 minutes) were conducted to measure the outcomes of (a) MVC force of the leg extensors, (b) static balance using a computerized wobble board, (c) movement and reaction times of the dominant lower limb, and (d) ability to match 30% and 50% MVC forces with and without visual feedback.

Day-to-day and test-retest reliability for the measurements ranged from 0.60 to 0.89. There was no significant difference in force output between the stretch and control interventions, with 6.9% and 5.6% decrement in force for the two interventions, respectively. There were no significant differences in the ability to match 30% and 50% MVC between the stretch and control interventions during the pretest and posttest. The control intervention resulted in a nonsignificant 18.8% and 10.7% greater accuracy for maintaining 30% and 50% MVC posttest.

Balance scores moved in opposite directions with the control intervention showing a significant improvement posttest (17.3% improvement; P < .05) and the stretch intervention showing a nonsignificant 2.2% decrease in balance score after stretching. The difference between the 2 interventions was significant at P < .009.

There were reverse trends for movement and reaction times for the two interventions. In the control group, both movement and reaction times improved posttest (5.8%; P = .16 for reaction time and 5.7%; P = .18 for movement time), whereas for the stretch intervention, movement and reaction times were nonsignificantly impaired by 4.0% and 1.9% poststretch, respectively.

Pearls for Practice:

  • Inserting a stretching routine within a rest period of a warm-up nullifies a small benefit in movement and reaction times and balance performance.
  • Stretching to the point of discomfort can adversely affect performance tests of static balance and movement and reaction times in healthy males.



The End...
Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.

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