Pcmclinic Blogs

Developing and maintaining body balance is very important to mobility and muscle activation. This link to the article will get you headed in the right direction. I recommend everyone do these exercises, both young and old, to keep good balance and body awareness.

http://www.toyourhealth.com/mpacms/tyh/article.php?id=1296

A recent article from the April 26, 2010 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine reports that poor lifestyle behaviors can increase your risk of death by up to 4 times that of good lifestyle behaviors. The 4 health behaviors they looked at  are:

1. smoking

2. fruits and vegetables consumed less than 3 times a day

3. less than 2 hours of physical activity a week

4. weekly consumption of excessive alcohol (greater than 112g for women and 168g for men)

They followed 4,886 people for 20 years. They report that the more of these behaviors you have the greater the risk of death. Individuals with all 4 behaviors had about 3 times the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease or cancer, 4 times the risk of dying from other causes, and an overall death risk equivalent to being 12 years older than those with none of these behaviors.

These lifestyle behaviors are totally within our control. We need to take better care of our bodies and the result will be a  painfree and illness free life. Who wouldn’t want that? So get up and get moving, eat your fruits and veggies, stop smoking and drinking and one more I will add is minimize you sugar intake! Yes, better health is that easy!

Watching TV may not kill you immediately, its more of a prolonged, slow death.  According to research from Australia an increased time spent watching TV is associated with higher death rate in general and an increase in cardiovascular(heart) related deaths. This research is from the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle study. Why? Its the sedentary lifestyle and poor nutritional habits. They report that each hour spent in front of the television daily was associated with an 18% increased risk of cardiovascular disease deaths and 11% increase for all causes of death. Those who watched 4 or more hours of  TV a day had an 80% increase in cardiovascular related deaths and a 46% higher risk of death for all causes. Yikes! This is an area we have control over in our lifestyles. It is our choice and we are completely accountable to it. Did we really need a study to tell us this? Obviously not-but it is good to get a smack in the face wake up call once in a while. Sometimes the cold hard data is what we need to spur us on to better behavior. This was a huge study of 8,800 participants that were followed over 7 years. Those with a previous heart problems or stroke were not included.

What do we do about it? Like my kids say “well duh!”   Get moving, eat better and sleep well!  Nobody gets fat eating fruits and veggies!

With all the research on the bad health effects of sugar, here is another study from Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention. It states that people who drank 2 or more soft drinks a week had an increased risk of pancreatic cancer. This cancer is very aggressive with less than 5 percent surviving 5 years after diagnosis. This is 2 soft drinks a week-most people have 2 a day or more! Sugar is linked to many health problems including obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Sugar is everywhere and we are addicted to it! The average person consumes 156 pounds of sugar per year. This is up from 20 pounds a year 20 years ago. It is found in all foods that most of us eat daily. I say addicted because it acts on the brain and neuroreceptors just like heroin and cocaine do. I recommend going off sugar for 2 weeks and see what reaction you have. Most of our patients have withdrawal symptoms the first week and feel terrible. But  after that they have a huge improvement in energy and overall health. We teach our patients to stay off sugar and eat fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds, and lean meats(chicken, turkey, fish).
So get off sugar, eat better, get moving and sleep well.

We hope all our patients and friends have a wonderful holiday season. January will be a great time to get back on track with good nutrition and exercise. Come in and we will help you get a quick healthy start to the new year.