1) Set a good example! There is no one your children will imitate more than you! Let them see you making smart choices, such as eating well and staying active!

2) Make healthy foods available to your children. Keep fruits and veggies in the house instead of sugary snacks. You can make it fun by planting a garden, or letting your children help pick out their own produce at the store.

3) Encourage your children to play sports and be active! Invest in some sports gear or team sports for your child. Engaging in athletic activities can help reduce stress and help build confidence at any age.

4) Teach your children what you know about health, whether it be about vitamins, yoga poses, the cardiovascular system, food labels etc. They will remember the experience even if they don’t always seem interested.

5) Be active together! Make it fun! Go explore, hike in the woods, play tennis, go swimming etc. Keep your priorities in order and remember that you don’t get these years and opportunities back! Turn off that tv or computer, and take your children for a walk!

What can help?

- Chiropractic Care: Studies have also shown that chiropractic adjustments can be an effective form of treatment for certain types of headaches.
- Life Style Changes:  If stress is your “trigger” for tension or other types of headaches, try exercise, yoga, or other types of relaxing activities. They might help reduce your stress levels, and headaches.
- Hydration: Yes, this has become a common occurrence in our blogs, but we can not stress enough the importance of staying properly hydrated.  By drinking 6-8 glasses of water a day you can reduce the chances of becoming dehydrated and thus decrease the chances of suffering headaches.
- Diet: Sometimes, especially with migraine headaches, there can be a certain food that can trigger a headache.  Try to identify types of food that trigger your headaches and then try to avoid them as best you can.

It is very important for the chiropractor to do a thorough history and exam on a patient experiencing headaches, so that a proper diagnosis can be made. In some cases where headaches are “sudden and severe”, occur after trauma/injury, or cause nausea or vomiting, an immediate referral to the emergency room is required.  If you suffer from headaches come in for your free spinal exam and free chiropractic treatment to help you get on the road to wellness.

An important thing to understand is that sciatica is a symptom of a problem — of something compressing or irritating the nerve roots that comprise the sciatic nerve — rather than a medical diagnosis or medical disorder in and of itself. This is an important distinction because it is the underlying diagnosis (vs. the symptoms of sciatica) that often needs to be treated in order to relieve sciatic nerve pain.

Chiropractic adjustments along with muscular rehab are very successful in the correction and relief of sciatica.

One study published this month in the Archives of Internal Medicine looked at the health and eating habits of over 100,000 Americans through the course of more than 20 years.  Death rates from cardiovascular disease and cancer were collected and compared to other health and diet measures.

The results of this study found that, on average, every 1 serving per day of red meat increased each person’s risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 18% and risk of death from cancer by 10%.  The authors conclude that substituting 1 serving per day of red meat with a healthier protein source (for example fish, nuts, or legumes) can offer an even greater protective benefit against these fatal diseases.

Therefore the results of this study strongly suggest that red meat is an unhealthy choice of protein to be regularly included in our diets, and high intakes over a lifetime puts people at a significantly greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease or cancer.

In a recent edition of the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, Kevin deWeber, MD, FAAFP, Mariusz Olszewski, MD and Rebecca Ortolano, MD put this old wives tale to the test. In an article based on original research-entitled Knuckle Cracking and Hand Osteoarthritis, their conclusions were somewhat surprising to some, but not to me.

It’s not too technical and very interesting to find out that there is actually no correlation between cracking your knuckles and getting arthritis.  For those that also ask about why your joints make that cracking sound, you’ll also find your answer in this report of their original research.

This month the journal “Annals of Internal Medicine” published a study comparing the effectiveness of chiropractic adjustments, medication, and exercise for subacute neck pain.  In this study, over 300 people with neck pain were divided into three groups for a 12 week course of treatment.  One group received chiropractic adjustments.  The second group received medication as prescribed by a medical doctor.  The third group was assigned a series of home exercises to complete.  After 12 weeks pain levels and functional measurements were taken and follow up measurements were also recorded 6 months and 1 year following the end of the treatment.

The results of this study found that both chiropractic adjustment and the exercise groups did better than the medication group.  However, the chiropractic adjustment group did the best overall and was significantly better than the medication group.  Also, the most serious side effects were seen in the medication group, with 60% of patients reporting side effects of some kind.

Therefore the conclusions of this study suggest that chiropractic adjustments are the safest and most effective treatment for subacute neck pain, followed closely by exercise. So if you can’t get rid of that pain in your neck on your own, chiropractic adjustments can help you get to the root of the problem.

1. Bronfort G, Evans R,AndersonAV, Svendsen KH, Bracha Y, Grimm RH. Spinal manipulation, medication, or home exercise with advice for acute and subacute neck pain: a randomized trial. Ann Intern Med. 2012 Jan 3;156(1 Pt 1):1-10.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ne-patriots-and-ny-giants-the-essential-role-of-chiropractic-care-to-super-bowl-xlvi-2012-02-01