ACA News – April 2014 : The Fascial System Is a Sensory Organ

What is Fascia?  Why is it important in normal muscular functioning?  Check out this article to learn more!



ACA News – April 2014 : The Fascial System Is a Sensory Organ

Eat More Fat to lose more Fat

Thank goodness the 1980’s high-carb low-protein diet fads are over; unfortunately the damage was done.  Americans were fatter than ever.  Then came the 1990’s high-protein low-carb non-fat fads, which are still in full affect today, but what affect have they had?  You guessed it, Americans are fatter than ever.  There is no single thing to take the blame though, it is a mixture of imbalanced diet, complete lack of exercise, high stress (chemical and emotional) leading to hormone imbalances that result in increased fat storage in the body.  

But fats have gotten a bad reputation in the process.  Let’s talk about coconut oil.

Coconut oil is a good source of MCT (medium chain triglyceride), in fact over 50% of its fact content is MCT.  Why does that matter?  The body handles them differently, using the portal system in the body instead of the lymphatic system or bile salts for absorption.  They differ from LCT (long chain triglycerides) in that MCT have a shorter chain length making them a readily available cellular energy source for the body.  MCT do not have essential fatty acids, therefore are normally on 50-70% of dietary fat.  There is some evidence that suggests that absorption of LCT may be improved if combined with MCT.

Some research suggests that MCT, when substituted in diet for other fats, improves metabolic rate and energy expenditure.  This combined with the increased satiety that MCT provides, naturally leads to decreased body fat.  Two studies with MCT replacing corn oil and soybean oil, showed a significant reduction in body mass and body weight, one study included exercise and one study excluded exercise.  This suggests MCT may have a significant influence on weight management.

Other benefits of MCT in the diet include promoting healthy cholesterol levels in normal range, having positive effects on triglyceride levels as shown in separate studies.  MCT also, according to research, to promote healthy heart function and brain health via supporting heart energy generation.

How do you use oils in your kitchen?  Well, just about any oil can be used room temperature and added to a smoothie and you would not even taste it.  If you are not a smoothie drinker, here is a guide to cook by: Table for Best Temperature Cooking with Oils

1.       Olive oil – do not heat at all, it denatures the fatty acids and loses all its health benefits 

2.       Coconut oil – use with low to medium heat, like sauté and stir-fry applications 

3.       Grapeseed oil – great for high heat applications

Coconut oil is becoming more available in local grocers in metropolitan areas, so it is easily found.  If you are specifically having a health issue and need a high quality product, let me know and I can special order you some for you.  Coconut Oil I recommend

Grab a spoonful of coconut oil and enjoy!

How many Apples a Day to Keep the Doctor Away?

Your Nutrition has gaps, big gaps.

More and more studies are finding that an apple today has significantly less nutritional value than it did 50 years ago.   

Some say 1/10^th, some say 1/30^th, and there are those that say it would take 50 apples today to equal the same nutrition as one apple in 1950 had.  So what are the possible causes?  Crops planted too close together, improper crop rotation, over-fertilization, genetic modification of food (bigger, brighter, resistant to more bugs), etc.  The list can go on and on. 

Nutritional Value of Food at Risk

Are Fruits and Vegetables Less Nutritious?

Breeding Nutrition out of food  

So why is that important to you? 

Say you do the right thing, and eat an apple a day. 

• With less vitamins and minerals in that apple, when your body digests that apple into chemicals your body uses, you are getting less building blocks for your body to build new healthy cells. 
• The less healthy cells you can make, the more time elapses before the diseased, broken, and old cells can be replaced. 
• The longer the diseased, broken, and old cells are in your body, the longer they can damage your body. 
• The more damage your body sustains on a cellular level, the more susceptible you are to diseases wreaking havoc on your body and causing illness.
• The more illness you have the less time you have before your body gives out, not to mention the reduction in quality of life.

What I am saying is that “an apple a day to keep the doctor away” is nowhere close to enough nutrition for your body.  So you have two options, you can eat 10-50 times the amount of fruits and vegetables that you are currently eating (highly difficult and enormously expensive) or you can use supplements to fill in the gaps in nutrition.  Now a word to the wise with supplementation, if you are trying to replace whole-food nutritional deficiencies, using a synthetic multivitamin is not the best choice. 

I look at vitamins like I look at cars.  

If you take a new car, running beautifully, and disassemble it down to the nuts and bolts and then reassemble it, the car will never run as good as it did before you disassembled it.  The same is true for nutrition, if you get a well-functioning food, strip it down to it’s building blocks, then put it back together, the highly valuable natural organization and orientation is lost.  Your body knows how to use nutrition in it’s natural state, it does not know how to absorb synthetic nutrition.  That is why you have to take 3000% Vitamin C in synthetic form to absorb a recommended daily amount. 

That is why whole-food nutritional supplementation is necessary.  And that is why I recommend Juice Plus.  I have been a personal user since 1995 and when I moved to Nashville, I did not have anyone to refer my patients to, so I became a distributor in 2012. Juice Plus Published Clinical Research        

    

I believe your health is the best investment you can make, for yourself to live a better quality of life, for your family by investing in their healthy future, for your boss who will have less sick days from you, and for everyone whose life you affect, because a healthier you, via the butterfly effect, can positively affect the world you live in.

My hip hurts... No my butt hurts... SI? What is my SI?

Patients come into my office for a variety of issues; however the most common is the hip… I mean butt…I mean SI.  So what is the SI?  The sacroiliac joint (SI joint) is the joint that connects your sacrum (tailbone) and ilium (hip bone).  It can be a source of many pain symptoms in the low back, buttocks, and upper legs.  My patients describe it as a toothache sensation, sharp pain or dull ache, and affect many activities of daily life such as sitting or standing extended periods of time. 

When the SI joint becomes damaged, or its support muscles and ligaments become loose or injured, such as an injury or pregnancy, the chronic pain can become exhausting and debilitating if severe enough.   So what can be done about it?

Chiropractic care to restore normal joint motion is essential in decreasing the inflammation and muscle spasm that is causing the pain.  Incorrect muscle memory from years of improper posture, excess sitting, and lack of exercise limit the long-term effectiveness of adjustments though.  Proper exercises to strengthen core muscles and hip stabilizers can give long relief resulting from muscle imbalance, and these exercises should begin shortly after restoring normal joint motion through adjustments.  And the more exercises you do at home, the faster you recover and the less you have to come to the office.

 

My goal is to have my patients feeling relief within two weeks, and to have them recovered and enjoying life again in less than 30 days.  That is possible with adhering to recommended office treatments and active participation at home.  Then, after education and learning how to listen to the body, they will know when their body is out of alignment long before the pain, the last sign of dysfunction, prevents them from enjoying life.

Electro-Acupressure for weight loss

Cutting the Cravings and weight loss with Electro-Acupressure



If you’re reading this, I bet you have tried just about everything out there to get the weight off. You’ve tried all the fad diets and had some success… but the pounds came back within a few months and an extra few were added on. Why not try a different approach then.
For over 5000 years, the Chinese have known that acupuncture has the power to heal and can offer an alternative care for a variety of health-related challenges. It is well known for effectively treating a long list of conditions and can work wonders on pain-related ailments. The problem lies in that there are many people who cannot stand the thought of needles penetrating their skin, even if they are tiny usually cannot be felt. For those patients, this is a less invasive form of the same treatment. And yes, it can help with weight loss.

What is Electro – Acupressure? How can it help with weight loss? 
Electro-acupressure is very similar to acupuncture, except that hands, fingers and an electrical stimulation device are used in place of needles. The principles are the same in that the goal is still to unblock certain pressure points (acupoints) along the 14 meridian lines of the body; there are about 365 meridian points. This restores the natural flow of blood, fluids and energy that runs through a person and in turn promotes healing and wellbeing. Acupressure works on multiple levels. Along with relieving physical symptoms and ailments this treatment also promotes mental and emotional health. With electro-acupressure, endorphins, mood elevating chemicals) are released into the bloodstream. This affects the hormonal and digestive systems; this helps to increase and re-balance the body metabolism. Emotional eaters tend to get cravings when stressed, so when the anxieties and frustrations are removed, people do not feel compelled to eat. That’s what electro-acupressure essentially does: it speeds up your metabolism and eliminates the anxious feelings that trigger your food cravings, which result in weight loss.

Are there acupressure points that I can do at home to accelerate the electro-acupressure treatments? 
Yes, there are 6 points that can be beneficial to do at home, especially in decreasing cravings.
1. Earlobe - just beneath your earlobe, where the skin of the ear is connected to the jaw. Massaging this point for several minutes before eating can reduce appetite and hunger.
2. Knee - Sit with one knee crossed over the other. Place four fingers of your right hand on the upper leg, just beneath the kneecap. With the index finger of the other hand, locate the stomach pressure point on the shin, just below the small fingernail of your right hand. This point represents the stomach, and by pressing it you can decrease your appetite.
3. Upper Lip - located between the upper lip and the nose. Place your thumb under your upper lip, and your index finger on the outside. Massage for a few minutes to decrease your appetite.
4. Calf – Found in the fattest part of your calf. Massaging this point and applying pressure by pressing the point with your middle finger can decrease appetite.
5. Inner Knee - At the center of the crease behind your knee is another appetite control point that can be manipulated discreetly for those times when massaging your ears or face is not appropriate.
6. Palm:
    a. Fleshy part of your palm for appetite suppression and weight control
    b. Area just below your thumb for thyroid health; this will stimulate the thyroid and increase your  metabolism
    c. Fleshy pad, toward the wrist, and continue massaging to stimulate the pancreas. This will help regulate insulin production and keep your blood-sugar levels steady.

Is it Safe? Yes, it is generally safe. People with heart conditions should avoid it, though. Side-effects are very rarely experienced but can include dizziness, soreness, and slight bruising. Overall, electro – acupressure is very effective for craving control and weight loss, and offers many health benefits.

Hot flashes wiping you out?

Achieving the best female hormone balance is essential as women age. As the baby-boomer generation ages, I have found there is a great demand for natural treatments for symptoms such as hot flashes, so let’s talk a little bit about that. Traditionally coinciding with menopause, hot flashes can last 6 months to 5 years, however they may persist as long as 15 years. About 70% of women experience these during menopause. Hot flashes are postulated to be caused by a disordered hypothalamic function in response to a low estrogen environment. It has been suggested that they tend to be worse in individuals with compromised cardiovascular systems. Also, it has been found that traditional hormone replacement therapy can increase the duration of hot flashes and decrease the effectiveness of herbal remedies.

Herbal support is designed to assist the adjustment of the body during the menopause change. It also provides symptomatic alleviation of the effects of estrogen withdrawl. What kind of herbal remedies can be beneficial in decreasing hot flashes? The important herb is Sage, however Hawthorn and Motherwort can also be useful. Sage is traditionally found in tonic with Wild Yam Complex. Black Cohosh can be used as well, however special care must be taken as the contraindications with Black Cohosh can be extensive.

If hot flashes are aggravated by stress, Adrenal Complex should be added, and if hot flashes are a continued problem without stress, then Tribulus can be included in the treatment. In addition to hot flashes, menopause women can suffer from mood and stress imbalances, depression, sweating, fatigue, headaches, joint pain, poor memory and loss of confidence. Many of these can be linked to the fall in estrogen, however this is controversial at best. There are additional herbal remedies that can alleviate severity of these symptoms such as St. John Wart, False Unicorn, and Shatavari. Every woman is different, therefore these herbal recommendations could be more or less effective in different women, and prior to starting an herbal regiment, every woman should consult their primary care provider.

Migraines and food, what's the link?

Migraine:  A chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent   moderate to severe headaches often in association with a number of autonomic nervous system symptoms.

Statistics:

• Every 10 seconds, someone goes to the ER with a headache or migraine.
• Greater than 10% of the population, including children, suffers from migraines.
• More than 90% of sufferers are unable to work or function normally during their migraine attacks.
• American employers lose more than $13 billion each year as a result of 113 million lost work days from migraines.
• About 10% of school-age children suffer from migraines.  Half have their first attack before the age of 12.
• Children with migraines are absent from school twice as often as children without migraines.

  

It has long been known that there are food triggers for migraines, but do you know why? 
Food is a necessity in life, good food in… good functioning body results.  As a migraine sufferer, however, good food does not always give you that good functioning that you should expect.  Food, like anything you put in your body, is broken down into its most basic elements for the body to be able to turn it into new cells, energy, and essential things like hormones.  If your body has an allergy to something you consume, like wine for example, it will produce an immune reaction to protect itself instead.  Immune reactions can range from rashes to irritable bowel issues, to headaches.  

It is estimated that more than 85% of all headaches have an allergy as the origin, which can result in muscle spasms, chemical imbalances, and decreased overall functional ability.  And food, like anything else, can cause these changes in the body. 

So what are some of the worst foods for those that suffer from migraines?  Here’s a great list in no particular order of severity:

Cheese, sour cream, yogurt, chicken livers, smoked or pickled fish, raisins, chocolate, nuts, soy sauce (anything with MSG really), coffee, tea, soda, alcohol such as beer and wine.

If you suffer from migraines it is highly possible that there is one or more food allergens that are to blame.  To find out, begin by removing all these from your diet for 2 weeks.  Then add one item at a time back in with a minimum of three days in between new diet additions.  This will help to isolate which food offenders are to blame so you can avoid them or get treated for them with N.A.E.T. to resolve food allergies.