Americans have collectively become the largest nation in the world in a very short time. On a BMI (body mass index) basis 60% of Americans are overweight.

A significant increase in obesity among Americans under the age of 21 y/o has occurred and this is trending upwards. There are a number of very important issues that need to be discussed.

Well, the most obvious is that you look better and you probably will get more dates, more gifts and nicer gifts if you are thin. You probably will have lower blood pressure, less chance of getting diabetes and will live a lot longer.

So, what are the facts?

Americans with a BMI (you will be sick of this term pretty soon) of greater than 30 have a three fold increase in diabetes a four fold chance of having hypertension, a 7 year decrease in life expectancy etc. etc.

Get the picture?

True or False: It’s Good to Be Thin and Bad to Be Fat

That actually is not totally true and that is why you need to keep reading.

We all know that it is healthier to be the “correct” weight. You, as a reader, have heard it all.” Diet’s don’t work”, “it’s a lifestyle change”, “take these pills and you don’t need to exercise” eat this and don’t eat that.

The truth is, weight is modulated by a very complicated mechanism that is made up of central information(your brain), peripheral information(your stomach receptors), blood sugar responses, and many feedback systems controlling hunger , energy levels, mood and well being.

It would be easy to just quit eating carbohydrates or just eat pickles for 6 years or eat grapefruit all day. We would all look like Cameron Diaz.

Too bad, it doesn’t work that way. We can’t eat the same things every day and we can’t cut out major food groups forever.

The Diet Everyone Has Tried (and Failed At)

Everyone has probably tried the Atkins low carb, eat lots of fat diet. This Atkins diet is a short term miracle. You eat low carb food, you eat steak and cheese, all you want and you lose weight.

And the truth is you do lose weight.

Short term.

The first thing you lose is water weight. Quite simply, when you start to eat less you start to urinate out excess water. You don’t lose fat and you don’t increase lean body mass.

Just like when you eat too much salt, you need to drink lots of water, when you don’t eat salt or much food one must discard all of that water. Early in every calorie reduction diet we lose water to match the sodium in our diet as well as the other nutrients that require dilution.

After the initial water loss you start to lose caloric weight which can be muscle or fat. We want to lose fat and keep our lean body mass or muscle. After short term water weight loss, there is real weight loss on the Atkins diet.

Why the Atkins Will Never Be Successful

But it is very hard to maintain a diet that discards a whole food group, especially a food group you need. It is also difficult to acclimate to this diet basesd on such low carbs early on. You will be tired, cranky and have very little energy.

I have researched the makeup of diets, weight loss and gain, and the natural health of dieting. If you start a diet and you have to spill Ketones in your urine for it to be successful, it’s probably not a very good idea.

In medical school at the University of Miami they taught me that spilling Ketones means you are sick and have to be admitted to the hospital, I don’t think this should be a component of your diet.

We want to be healthier and thinner, but not admitted to a hospital.

Will discuss lifestyle in the next post on this series.

Dr. Rick Lehman is a distinguished orthopedic surgeon in St. Louis, Missouri and an articular cartilage reconstruction pioneer. He owns U. S. Sports Medicine in Kirkwood, MO, and LehmanHealth. Learn more about Dr. Rick.

We’ve known for a long time that texting is hazardous when you also try to multi-task, like walking down a busy London street, but we are now seeing more direct injuries to people from what’s been called excessive texting.

And the problem is only going to get worse.

What Is Excessive Texting? And Who Is At Risk?

Excessive texting is sending 3,000 to 10,000 a month. That breaks down to over 100 to 300 a day, which is typically done in a 16 hour period, if we calculate for the time that people sleep.

But it’s not just the texters who are at risk. This is also true for gamers. As I explained in a recent interview with Fox News [Texting Can Be Dangerous to Your Bones], wWhat exacerbates the problem is that teenagers are texting all day and then coming home to play games all night.

This is why I’m seeing teenagers come into my office with growth plate damage to their hands. Parents are giving young children, 10 and 11 years old, phones, while their bones are still growing…and then they are texting all day, leading other injuries like tendinitis and stress fractures. [Read my The Dangers of Stress Fractures to Young Adults for more on this issue.[

Is Bone Damage Due to Excessive Texting Permanent?

All the injuries that I usually see–the trigger finger with the clicking of the finger–when teenagers walk into my office are reversible. You just have to get the teenager to stop texting or gaming. Will they do that forever? Not likely. So they’ll eventually pick it back up and re-injure their bones.

Unfortunately I’ve seen too many growth plate issues in teenagers that are not irreversible. I’ve seen actual bone changes and growth plate changes. These 10 and 11 year olds are getting phones as the bone is still growing in their hands, which leads to damage.

How Do You Prevent These Injuries?

The only prevention is to stop texting–or severely limit use. But like I said above, that’s not going to happen.

The companies that make the phones need to design them so that the buttons are actually bigger, but that’s also not likely to happen because the trend is to making the phone smaller.

The buttons also need to be easier to push, so that the compressing is not so difficult. Voice-activated texting is also an option, something like Siri for iPhones.

If you have a teenager who is complaining about pain or aches in his or her fingers, visit your doctor immediately.

Dr. Rick Lehman is a distinguished orthopedic surgeon in St. Louis, Missouri and an articular cartilage reconstruction pioneer. He owns U. S. Sports Medicine in Kirkwood, MO, and LehmanHealth. Learn more about Dr. Rick.

You decide to start a new work out routine to get in shape for the new year, go to the gym and work out hard. You leave feeling great and you are on your way to a great year of taking care of yourself. Then you wake up the next day and are absolutely miserable. Your muscles are stiff and sore and you are in abject pain. In fact, you are so miserable you have to call off work.

The muscles that usually are sore are the bigger muscles, like the chest, thighs and deltoids.

Simple Routine to Prevent Muscle Soreness

How do you prevent sore muscles? This routine will help you.

• Before your work out, 20 to 30 minutes, make sure you take 1-2 an anti-inflammatory like ibuprofen.
• Stretch just a little.
• During your workout take 1-2 anti-inflammatory.
• Drink plenty of fluids during and after your work out. Not water, but a sports drink like Gatorade.
• After your workout, stretch a lot.
• Before you go to bad, take 1-2 anti-inflammatory.

This may seem like a lot of ibuprofen, but don’t worry…it won’t hurt your liver. It really is only 800 to 1,000 milligrams and besides you will be washing a lot of it out by all the fluids you are drinking.

What’s critical about this routine is the anti-inflammatory intake, stretching after you work out and the consumption of fluids. Also, you must ease into your workout program. Start lightly and pick up the pace over a 8-10 day period.

And never forget to consult with your doctor before you start to workout, especially if you have joint problems, heart problems or back problems.

And if you are in pain longer than a few days after a workout, or have pains that don’t seem right, contact your doctor right away, in case you are suffering from a heart attack or stroke.

Dr. Rick Lehman is a distinguished orthopedic surgeon in St. Louis, Missouri and an articular cartilage reconstruction pioneer. He owns U. S. Sports Medicine in Kirkwood, MO, and LehmanHealth. Learn more about Dr. Rick.

If you think about it, this is kind of a hot topic since conventional wisdom (your mother) says that cracking your knuckles is bad.

So why do people think that cracking your knuckles is bad? The reason that people think it is bad is based upon two concerns: one, you’ll get arthritis and two your knuckles will swell.

When it comes to getting arthritis, the science just isn’t there. We’ve tried to look at this issue from both sides, following hundreds of people who crack their knuckles to see if they develop arthritis later in life and looking at those who have arthritis to see if they cracked their knuckles.

None of the studies make any kind of conclusive connection.

Cracking Your Knuckles Causes Swelling

In regards to making your joints swell, now, there is some truth to this. What happens when you crack your knuckles is you are forcing air out of the fluid in your joints. That’s the popping noise you hear.

The reason most people crack their knuckles is because it feels good because you are actually making room in your knuckles, so you are relieving negative pressure. Any time you relieve pressure, it feels good.

However, crack your knuckles enough time and you will experience some inflammation and swelling, making it difficult to remove a ring from your finger.

Cracking Joints and Chiropractors

What’s interesting about the  idea that knuckle cracking leads to arthritis is that chiropractors pop your joints…whether in your back or neck. Why aren’t we concerned that this might lead to arthritis?

Well, maybe your mother does believe that a visit to the chiropractor is equivalent to getting arthritis, but  trust me, chiropractors know what they are doing. For every pop in the back and crick in the neck adjusted out of your body, you will be feeling better both physically and mentally since you know you won’t be getting arthritis.

The work of a chiropractor will help align  your joints and bones, but again, you can suffer from inflammation and swelling, but that’s it. A few ibuprofen and you’ll be fine in a day.

When Knuckle-Cracking Is Bad

About the only time that cracking your knuckles is bad is when it becomes an addictive habit. You can develop some pretty bizarre ways to crack your knuckles, and while that may get you noticed on YouTube, it’s pretty disgusting. Don’t do it when you have company.

The noise enough can make your company’s skin crawl.

Dr. Rick Lehman is a distinguished orthopedic surgeon in St. Louis, Missouri and an articular cartilage reconstruction pioneer. He owns U. S. Sports Medicine in Kirkwood, MO, and LehmanHealth. Learn more about Dr. Rick.

Whether you injure your ACL playing sports or from a fall at work, you need to know all you can about to make the best decisions about your injury. This short guide will hopefully help you.

Torn ACL: 4 Things You Should Know

When it comes to sports injuries, an ACL tear can be one of the worst one injury you can get to your knee. But it really depends on the severity. Here are four quick facts you should know about a torn ACL that can help you determine such questions as “How bad is the injury?”

7 Self-Administring Tests to Know If You’ve Injured Your ACL

Anterior cruciate ligament. ACL for short. It’s the ligament that runs up from your shin bone and passes through the middle of the knee, attaching itself to the bony part of the femur, or thigh bone. It’s not very big. Less than an inch and a half long and half an inch wide.

Can You Return to Top Performance After ACL Surgery?

The world of sports is full of miracles. This so-called miracle usually involves the underdog upsetting the favorite in an improbable comeback, but most of the time when the word “miracle” is used to describe some aspect of sports, it’s sensational, exaggerated and flat-out overblown until now.

Football Players: How to Prevent ACL Injuries

A torn ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) is arguably the worst injury a football player could suffer. It usually ends the player’s season and can even put their careers in jeopardy.  Even after surgery, the chances are slim that a player can reach prior levels of performance.

What Hockey Players Should Know about ACL Tears

Hockey is not as brutal on the body as football, where full contact is possible on every down, but due to the high-speed collisions on a rink, a hockey player can find himself suffering from a serious knee injury like an ACL tear.

What Is a Successful ACL Reconstruction Surgery?

Minnesota Vikings Pro Bowl running back Adrian Peterson suffered a season-ending injury in his game with the Washington Redskins last Saturday. Fortunately for him and the Vikings, who weren’t in playoff contention to begin with, there is only one game left in the season.

Dr. Rick Lehman is a distinguished orthopedic surgeon in St. Louis, Missouri and an articular cartilage reconstruction pioneer. He owns U. S. Sports Medicine in Kirkwood, MO, and LehmanHealth. Learn more about Dr. Rick.

Dr. Lehman – Cracking Your Knuckles

Is Yoga bad for you? This centuries old practice is coming under fire. Some critics say it’s dangerous and could cause injuries. Orthopedic Surgeion Dr. Richard Lehman from the U.S. Center for Sports Medicine in Kirkwood talks about the growing controversy.

The New England Patriots have over 15 players who are probable or doubtful. I’ll share who those are in a minute because they don’t matter as nearly as much as the injury to Rob Grankowski.

In the AFC match up against the Ravens he tweaked his ankle, suffering the same injury that Sam Bradford suffered in the regular season: high ankle sprain.

If you remember, Sam was out for about four weeks, tried to come back in for two, played miserably and then sat out for the rest of the season. Grankowski is expected to play, but you have to wonder how effective he will be.

He came back into that game against the Ravens about five minutes after he injured it, but was held out of practice on Thursday and Friday and was seen walking around in a boot. Next week we’ll see if he gets out and practices.

Here’s the full list for the Patriots of players who are questionable:

• WR Deion Branch (knee)
• OT Marcus Cannon (ankle)
• S Patrick Chung (knee)
• LB Dane Fletcher (thumb)
• S James Ihedigbo (shoulder)
• DL Kyle Love (anke)
• G Logan Mankins (knee)
• LB Rob Ninkovich (hip)
• OT Nate Solder (concussion)
• Brandon Spikes (knee)
• OT Sebastian Vollmer (back/foot)
• WR Wes Welker (knee)
• LB Tracy White (abdomen).

And these players were probable:

• C Dan Connolly (groin)
• WR Matthew Slater (shoulder)

Dr. Rick Lehman is a distinguished orthopedic surgeon in St. Louis, Missouri and an articular cartilage reconstruction pioneer. He owns U. S. Sports Medicine in Kirkwood, MO, and LehmanHealth. Learn more about Dr. Rick.