Water

10 Great Reasons to Stay Hydrated!

Water is essential to life. Our bodies are already 60%-70% water, and those reserves need to be replenished on a daily basis to keep us healthy. Add either extreme heat or extreme cold (both of which dehydrate us), and drinking enough water becomes even more critical.
Exactly how much water we should drink each day is an open question. As reported by the Mayo Clinic, the Institute of Medicine has determined that adequate water intake per day is roughly 3 liters (about 13 cups) for men and 2.2 liters (about 9 cups) for women. Some sources recommend more, some less, but there seems to be no question within the healthcare community that many of us should be drinking more water than we are. Here are a few reasons why:
1. Water curbs your appetite, and contains zero calories. Both of these reasons should have some appeal to you whether you’re actively trying to lose a few pounds or just trying to maintain a healthy weight. Studies have shown that often when people think they’re hungry, they’re really thirsty.
2. Water increases your energy levels. Studies have indicated that a cup of water can be more effective at boosting your energy levels than a cup of coffee. One suspected reason for this is that our perception of fatigue is often caused more by dehydration than actually being tired.
3. Water is good for your skin. Rather than investing in expensive creams and lotions, why not invest in a few more glasses of water per day? They will help to keep your skin healthy, radiant, and glowing. And it’s a lot less expensive than anything you could buy at the cosmetics counter.
4. Water increases your brain power. According to a study in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, subjects who drank a glass of water before performing a series of cognitive tasks reacted faster and thought more clearly than subjects who did not.
5. Water helps maintain the balance of your other bodily fluids. You lose moisture daily via sweat and other excretions. Similarly, your blood, lymph, and intestinal fluids become depleted, and must be replenished with a proper intake of water.
6. Water improves your moods. Although there are many causes of depression, headaches, irritability, and fatigue, one of the most common is dehydration. When your body becomes low on water, your blood vessels dilate, causing all of these symptoms. Increasing your daily intake of water can counter and reverse them.
7. Water lowers your risk of heart attack. When your arteries and veins become clogged with plaque, you increase your likelihood of heart disease—one of the most effective ways of preventing this buildup of plaque is to remain properly hydrated. A study in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that drinking more water was positively associated with a decrease in the risk of coronary heart disease. Drinking liquids other than water increased this risk, according to the same study.
8. Water can keep your joints lubricated, too. The fluid that keeps your joints functioning properly and that keeps your bones from rubbing against each other becomes depleted when you are dehydrated. Drinking more water prevents this.
9. Water improves your digestion. Your ability to digest your food depends on the proper functioning of a series of enzymes in your intestinal tract. The “delivery mechanism” for these enzymes is water—don’t get enough of it, and your ability to digest and assimilate nutrients in your food breaks down.
10. Water even prevents fluid retention. This sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s true. Dehydration causes the body to retain water, because it thinks there is a critical lack of it. Drinking more water actually causes your body to stop retaining it.

Food as Medicine: Close-Up on Ginger

 

Hippocrates gave good advice when he said “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.” What we eat has a major effect on our health and well-being. One of the healthiest foods is ginger, which has been recognized for certain healing properties since ancient times. Ginger has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for over 2000 years.
Traditionally, ginger has been used to treat nausea and diarrhea, motion sickness and morning sickness (which is why pregnant women and those with stomach aches are advised to sip ginger ale). In addition to improving circulation and reducing arthritis and muscle pain, there is also evidence suggesting that ginger may be helpful in addressing a number of other health issues, including the following:
Colon and ovarian cancer – As a powerful anti-inflammatory, a study performed by researchers at the University of Michigan medical school found that ginger reduced inflammatory markers in the colon, which are a precursor to colon cancer. In addition, when ovarian cancer cells were exposed to ginger they either committed suicide or devoured themselves. Ginger also helps keep cancer cells from becoming resistant to cancer treatment and reduces chemotherapy associated nausea by up to 40% when taken with anti-vomiting medication.
High blood pressure – Thai researchers from Chiang Mai University found ginger extract to be more effective than medication in reducing hypertension in laboratory rats.
Asthma – When purified elements of ginger were used in conjunction with the asthma medication isoproterenol, the airway smooth muscle that contracts during an asthma attack relaxed far more than when the isoproterenol alone was used. Ginger seems to have a synergistic effect on this anti-asthma medication.
Muscle pain – Taking a daily ginger supplement can reduce muscle pain caused by exercise by up to 25%, according to researchers at the University of Georgia. And over 80% of women who have painful menstrual periods can benefit from ginger supplements as well, if taken during the first three days of their period.
Migraine headache – The results of an Iranian study published in the journal Phytotherapy Research found that ginger powder is as effective as the medication sumatriptan, which is commonly used to treat migraine pain.
Liver damage caused by acetaminophen – It is commonly known that taking large amounts of Tylenol (acetaminophen) or taking it for an extended period can cause liver damage. But researchers have found that pre-treatments with ginger or taking ginger along with acetaminophen can reduce the incidence of liver damage.
Always speak with your doctor before taking ginger, since it can interact with other medications (particularly blood thinners). But including more ginger in your diet can be a great natural way of keeping healthy while adding flavor to your meals.

Your Teenager and Back Pain: Why Manual Therapy is the Best Option

Low back pain is a condition that affects more than 600 million people worldwide, including over a third of all Americans. This number exceeds the number of people affected by diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined. The financial burden (medical care plus lost productivity) caused by chronic lower back pain in America exceeds $550 billion annually.
That said, one of the saddest aspects of chronic lower back pain is that it doesn’t only affect adults. It also affects children and people in their teens and early twenties. And a number of studies have indicated that lower back pain in adolescents is strongly associated with the development of chronic lower back pain later in life. The good news, however, is that those adolescents who have been successfully treated to eliminate lower back pain in their youth have a lower risk of developing chronic lower back pain as they grow older.
So it’s natural that the medical community is interested in which treatments can be considered “successful” in terms of eliminating the lower back pain itself, and helping to prevent it from reoccurring. This interest led to a recent study. The aim of the study was to determine which of the commonly-available treatment methodologies were most effective.
Their findings were both strong and definitive. Of all the treatment methodologies used in the individual studies, the ones most effective in producing short-term and long-term positive outcomes were treatments provided by “hands on” practitioners such as chiropractors, osteopaths, and physical therapists.
These therapies, commonly involving joint and spinal manipulation and ultrasound treatment to reduce pain, were subjectively found to be more effective by the patients than other treatments. The patients’ subjective analysis was confirmed in most of the studies by clinician assessments. Naturally, these “manual therapy” treatment options were preferable in many other ways as well, because they avoided reliance on potentially addictive painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin, epidural steroid injections, and surgery.

These findings confirm what we have observed in our own clinic. Over the years, we have seen many patients (of all ages) benefit from the manual therapies we use to provide relief for their lower back pain. So if you (or your children) experience lower back pain—whether occasional or chronic—contact us and we can explain to you the treatment options available, and what they can do to relieve your symptoms and allow you to enjoy life free from pain once again.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Brain Health

Omega-3 fatty acids are polyunsaturated fatty acids that are deemed “essential” because they fall into a category of nutrients that the body needs, but cannot synthesize in sufficient quantities by itself. They must be consumed in our foods or in the form of supplements so the body receives enough omega-3 to meet its needs.
Recent research is indicating that, in addition to the well-known benefits of omega-3 fatty acids for the cardiovascular system and other organs, they’re pretty essential in keeping our brains healthy too. This suggests that they may also play a significant role in our cognitive development and mental health. One of the reasons for this may be the presence in omega-3 fatty acids of docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA. DHA has been identified as an important nutrient responsible for proper brain development and optimal brain function.
Studies have linked omega-3 fatty acids and DHA to improvement of symptoms of depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, and other studies have found that children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) tend to have low levels of omega-3 fatty acids. A number of recent studies have found that reduced intake of omega-3 fatty acids is strongly associated with cognitive decline and dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists in these studies have hypothesized that omega-3 fatty acids and DHA provide a kind of protective barrier against Alzheimer’s.
In a more recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience in February 2014, researchers found that DHA may even be a major factor in how our brains are created in the first place. In the study, monkeys fed a lifelong diet high in omega-3 fatty acids and DHA were found to have brains with highly connected and well-organized neural networks, similar to those of humans. At the same time, monkeys raised on a lifelong diet low in omega-3/DHA had much more limited brain networking.
A study published in the journal Neurology in January 2014 also found links between omega-3 fatty acids and brain volumes in humans. In the study, more than 1000 post-menopausal women had blood samples drawn and MRI scans taken at the start of the study, and then 8 years later. The data indicated that overall brain size was smaller in women in the lowest quartile of omega-3 levels, compared to women in the highest quartile. It also indicated that the hippocampus—the area of the brain in charge of cognitive function—was significantly smaller in the brains of the women in the lowest omega-3 level quartile. As one of the researchers phrased it, “…when we look at the whole picture, omega-3 fatty acids are a major component of brain tissue and they are metabolized to anti-inflammatory compounds that could reduce brain cell death. We can certainly make a good story to support the idea that omega-3 fatty acids are good for the brain.”
So if you’re concerned about keeping your brain as healthy as possible and preventing its decline as you age, adding more omega-3 fatty acids to your diet may be part of the answer!

 

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

The healing process is a lot like the stock market. There are good days and bad days. You will likely have some ups and downs, rather than a straight line back to good health. If we work together to maximize the benefits you receive from Chiropractic, I’m optimistic that you will start having more good days and less bad. Remember this, as you are improving under care and then out of nowhere things feel a little worse. Don’t worry, I have seen lots of patients over the years who seem to take two steps forward, then one step back. Many times they take another three or four steps forward again. If you can handle the temporary setbacks, I’m pretty sure you will do great under Chiropractic care.

Stages of Healing

There are 3 stages to getting better and staying that way, which are Correction, Rehabilitation, and Prevention. Correction is adjustments and therapies that work together to put things back into order. During this time your appointments are more frequent, and the pain starts to lessen. Rehabilitation is then used to strengthen the spine in this correction. This is where people usually feel a second acceleration back toward health. Prevention is just a matter of keeping things in order or holding your adjustments, and keeping your body strong and healthy. Click here to watch this weeks video that is all about these 3 stages.

I’ve got your back

Since becoming a Doctor of Chiropractic back in 1998, I have treated thousands of cases of back and neck pain. While no two individuals are exactly alike, I have noticed some similarities between people with the same type of conditions. I have not been able to help every single patient that has come in for care, but in most cases there is improvement or complete recovery. It takes teamwork, and if we work together well, you should be feeling better in no time. Keep up the good work!

 

Welcome To Badger Chiropractic

 

Ready, set, GROW! We want to thank you for choosing Badger Chiropractic for your back care needs.  After your first visit, you may have some sore spots. Don’t let that alarm you, joints that have been stuck for a while will some times be sore when they are freed up with an adjustment. It is a lot like going to the gym for the first time. painful joints are also usually swollen and very inflamed. A couple ways to reduce the soreness after your first few adjustments, are to drink plenty of water and apply an ice pack to the treated areas to reduce inflammation. Icing once or twice a day for 15 minutes is what I generally recommend. . The body is designed to be healthy. Here is a short video segment that helps explain the body and how it falls out of health as we age. Click here to watch our Welcome Video

How much Chiropractic Care do I need? Everyone is different and depending on your condition you may require more or less care to achieve your health goals. Here are my general recommendations based on how you feel. Severe Pain– 2x’s per week or more  Mild to Moderate Pain– 1x per week or more No pain, but not my best- 1x every other week Feeling great (Maintenance) – 1x per month