Stay Sharp! Stay Adjusted!

Kids are back in school and as parents we are trying everything to keep our kids focused. On the other hand, we are on the constant look out for anything to keep us energized enough to keep up with them. From school to football practice, dance, then back home to dinner and homework we are not on our “A game” and as a result, our reaction time suffers.  Eating healthy meals, staying active, and getting plenty of sleep are all great ways to encourage sharp minds for everyone. But you probably didn't know that getting adjusted can aid your response time. Your brain has two functions: it tells your body what to do and then responds to what it was told to do. Your spinal cord is a major component of the nervous system: it comes together into the brain at the base of the skull. The spinal cord is in the protective shell of the spinal column that consists of vertebrae which are stacked one on top of the other and separated by flexible discs. If the flow of information to or from your body is affected by a misalignment of the vertebra then those misalignments can affect your response time. Here is a good example: your neck can be misaligned which then pinches a nerve that goes to your arm and causes numbness and tingling everywhere that nerve goes in your arm. Typically I can adjust these patients, taking pressure off of the nerve. This makes the numbness and tingling go away, restoring sensory function to the arm enabling sharp response time. So get adjusted and stay sharp!

LOW VITAMIN D UPS RISK OF ALLERGIES IN KIDS

Low vitamin D increases the likelihood that children will develop allergies, according to a paper published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Researchers looked at the serum vitamin D levels in blood samples from more than 3,100 children and adolescents and 3,400 adults.

No association between vitamin D levels and allergies was observed in adults. But for children and adolescents, low vitamin D levels correlated with sensitivity to 11 of the 17 allergens tested, including both environmental allergens and food allergens. For example, children who had vitamin D deficiency were 2.4 times more likely to have a peanut allergy than were children with sufficient levels of vitamin D.

Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology – February 17, 2011;Epub.
www.aaaai.org/members/jaci.stm

ADJUSTMENTS QUELL HEADACHE

ADJUSTMENTS QUELL HEADACHE

If you live in Clermont Fl and suffer from headaches you may want to read this:

Chiropractic care is beneficial for many patients with headache, according to a large review study published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics.

To find studies on chiropractic care for headache, researchers searched 8 major databases: 1) MEDLINE, 2) EMBASE, 3) Allied and Complementary Medicine, 4) The Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, 5) Manual, Alternative and Natural Therapy Index System, 6) Alt HealthWatch, 7) Index to Chiropractic Literature, and 8) The Cochrane Library.

After pooling findings from 21 reports, the study’s authors concluded that “evidence suggests that chiropractic care, including spinal manipulation, improves migraine and cervicogenic headaches. The type, frequency, dosage, and duration of treatment(s) should be based on guideline recommendations, clinical experience, and findings. Evidence for the use of spinal manipulation as an isolated intervention for patients with tension-type headache remains equivocal.”



JMPT – June, 2011;34:274-289.
www.jmptonline.org

Like apples? they can keep your body strong:

APPLE PEELS KEEP MUSCLES STRONG

Apple peels contain a substance that may ward off muscle atrophy and promote muscle growth, according to a University of Iowa study.

“Muscle atrophy causes big problems. It’s also very common — it affects most people at some point in their lives, during illness or aging. But, there's no medicine for it,” notes Dr. Christopher Adams, senior author of the study. “We studied muscle gene activity in people with atrophy and used that information to find chemicals that might block atrophy. One of those chemicals was especially interesting. It’s called ursolic acid and it’s particularly concentrated in apple peels.

“The old saying goes that ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away.’ So, we tested ursolic acid in mice, and found that it increased the size and strength of their muscles,” Adams adds. “It did this by helping two hormones that build muscle: insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF1) and insulin. Because ursolic acid increased muscle, it reduced muscle atrophy. Surprisingly, it had some other beneficial effects in mice: for example, it reduced body fat, and lowered blood glucose and cholesterol.”

Cell Metabolism – June 2011

Things you need to know about acetaminophen

Published ahead of printing on August 13th, 2010, the study is titled “Acetaminophen Use and Risk Asthma, Rhinoconjuctavitus and Eczema, and adolescence: ISAAC Phase Three” the object of the study was “to investigate the risks of asthma and other allergic disorders associated with the current use of Acetaminophen and 13 to 14 year old children in different populations worldwide.”
This was no lightweight study conducted in a small town or with a small subject population. Participants were 322, 959 adolescent children from 113 centers in 50 countries. Study findings included the following:
• “the reported use of Acetaminophen in the past 12 months was associated with the significant exposure- dependent increase risk of current asthma symptoms.”
• “The reported use of Aceteminophen the past 12 months was associated with the significant dose- dependent increased risk of current symptoms of rhinoconjuctovitus (allergy) and eczema”
• “These findings extend are previous observation from ISAAC Phase Three that the use of Acetaminophen in infancy and current use was associated with the increase risk of asthma symptoms in 6-7 year old children.”

Rather than cover your pain with medication adress the cause. Chiropractic adresses the root cause of your pain, eliminating the need to put chemicals in your body.

Questions? Send Dr. Pete an email: drpete@drpeterbrockman.com

Adjustments help low back pain

South Lake Wellness & Injury Center
SMT SAFE AND EFFECTIVE FOR CHRONIC LBP

A large review study published by the Cochrane Library confirms that chiropractic is as effective as common medical interventions, such as painkillers, for chronic low-back pain. It is also safe.

The review authors looked at 26 randomized controlled on spinal manipulative therapy (SMT), including a total of 6,070 participants.

“The effectiveness of this therapy has long been controversial,” says review lead author Sidney Rubinstein, a chiropractor in private practice and a postdoctoral researcher at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam. “Some proponents are slowly starting to view it as effective for chronic low-back pain. The results of this review will support that view.”

“The decision to refer for manipulation should be based upon costs, preferences of the patient and providers, and relative safety of all treatment options,” adds Dr. Rubinstein

Cochrane Library – February 16, 2011:CD008112.
www.thecochranelibrary.com

Chemistry governs threshold of pain.

Question: How can it be that my husband can withstand pain after injuries and during sicknesses while I suffer horrible pain at the same type of problems.

Answer: We all have different pain thresholds. There are many different theories on why this occurs. Some researchers propose that we are born with different natural abilities to neutralize pain. Other researchers feel we develop our abilities to neutralize pain. Yet other researchers feel we develop our abilities to combat pain through our life experiences and exposures. A 2001 study led by Dr. Jon-Kar Zubiata offers insight into the way the human body dampens pain by producing and wielding natural chemicals such as endorphins and enkephalins.

The study demonstrated that the painful stimulus caused notable chemical activity in regions of the brain associated with sensation and emotion.

The experimental subjects demonstrated great individual variability in their responses to pain, though all had pain stimulus of similar intensity.

The differences in chemical activity among the subjects ..."may help explain why some people are more sensitive, or less sensitive, than others when it comes to painful sensations. We showed that people differ both in number of receptors that they have for these anti-pain chemicals, and their ability to release the anti-pain chemicals themselves."

In this study, both of these factors determine the emotional and sensory aspects of a painful experience.

These variations may explain why some people respond to pain medication and some don't. It may also explain why some people develop chronic pain conditions and others don't.

It is also important to add that the neurological signal for pain is in direct competition with the neurological signal for movement when they meet at the spinal cord. Most of us have been punched in the arm by a friend or sibling. The natural way to relieve this pain was by rubbing the area that was punched. All of us know that this somehow makes the pain go away. What most of us don't realize is that we are activating the motion sensors in the damaged tissue which in turn competes with the pain signals when they reach the spinal cord. This results in a net reduction of the pain signals that reach our brain.

Another interesting fact is that 70% of the motion sensors in our body are contained within the joints of the spine. Chiropractic adjustments activate motion sensors which cancel pain signals. It now becomes abundantly clear why chiropractic adjustments are so effective in reducing pain.

If you live in Clermont Florida and you are interested in chiropractic or chronic pain reduction, feel free to schedule a free consultation at my office by calling 352-241-4111.