Dr Beecher’s February 2014 Monthly Chiropractic Newsletter
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“When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is
wrought in our life, or in the life of another.” ~ Helen Keller
New Study:
Is Exercise the
Best Medicine?
New research shows exercise can be just as effective as many frequently prescribed drugs for treating some major causes of death, including heart disease and diabetes!
Also this month:
- Fight the Common Cold… with Your Stomach! The health benefits of probiotics and how research shows they can reduce your child’s risk for the common cold.
- Scientists Discover a New Body Part! That’s right… After all these years, scientists have actually discovered a new body part, and knowledge of its existence may help doctors treat some knee injuries.
- The Tale of Two Homeless Men: Faced with one of the most difficult decisions of his life, this homeless man made the right choice and turned his whole life around…
Houston – It’s pretty sad, but in today’s society, it is common to boast and brag. It is also common to make things seem much better or worse than they really are.
We see marketers do it every day through the advertising they bombard us with. Who hasn’t bought something after watching a TV commercial only to find out it wasn’t half as good as claimed?
Well, what you’re about to read is different and without any hype, it could change both your health and your future.
With rising insurance costs in the United States and other countries, this information may also save you a lot of money and time.
Here’s what this is all about: Healthcare professionals want to give their patients the best possible treatments but how does a doctor know which treatment is best?
Scientific research is used to determine which treatments work, which treatments do not work, and which treatments do more harm than good.
Countless medications have been scientifically tested over the years, and new drugs are often compared with older pharmaceuticals to prove their efficacy. However, very few studies actually directly compare drugs with exercise to treat common health conditions and diseases.
Until Now…
Huseyin Naci, a graduate student at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Dr. John Ioannidis, the Director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center at the Stanford University School of Medicine, studied the effectiveness of both drugs and exercise in lessening mortality among people who had been diagnosed with either heart disease, chronic heart failure, stroke, or diabetes.
The two researchers gathered all of the recent randomized controlled trials, reviews, and meta-analyses of older experiments relating to mortality among patients with those illnesses, and whether the study participants had been treated with drugs or exercise.
In total, they studied information from 305 studies, which included a total of 340,000 participants. Most of these past studies focused on pharmaceuticals. Only 14,716 of the subjects were prescribed exercise to treat their disease.
The results of their study were published in the October 2013 issue of the British Medical Journal. Their conclusion: “No statistically detectable differences were evident between exercise and drug interventions in the secondary prevention of coronary heart disease and pre-diabetes. Physical activity interventions were more effective than drug treatment among patients with stroke. Diuretics were more effective than exercise in heart failure…
“Although limited in quantity, existing randomized trial evidence on exercise interventions suggests that exercise and many drug interventions are often potentially similar in terms of their mortality benefits in the secondary prevention of coronary heart disease, rehabilitation after stroke, treatment of heart failure, and prevention of diabetes.”
WOW!
According to this study, both drugs and exercise are more or less just as effective as treatments for those common and life-threatening diseases.
But here is what the study did NOT mention… Exercise is cheaper and does not come with dangerous side-effects!
What Does This Mean for You?
Clearly, health care is changing. With the restructuring of insurance in many countries and an aging population, it must change. Expensive treatments will be cut if cheaper and just as (or more) effective therapies are found. (Or, at least they should be.)
Clearly, insurance coverage is not what it used to be. Many times, patients have to pay huge sums of money out-of-pocket, even if they are insured by private or government insurance plans. Who wants to pay all that money if it can be avoided?
But even more important is doing what’s best for YOU. If exercise can help keep you healthy so you do not end up with heart disease, diabetes, etc., then it makes sense to add it to your lifestyle. Imagine what combining exercise, eating right, stress reduction, and chiropractic care can do for your long-term health.
Science Discovers New Body Part!
You read that correctly. In fact, science has discovered a new ligament in the knee, and its discovery is a pretty fascinating story.
One hundred and thirty-four years ago, French surgeon Paul Segond couldn’t explain the painful resistance in his knee after an injury. This led him to theorize about the existence of an undiscovered ligament.
Now, Belgian doctors have actually found it. The ligament is called the anterolateral ligament (ALL) and was found in all but one of the 41 cadavers they dissected to prove its existence.
According to The Star: “The discovery was shocking: all but one of the dissected bodies had the ‘well-defined ligamentous structure’ between the femur and the anterolateral tibia, or shin that was described by the French scientist. The finding led the doctors to conclude that most humans, about 97 percent, have the little lost ligament.”
Here is something very important: “The doctors also announced patients with ACL tears were likely suffering knee collapses because of ALL injuries.”
This may explain why many people (including athletes) have the diagnosis of a torn ACL but do not have instability or collapse of the knee. There are reports of athletes playing professional sports for years with a torn ACL.
This opens the door for new treatments and ways to approach knee injuries, especially for people with a torn ACL and knee instability.
What is amazing is how long it took scientists to discover a ligament they estimate is in 97% of people.
Can you imagine what will be discovered next?
Don’t forget, if you ever have any questions or concerns about your health, talk to us. Contact us with your questions. We’re here to help and don’t enjoy anything more than participating in providing you natural pain relief.
Inspirational Story Of The Month
(Names And Details May Have Been Changed To Protect Privacy)
The Tale Of
Two Homeless Men
Faced with one of the most difficult decisions of his life, this homeless man
made the right choice and turned his whole life around…
Imagine there are two homeless men begging for change on a street corner. A young man stops and makes them an incredible offer.
The young man offers them each two choices: You can have $100 in cash right now or no money and two months of coding lessons. (Coding is a term computer programmers use in regards to writing software programs.)
Now, imagine one homeless man takes the $100 and the other decides to learn to code. What happened to both men? The hypothetical homeless man with a $100 bill would likely spend it and still be on the streets. As for the other man, the one who took the coding lessons, we don’t have to speculate his future because we actually know it.
You see, a 23-year old computer programmer by the name of Patrick McConlogue made this exact offer to a 37-year old homeless man named Leo Grand. Leo chose the programming lessons.
So, McConlogue started by spending one hour a day with Grand before work. After their morning session, McConlogue would go to work and Grand would practice what he learned on a Google Chromebook McConlogue gave him.
Grand would practice his daily lesson until the battery in his Chromebook died. (He found places to charge it overnight while he slept on public benches.)
At the end of the two months, Grand had learned a lot, but both men decided they wanted to do more. That’s when McConlogue’s boss, John Katzman, stepped in.
Katzman allowed McConlogue to teach Grand full-time at the New York office of his company “Noodle.” After five more weeks of full-time work, Grand had completed and released his first app. An App… or application… is a type of software program that allows you to perform specific tasks. Applications for desktop or laptop computers are sometimes called desktop applications, and those for mobile devices are called mobile apps.
Grand is currently researching for his next app and is looking for a full-time job as a computer programmer.
Even better, McConlogue has started a mentorship program for programmers. So far, 150 programmers have signed up to teach someone to code for one hour a day for two months. McConlogue is still figuring out how to run his new mentorship, but the impact he could have on so many lives is incredible.
It’s amazing what a little delayed gratification can do. Grand decided to pass up on the quick and easy $100 now for the possibility to create a wonderful life in the future.
Not only that, you just never know how far one small act of kindness can reach. It would have been much easier for McConlogue to just walk right by Grand or to throw him some spare change. Instead, he took a chance. He opened his heart and gave Grand the opportunity of a lifetime, an opportunity that meant a lot of dedication and work for both men.
Altruism is rare, but it is clearly not dead.
We love helping our patients and their friends and relatives through their tough times and
getting them feeling better! We are here to help you stay feeling better and looking younger!
Don’t be a stranger. You really can afford Chiropractic care! Don’t wait until you can no longer move!
Did You Know?…
Good News About Cherries!
Did you know that eating cherries could lower inflammation in the body drastically enough to alleviate arthritis symptoms? In at least one study, powdered cherry consumption actually led to a change in the functioning of inflammation-regulating genes in mice.
Like all dark-skinned fruits, cherries are high in antioxidants and other phytochemicals that promote human health in ways that science is only just beginning to understand.
While sweet cherries may be more fun to eat, the most potent inflammation-fighting cherries are the tart variety. In addition to fighting inflammation and arthritis, cherries have also been found to fight gout, reduce body fat, and lower levels of cholesterol. Think it can’t get any better? At least some tart cherries contain high enough levels of the hormone melatonin that they can actually help you fall asleep.
Tip Of The Month
Fight the Common Cold… with Your Stomach!
No one wants to get sick. In fact, I bet you never want to get the common cold or the flu ever again in your life. While that would be nice, it is impossible. But, new research has shown a way children may get the common cold less often, and shorten the time they have it when they do. This is extremely important because the common cold is responsible for the largest amount of school and work absenteeism and causes a huge economic burden.
A double-blind randomized controlled trial was performed during the winter season in Thailand. Children ages 8-13 were given either a two-strain combination probiotic or placebo twice a day for three months.
According to the study, “Children in the probiotics group had significantly lower risk of fever, cough, rhinorrhea, school absence, and school absence related to common cold compared to children in the placebo group. There was no impact on diarrhea and vomiting.”
What are Probiotics?
Probiotics are microorganisms that offer some form of health benefit to their host organism and they can be found in various different foods. Probiotics are believed to play very important roles in regulating proper intestinal function and digestion by balancing intestinal microflora. Probiotics are normally consumed in fermented foods with active live cultures, such as yogurt, though they are also available in supplement form as capsules, liquid, and chewables. There are many different strains of probiotics, but the most common strains available today are Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium.
Remember, we’re always here to help your body heal
and maintain the pain free body you deserve.
This information is solely advisory, and should not be substituted for medical or chiropractic advice. Any and all health care concerns, decisions, and actions must be done through the advice and counsel of a healthcare professional who is familiar with your updated medical history. We cannot be held responsible for actions you may take without a thorough exam or appropriate referral. If you have any further concerns or questions, please let us know at 281-286-1300.
