Brain Health 3

As promised, this week I will share the final five strategies to maximize mental clarity and keep your brain youthful. 

Strategy number 11 from the brain study is to always learn new things.  Ideas include reading books on different subjects, learning a new language or taking up a different craft or hobby.  The 12^th strategy is simple, but critical.  If you hope to clear the clutter from your mind, you need to clear the clutter from your life.  Identify your highest priorities and decide what is really important in your life and what may be wasted time and energy.  Get organized and consider a course on goal setting.  Most of all, make your decisions based on your life’s purpose.  When you can filter your priorities through your purpose, making decisions becomes easy.  Thirteen on the list is to practice memory games and repetition exercises.  Number 14 may be one of the most crucial and that is proper rest.  It is recommended that we all get at least seven hours of uninterrupted sleep.  Without this, our hormones and our brain will simply not function right.  Lastly on the list, it turns out an active sex life increases circulation to the brain and produces hormones that improve brain function.  Oxytocin helps your ability to come up with original solutions.  Serotonin and dopamine help creative thinking and decision-making.

Dr. Brian Sides

Brain Health No. 2

Last week we discussed the first 5 of 15 strategies to maintain or increase your brain power and clarity.  Do you remember them?  It’s o.k. if you don’t as I’m going to give you five more.

Number 6 and 7 I regret to admit are “watching quality T.V.” and “surfing the internet.”  Before you get too excited, both of these are qualified by choosing programming that would force you to learn something new or quiz you about something you already know – you know educational T.V.  While I’m not crazy about these, the next three recommendations on the list redeem the study.  The number 8 strategy is to eat brain food rich in protein, vitamins and minerals.  You need vitamins A and C to protect brain cells;  vitamin E to reverse brain deterioration; amino acids, vitamin B, and magnesium to grow nerves; and Zinc to detoxify impurities from the brain.  All of these can be found in vegetables and lean/healthy meats, in particular organic meats.

The 9^th recommendation is to load up on fish oil for omega 3.  Omega 3 promotes dopamine levels (to prevent Parkinson’s and depression) as well as nerve growth of the frontal cortex and circulation in the brain.  The 10^th recommendation is to “eat weeds” in the form of brain-boosting herbs.  The two most important of these are Gingko Biloba and Ginseng which help promote adrenal gland function to adapt better to stress.

I hope this helps – check in next week for the final five strategies!

Dr. Brian Sides

Brain Health

Do you remember things as well as you used to?  Do you feel as mentally sharp as you did five years ago?  Loss of mental cognition, memory and alertness seems to be an increasingly common complaint.  Fortunately, a study last year identified 15 different solutions to increase your brain power and mental clarity.  I plan to spend the next three weeks reviewing these for you – hope you can remember them!

The first thing on the list is something we’ve discussed.  Physical exercise is exercise for the brain.  The study cites cardiovascular exercise and yoga, but other studies have shown that walking and strength training also benefit.  The second result is staying hydrated with water and they point out that caffeine can constrict the blood vessels limiting blood to the brain.  The third recommendation is to stay stimulated by painting your work and living areas with vibrant colors and using aromatherapy.  The fourth point may be the most important and that is to think happy thoughts.  It turns out that stress affects mental ability so the key is to reduce stress and recognize the positives in your life.  The fifth key to increased clarity is to play games such as word games, puzzles, crosswords, and sudoku.  The brain is like anything else in your body – if you don’t use it, you lose it.

Work on these five and I’ll give you five more brain-builders next week!

Dr Brian Sides

Simple Low Back Pain Prevention for Men

A recent study in Spine Journal revealed that the annual cost of low back pain was a staggering $12 billion in this country alone.  While countless studies has shown the efficacy of chiropractic as a treatment for back pain, the Manga report done in Ontario demonstrated that: “(1) chiropractic manipulation is safer than medical management for low back pain;   (2) that spinal manipulation is less safe and effective when performed by non-chiropractic professionals;   (3) that there is an overwhelming body of evidence indicating that chiropractic management of low-back pain is more cost-effective than medical management;   (4) and that there would be highly significant cost savings if more management of LBP was transferred from medical physicians to chiropractors.”

This week I would like to share a tip that can often be a complicating factor of low back pain.  This tip specifically addresses a problem men deal with on a daily basis.  When you sit, please take your wallet out of your back pocket.  I cannot tell you how many times I have seen this simple modification help resolve and prevent back pain from reoccurring.  When you sit as opposed to standing, you put about 12 times more pressure on your pelvic joints and sitting on a wallet on one side can throw you out of alignment.  I always tell patients that sitting on a wallet is like driving your car with 18 inch tires on one side and 14 inch tires on the other – it will always throw you out of balance and create excessive wear-and-tear on your pelvic joints and lumbar spine and discs.  

Brian Sides, DC

Osteoporosis 3

As we end the discussion on preventing osteoporosis and maintaining strong bones, let’s review what we know so far.  In the last two posts we have discussed that you need to keep your pH alkaline rather than acidic and we said you need the right balance of other nutrients including magnesium, and vitamins D and C to truly benefit from the calcium that you take in.  To satisfy both of these criteria, your best choice of dietary calcium will be from the dark green vegetables.

I’ve saved the most important factor for last.  Several years ago Harvard did a study on calcium and strong bones.  In this study they took four groups of people.  The first group took prescription grade calcium and did nothing else.  The second group took the same prescription and exercised five times each week.  The third group took placebo (fake) calcium and did nothing else.  And the final group took the placebo and exercised five times each week.  The researchers believed that the two prescription groups would get the best results.  However, after several months, the only two groups that showed an increase in bone density were the two groups who exercised.  Of these two groups, the ones taking the calcium did slightly better than the placebo, but the difference was not considered significant.  Their conclusion was that moderate exercise for at least 20 minutes three times per week was critical for proper bone strength.

In the end, the key to healthy bones in the body is the same key as healthy anything else – eat a natural diet high in fruits and vegetables and exercise regularly!

Osteoporosis 2

Last week I closed by questioning the value of dairy in preventing osteoporosis.  While it is true that all milk products are a rich source of calcium, there is still great debate as to whether dairy consumption truly maintains strong bones.  One of the problems with dairy is that it is relatively high in protein and last week we shared the research that high protein diets tend to cause calcium to be dumped in the urine.

To increase bone strength you need other ingredients in addition to calcium.  For instance you need vitamin D3 which helps move calcium out of the gut and into the blood.  You also need magnesium to get calcium out of the blood and into the bone.  Dairy is relatively low in magnesium, so unless you’re getting this mineral from other sources, your milk calcium will be relatively ineffective.  I realize this information may be shocking to some because we’ve been conditioned to drink milk for strong bones.  However, while milk is rich in calcium, there has never been a study proving that dairy reduces the risk of osteoporosis.  When you think about it, we are the only mammals on the planet who drink milk after we are weaned.  To my knowledge there is not an epidemic of osteoporosis in horses or elephants related to their lack of dairy!

But you still need calcium, so what should you do?  The foods that have the best balance of calcium and the other necessary nutrients are once again, the “greens”.  We should all be getting our calcium from sources such as broccoli, cabbage, kale, romaine lettuce, and spinach.  Believe it or not, turnip and collard greens seem to be one of the healthiest sources.  Next week I will discuss the most important factor for strong bones.

Osteoporosis

Nearly 20 million Canadians suffer with osteoporosis and the related complications of thin, porous bones prone to fracture.  Today, I’d like to start a series on the subject of calcium and strong bones.

Everyone believes that strong bones are merely the result of how much calcium you can pour down.  In reality, there are numerous factors such as the type of calcium, other vitamins and minerals, physical activity and your own internal chemistry that will undermine your efforts regardless of your calcium intake.  Many researchers believe that your chemistry, specifically your pH, may be one of the most important factors.  pH in your body is the same as in your swimming pool – it’s the balance of acid and base.  By design, we are meant to be slightly basic or “alkaline” and many believe that all disease exists only in an acidic environment.

In terms of strong bones, as we become more acidic (pH less than 7.3) the activity of the cells that break down bone (osteoclasts) is increased and the activity of the cells that build bone (osteoblasts) is decreased.  This means in an acidic environment, you will continuously be losing bone strength.  However, the opposite phenomenon seems to happen in an alkaline environment and you gain bone strength.  The question then should be how do we stay alkaline, and what would make our bodies acidic?

The key to staying alkaline is the same as the key to reducing inflammation in the body.  You must eat a diet high in alkaline foods such as fruits and vegetables.  The primary things that increase acidity in our bodies are diets high in protein and excessive amounts of emotional stress.  Do you know what food is relatively high in dietary protein . . . dairy.  Ooops!  More on this next week.