June 23, 2016
Every now and then a study comes along that makes you smile and think “Ah, I knew it!” This one landed quietly in JAMA Internal Medicine while we were all looking the other way. The New York Times did a tiny little blog piece on it, but for the most part, the world didn’t know the results of studies looking at nearly 8,000 participants that found opioids are often ineffective for back pain [1]. This is a little piece of evidence that points to something we have strongly suspected for quite a while: you can’t just mask back pain. You’ve got to address what’s causing it. The study was a meta-analysis collating […]
June 21, 2016
What does a new customer do when there is no standard measurement of quality for the service they are looking into? When there is no 18 carat or 24 carat chiropractic, no rating for the quality of a personal trainer, or no five star scale on a restaurants door? When it comes to such conundrums, most of us are like the rest of us. We look for the socials cues that tell us whether or not this place or practitioner is trustworthy. These social cues can either make or break a first impression and lead a person to conclusions as […]
June 21, 2016
We hear about stress all the time. It seems to be omnipresent in our lives. We regularly hear how it is bad for us, how we need to mitigate stress, how we need to implement stress-reducing activities like meditation or exercise. But do we really know what stress is? Or more pointedly, what stress is doing to us that makes it so bad? Whilst most us now are aware enough of what’s causing our daily stress, be it work pressures, the day to day family grind or relationship problems, stress seems to be something we actually understand very little about. […]
June 10, 2016
Heading into the thick of winter means one thing for those of us who aren’t fortunate enough to live in the tropics: people have more colds and flues. And, there are some ways that you can boost your immune system in this season. There are a number of reasons that this season can knock the old immune system around: from lower temperatures, to more time spent indoors in groups and at the mercy of artificial heating that cycles viruses around office blocks [1]. We also take in less Vitamin D in winter, as sunshine is a little more difficult to […]
June 9, 2016
Story at a glance: Adjusting pregnant women appears to relax the pelvic floor muscles at rest. This may mean that chiropractic care could be of benefit to pregnant women, as it may help them have a natural vaginal delivery. The pelvic floor muscles have active roles in pregnancy and childbirth, as well as in spinal stabilisation. When the pelvic floor muscles are damaged or stressed over time, health issues like incontinence and vaginal prolapses can crop up, which are problems with massive emotional, physical, social and financial costs across the world and a significant cause of stress for these women. The primary findings […]
June 8, 2016
Mothers of newborns notice how impaired their memory is. Old people report that their co-ordination and spatial awareness isn’t as good as it used to be. And people under high levels of stress complain of similar symptoms, their memory isn’t as sharp, they struggle to recall simple events or conversations and their mental agility isn’t as quick anymore… But why is that? Our brain is a highly complex organ. In the centre of it you will find the hippocampus. This is one of the powerhouses of the brain as it regulates our memory, learning ability and emotions. But it’s only recently that we […]
June 8, 2016
Part 1: The Influence Literature Series “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place,” said George Bernard Shaw. He wasn’t wrong either. The art of effective communication is something that takes time, practice and research. For the chiropractic profession, it’s a pursuit that seems to be becoming increasingly important in the information age. Chiropractor Martin Harvey has spent a lot of time looking into the art of influence, and believes much wisdom can be gleaned from what he calls the influence literature: the combined wisdom of behavioral economists, psychologists, and marketing specialists applied to […]
June 3, 2016
One of life’s great ironies is that the advancement of research often proves that, old wives tales notwithstanding, the sensible wisdom of old can be right on the money. The latest to be proven is the reason why we should be eating our spinach – a phrase many of us wouldn’t have heard since childhood when a parent weilded Popeye comics as an often ill-fated attempt to make us finish our greens. A recent study emerging from Japan has revealed that spinach may actually help protect our eyes from macular degeneration [1]. This study is significant as macular degeneration is […]
June 2, 2016
It happens to boxers and football players. It even happens to most children over the course of childhood. It is the simple concussion. For many years, this hasn’t been a hot topic, but a new movie is shining a little light on what can happen when this occurs repetitively. “Concussion – the movie,” stars Hollywood heavy-weight Will Smith and is a dramatised account of Dr. Bennett Omalu who first shone the light on what was happening to American Football players as a result of repetitive concussions. The movie has already attracted a number of awards and nominations, with some calling […]
May 31, 2016
Iodine is a powerful element needed for the production of thyroid hormone, that it helps synthesize the hormones that regulate metabolism. Without it, the thyroid can’t function properly. Many of us are also aware that there’s an iodine deficiency problem in certain regions. There are actually estimates that up to 40% of the world’s population is iodine deficient. According to Dr David Brownstein, an author, physician and practitioner of holistic medicine, the problem could be far greater than the thyroid function of 40% of the population. “I’ve been interested in the use of iodine for approximately the last 20 years,” […]
May 26, 2016
Story at a glance: As sleep continues, CSF floods the brain bathing each and every cell in the brain. The brain cells themselves shrink, in order to increase the space between the cells. This gave the CSF more surface area to cover. The clearance of amyloid-beta (a protein produced by brain cells) is much more rapid in the sleeping brain. A build up of amyloid-beta is what is thought to be one of the key elements in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. We all know we need it and we know we don’t function well without it but neuroscientists have […]
May 26, 2016
“How could I not have noticed her back was like this before?” a parent asks, “What could I have done?” Almost every parent of a child who is diagnosed with scoliosis utters similar words. It’s a common scenario – a parent unfamiliar with what scoliosis is, how to notice the warning signs in their children, or what to do about it if they do notice something. The fact is, scoliosis is not on people’s radars until it’s too late. This June has been officially designated as International Scoliosis Awareness Month. It’s a month focussed on uniting scoliosis patients, families, physicians, […]
May 24, 2016
One of the foundational concepts of chiropractic is the connection between the brain and the body. This notion that the brain and body affect each other in profound ways is cemented into our everyday practice. Yet for the most part, western medicine has been a little slower to embrace the connection between mental, emotional and physical health. Therefore, it’s encouraging that more and more recent studies are starting to show a high correlation between emotional distress and primary care visits. It’s hardly shocking information for us in chiropractic, which has always espoused the holistic nature of the body, and the […]
May 24, 2016
“People don’t buy what you do. People buy why you do it.” This is the statement that lies at the heart of Simon Sinek’s groundbreaking book “Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action,” and his Ted Talk on the same topic. Both works are grounded in Sinek’s analyses of great leaders and commercial successes. In a world that seems flooded with messages of ‘buy this, buy that,’ Sinek provides a refreshing how-to guide on cutting through the noise. In 2006, Sinek made a discovery that profoundly changed his worldview: there was a pattern in the communication […]
May 19, 2016
A study recently published in the Journal of Brain, Behaviour and Immunity reveals an interesting link between our view of ourselves and our levels of interleukin-6, a pro-inflammatory cytokine instrumental in the human inflammatory response. The study took 41 healthy, adult participants and exposed them to some psychosocial stressors that most of us find pretty nerve-wracking: maths and public speaking. After performing the tasks, all undertaken in front of judges, their blood was drawn and analysed for the presence of the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-6 [1]. The findings were interesting: “It turned out that the group with the highest measured levels […]
May 19, 2016
The desire to contribute to something that is bigger than yourself is something that seems hardwired into the human psyche. For as long as history remembers, people have found humanitarian missions an incredible way to answer this need. It opens eyes and instills a deep sense of satisfaction as you make a contribution to a person, a family or a community in need. Yet when looking for opportunities to best serve, it can be easy think ‘What can I do?’ Who would I volunteer for anyway?’ It may surprise some to know that there are very specific ways that chiropractors […]
May 17, 2016
“It’s the best thing since sliced bread!” How many times have you heard that expression? The humble invention of pre-sliced bread seems to have become the benchmark for good ideas in modern times. Perhaps you’d find it interesting to know that for the first 15 years in the life of sliced bread, no one bought it. It was, by definition, a complete failure. It actually took fifteen years for someone to figure out how to get that idea to spread [1]. For generations, marketers have focused on the masses. They targeted their efforts at finding the average customer and making […]