Okay, I saw the chiropractor, renewed my Gold’s Gym membership, then went to the grocery store  to stock up on fruit for the Maximum Guy’s presence over the weekend.  Mmmm… watermelon!  I get home and as I lift the watermelon out of the car I feel a soft “pop” very low in my spine and I have instant pain and muscle spasm.  It gets worse over the weekend.  By Monday I can’t really walk.  So that is where I am at.  I intend to blog through this journey, but for know let me just channel Bill Clinton for a moment and say “I feel your pain!”

My colleague Dr. Michael Solomon of Phoenix made the local news, check out the above video on Network Spinal Analysis.

Winter weather in here in Bozeman and our connector airports like Minneapolis, Chicago, Salt Lake, and Denver mean that cancelled flights during the holiday season are frequent when you are trying to get somewhere from Bozeman. This little article over at RealSimple.com gives you the exact phrases and strategies to use when your flight gets cancelled. Worth a read!

Flu Vaccine Science – Should a Bozeman Parent Give their Kid the Flu Shot?

As we approach winter, there is a public relations push for Bozeman families to get the flu vaccination.  But does the science really back up this recommendation?  A review of the flu vaccine science published last year (Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2007 Apr 18;(2):CD001269) shows very modest benefit:  A Risk Difference of 1-3%.  The vaccinated people had influenza about 1% of the time, and unvaccinated people about 2-4% of the time.

Flu Vaccine Science – Is there Bias?

Furthermore, the authors call into question these conclusion of their own study due to the fact that 15 to 19 of the 36 studies reviewed were industry-funded:  ”An earlier systematic review of 274 influenza vaccine studies published up to 2007 found industry funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size. Studies funded from public sources were significantly less likely to report conclusions favorable to the vaccines” – leading them to conclude: “there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies.”

Flu Vaccine Science – Conclusions

Given that the flu vaccine rarely matches the virus strain on any particular year, and that many flu-like symptoms come from other viral entities like the Respiratory Syncytial Virus, it seems likely that most years the benefit from influenza vaccine is due to the placebo effect.  On the years in which the vaccine matches the strain, being vaccinated could reduce your chances of being symptomatic by half or more.  This benefit may be exaggerated by bias.

The New York Times completely misses the point on protein in sports drinks in their article Do Protein Sports Drinks Work? The overall thrust of the article appears to be that protein is unlikely improve endurance performance. It is not surprising that a study that looks at using protein as an energy drink finds negligible benefits, but you cannot extrapolate that to say that protein does not enhance performance.  Protein has been shown to reduced muscle catabolism during exercise and improve performance by increasing strength and increasing mitochondrial density.  So they miss the point when comparing to a carb drink, no doubt that carbs are better fuel for endurance exercise than protein, the main benefits of protein are on recovery side, not the performance side.

That said, we also know that protein can improve short-term performance by three mechanisms. First, while all amino acids can be burned for fuel, three in particular are easily converted to blood sugar (glucose); leucine, alanine and glutamine.   Second, Leucine is known to improve blood sugar management by influencing the Islet of Langerhans cells in the pancreas.   Third, running out of amino acids in the liver inhibits glycogenolysis, which is the process of converting glycogen (the body’s storage carbohydrate) into glucose.  All three of these mechanisms improve blood sugar control, which means better athletic performance.

Back in my personal trainer days, one of my mentors explained to me how eating a small amount of protein when you are feeling lethargic will act as a quick pick-me-up.  Experimentation proved this true, but it wasn’t until I took graduate level biochemistry that I understood why. It is because the amino acids in the protein renew your glycogenolysis so you can access your stored glycogen from your liver and muscles to restore your blood sugar.   It works, give it a try.

How much water should you drink? What about coffee, tea, juice, or alcohol? In this article I discuss the science behind liquid intake and make common sense recommendations.

When I researched this article, I quickly realized that there is literally zero science behind water dosage recommendations. It is clear that we cannot quantify the variability of water needs for anyone. A rule of thumb that I follow to get a rough number is this: Take your weight in pounds, halve it, and then subtract ten percent to arrive at your daily liquid intake in ounces. So if you weigh 200 pounds, then you aim towards 90 ounces of liquid a day. Strive to give yourself the opportunity to drink that much water or more by making sure that you always have water at hand, and sip at it regularly. If you are exercising in the sun all day, your need could easily be double that number. Also, body-fat levels affect your water needs. If you have a high level of body fat, then you will need less water because fat is much less metabolically active. You get to count other liquids besides water towards your daily water intake. Soup, juice, tea, coffee, etc. Those of you who know me know that I am not a big fan of juice at all, I say eat the fruit instead and gain the blood sugar stabilizing effects of the fiber. Juice is almost always cooked too. But a little bit of natural juice will do you no harm in small amounts.

There was a meme floating around saying that drinking caffeinated beverages would pull more water out of the body than they were adding; is NOT true! Although not as hydrating as a non-diuretic beverage, caffeinated drinks still hydrated you more than they dehydrate you. You gain more water than you lose, so drink away. If you are feeling guilty about taking in caffeine, I suggest you read “The Caffeine Advantage: How to Sharpen Your Mind, Improve Your Physical Performance, and Achieve Your Goals–the Healthy Way” by Weinburg and Bealer. Stay away from coffee and black tea if you have uterine fibroids aka Myomas. Otherwise, enjoy to your personal tolerance.

Onto alcohol. We have known since the original Framingham study that alcohol is protective against plaque in the arteries (atherosclerosis). Now the research evidence is incontrovertible: Alcohol is not only protective against arterial plaqueing, but drinkers also live longer than abstainers, and this effect holds against all forms of alcohol; beer, wine, and hard liquor. Keep in mind that alcohol is also associated with bad health outcomes like motor vehicle injuries, liver damage, and brain damage. Jonah Lehrer over at Wired thinks that a lot of the health benefits of alcohol intake come from the socializing associated with it. I think that it is both. There is clearly a lot of science showing that socializing is a big life extender and life quality enhancer. Clearly there are benefits that are over and above the benefits of being social.

So what to do with this information? I have decided to take a moderate approach, hoping that I can get the detox benefits and circulatory benefits while minimizing the neuro-toxic and hepato-toxic effects with regular low doses. So I find myself in the odd circumstance of been trying to develop a drinking habit. I have settled on half of a drink once or twice in the evening. I think of it as necessary artery maintenance. I continue to weigh the evidence indicating that heavier drinkers live even longer than moderate drinkers. Should this trend in the science continue, there may be a good argument for increased alcohol intake. For now, I do enough driving around that it makes more sense to me to stick to low doses.

So there you have it, drink plenty of water, coffee, tea. Minimize juices. Keep good clean water near you and sip throughout the day. Daily alcohol intake will likely make you live longer as long as you stay out of car accidents. Drink and be social for health.

This book:

Healing Myths, Healing Magic:

Healing Myths, Healing Magic is a very accessible book, pick any chapter that appeals to you, read it, and it stands on its own.  The author, Dr. Donald Epstein D.C. goes through healing myths that me breaks down into religious, biomedical, and new age.  Like most anything Dr. Epstein does, it is absolutely profound and thought provoking.  Inevitably, in this book, Donald will label a myth something that you have held as fact, and this is where you will need some time to digest, but don’t discount what he is saying too readily!

or

The 12 Stages of Healing:

The 12 Stages of Healing is the book that launched Somato Respiratory Integration.  The author, Dr. Donald Epstein D.C. wrote this book to describe his observations of  repeatable processes that his patients experienced as they got better.  Each stage includes breath and awareness exercises so you get to do more than just read the book.

Jennifer Hepner, Maxwell, Dr. Hans, Maggie Meyers

Last Saturday I had the privilege of attending Serpents Shimmy, a tremendous dance presentation at the Ellen Theater. I was blown away. Bellydancing and Bellydance-inspired troupes from Bozeman, Billings, and Helena came together to put on a spectacular show and charity fundraiser. Headliner Katy Houseman of Bellingham Washington seems to be able to mesmerize you at will with just her hand movements. Headliner Jennifer Hepner was impressive, demonstrating uncanny body-mind connection and control with her fluidly waving spine.

Dr. Kerith and Mandy

The body-mind connection demonstrated by these dancers was truly phenomenal. Working as a Bozeman chiropractor for the last eleven years has led me to the conclusion that the body-mind integration is key for vibrant health. Seeing all these dancers work their spines with waveforms was right up my alley since the technique I use in practice is based on getting waveforms really cooking in the spine so that your spine magically self-corrects. The benefits of dancing like this are huge. I felt affected by just being in the audience. Even days after the event, my son Max just out of nowhere would say “That dancing was amazing”, and I knew what he meant. These ladies really put something on that was powerful. A big Thank You to Mary Powell for putting this together, it was truly amazing and inspiring.