You are here: Home / General

The Cost of Smoking

August 15, 2011 By spencer Leave a Comment

Everyone knows that smoking is bad and you shouldn’t do it.  Despite this, people still choose to light up.  If addiction is your problem, maybe looking at the cost of smoking may help to change your mind, especially in this type of poor economy.

Here are the stats and costs:

  • Average price of a pack of cigarettes (2011) = $4.80
  • Cost over a year smoking a pack a day = $1,747.20
    • In New York, this number can go over $3,000 annually!

If $1,747.20 were instead invested with a (small) 5% interest rate, that money would be worth over $130,000 in 30 years!

This number doesn’t even include the associated health costs that go hand in hand with smoking, which can be in the many thousands, especially if one has to get treatment for lung cancer.

Smoking is one of the fastest and quickest way to increase your health dramatically.  Studies have also shown that for chronic smokers that quit before the age of 30, if they never smoke again, the body is able to heal itself so that their lungs can get almost as healthy as one that has never smoked!  Please do yourself a favor and kick the habit.  If you don’t smoke, but know others that do, try and help them along as well.  For those that need extra help, also consider chiropractic as a way to help curb your addiction.

Related Articles:
Chiropractic and Addiction

Filed Under: Drugs & Medicine, General Tagged With: ,

Poor Posture Linked to Heart Disease

August 9, 2011 By spencer 4 Comments

Poor Posture Should Not Be Ignored

A joint study with UCLA AND UCSD conducted in 2004 found that individuals with anterior head carriage or vulture neck, had a higher incidence of getting heart disease.  The experiment was done on elderly individuals, people more likely to have poor posture and more at risk for heart disease.  It was found that those with poor neck posture were about 3x more likely to get a heart attack.  It was also found that the more forward the individual’s head, the higher a chance that their heart would be affected.

How is the Heart Related to Poor Posture?

The method of heart disease this study specifically mentioned was atherosclerosis of the heart vessels.  Atherosclerosis is a partial blockage of the blood vessels with a build up of cholesterol, which restricts blood flow and oxygen to in this case, the heart.  The lack of oxygen causes heart tissue to die, which eventually leads to a heart attack.  The study did not explain how this happens, but the heart and its blood vessels are powered by the nerves which exit the spinal levels T1 and T2.  For a person with poor posture, the areas most affected are in that region.  If you look around you, almost everyone has poor neck posture.  Tie this to the fact that heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States.   I am pretty sure that this is not purely coincidental…

This study is just another proof that poor posture greatly affects an individuals health and should not be taken for granted.

Related Articles:
What is Vulture Neck?
What is Good Posture?
How Poor Posture Affects your Health

Filed Under: General, Posture Tagged With: , ,

What is Vulture Neck?

July 16, 2011 By spencer 1 Comment

What is Vulture Neck?

Vulture Neck is a term that my wife invented to explain her postural problem also known as anterior head carriage or forward head carriage.  It is characterized by a person’s head being far in front of their body, just like a vulture’s.  It can also come accompanied with forward shoulders and a lump or bump on the base of the neck similar to that of a mini hunchback.  Vulture neck is at least a nation-wide problem.  To judge whether someone has anterior head carriage or not, simply look at their posture from the side.  If their ear hole is generally in front of the middle of their shoulder, then they have vulture neck!

Vulture Neck and poor posture starts early, don't let it turn into a bad habit!

Is Vulture Neck Normal?

Forward head posture is developed due to poor postural tendencies.  While many people have developed this pattern so that they do it normally while standing, it is easiest seen when people are working on their computers (especially laptops), texting, or playing hand held video games.  While it is so common that people may think this is normal, it is important to note that COMMON DOES NOT MAKE SOMETHING NORMAL. Obesity is now a common occurrence with 2 out of 3 people clinically being overweight.  This does not make being overweight normal.

Poor Posture Creates Stress on your Neck, Back, and Rest of your Body

Having poor posture can have detrimental affect on your body.  Your head is approximately 7-8% of your body weight or about 10.5 lbs if you weigh 150 lbs.  Since your head is on top of your head, every little bit that your head is forward of your spine is more stress that your neck muscles have to endure to keep your head from falling forward.  Since your muscles are attached to your bones, having chronic tight muscles due to poor posture greatly affects those bones, thus greatly affecting those joints causing a subluxation.  When your joints are compromised, the nerves coming out of those joints are also affected.  Since your nerves power everything in your body, including your organs, having poor posture can greatly have a negative impact on your organ and overall health, especially if kept for a long time.

 

Vulture neck can lead to many things.  Some of the symptoms in a progression like order include:

  • Neck and or shoulder pain/discomfort
  • Headaches
  • Arthritis
  • Carpal tunnel syndrome
  • Organ dysfunction or failure

Find out if you have Vulture Neck

Vulture neck is easiest to correct if caught early.  A chiropractor is well equipped to help any individual with postural problems included to, but not limited to vulture neck.  Our office in El Segundo does routine postural analysis on our patients and interested individuals at our office or any of our community events.  One of our goals is to address the total health and well being of the individual and we strongly believe that posture is an integral part to the entire picture.

Related Articles:
What is Good Posture?
How Poor Posture Affects your Health
What is a Subluxation?

Filed Under: Back Pain, Chiropractic, General, Posture Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How Poor Posture Affects your Health

July 10, 2011 By spencer 2 Comments

Lets face it, everyone either has knows they have poor posture or knows someone very close to them that does.  It is a nationwide problem and most people take it for granted!  What is not realized is that poor posture can have a devastating affect on your health and if not corrected can lead to many chronic problems in the future.

Poor Posture and Neck, Shoulder, and Low Back Pain

Poor posture is commonly seen in the lower neck region and lower back.  In the neck region it is characterized by a forward head, aka “vulture neck”, also called forward head carriage or anterior head carriage.  In the lower back it can be characterized by a curve that goes toward your belly button too much, or too little.  Since your muscles attach to your bones, any deviation from the normal posture forces your supporting muscles to work harder to keep you from falling over.  This is why poor posture commonly results in tension or sore muscles in the neck or shoulder region and or lower back region.  Does this sound familiar to you?

Poor Posture and Headaches

Remember that muscles attach to bones?  If your poor posture is causing your neck muscles to continuously tense up, it can lead to headaches due to a reduced flow of blood to the head.

Poor Posture and Arthritis

Since poor posture is causing the increased muscle tension and since the muscles are attached to your bones, the joints of the affected muscles loose the normal flexibility since the muscles are holding them in place.  This is when a joint becomes “stuck” or subluxated as chiropractors would call it.  Loss of joint mobility begins the arthritic or joint degeneration process.  This can begin with a reduction of the natural curves of the spine.  Soon the bones will actually begin to deform due to the repeated stress of the musculature.  The bone deformation degenerates your joints and spinal discs and decreases the space where your nerves exit your spine.  The deformation of the bones and joints is exactly what arthritis is and once your bone has changed there is not getting it back to normal, even with surgery!  The most common spinal vertebrae to become degenerated or arthritic in the spine are C6 and L4, the sites most commonly associated with poor posture.

Poor Posture and Nerve Damage

Once the bones and joints become deformed, it can greatly impact the nerves that exit the spine causing them to degenerate.  Whenever there is nerve degeneration, it is always linked with joint degeneration.  What most people think of when they think of nerve damage is a pinched nerve.  While it is possible that the nerve is actually being compressed by a bone or disc, it is not usually the case.  Instead it is usually an increase in pressure that is inflaming the nerve, but it is basically the same idea.  A very common example of nerve damage due to poor posture is carpal tunnel syndrome.  Most people think of carpal tunnel syndrome as coming from the wrist, which is where it may be coming from.  What they may not realize is that the median nerve (the nerve associated with carpal tunnel syndrome) can also be injured in the elbow, shoulder, or neck, causing carpal tunnel symptoms.

Poor Posture and Organ Dysfunction

As mentioned above, nerve degeneration is linked with joint degeneration.  Joint degeneration is another word for arthritis.  A famous study done in the 20th century  followed autopsies of people that died of chronic conditions called the Windsor Autopsies.  It was found that in 97% of all people that died from a due to an organ problem (ie. heart disease or lung disease), the nerves that powered those organs were degenerated.  When the nerves were traced back to the spinal joints, the joints were arthritic.

In a more recent study done in the 21st century, it was found that individuals with forward head carriage (poor posture of the neck and upper back) were 3 times more likely to die from a heart attack due to arteriosclerosis (plaque in the arteries).  In general, the nerves that power the heart are located around T2 or the second thoracic vertebrae.  If you have forward head posture, that vertebrae is definitely affected.

Getting Better Posture

While maintaining a good posture is not the secret to a healthy lifestyle and long life, it is surely a valuable component to health and wellness in general.  There are many things you can do to resolve poor posture including yoga, massage, proper exercises, and of course chiropractic.

Related Articles:
What is Good Posture?
What is Vulture Neck?

Filed Under: General, Posture Tagged With: , , ,

Exercise

June 21, 2011 By spencer Leave a Comment

Exercise is an obvious component to health and there are so many shapes and forms of it that everyone should have one type of exercise that they enjoy.  Even though exercise is great for the body, it can also be very damaging, especially if done improperly.  At Spencare Chiropractic Health, we encourage everyone to live active lifestyles and can even use exercise as a type of treatment for certain conditions such as sciatica, poor posture, and carpal tunnel syndrome just to name a few.  If a workout plan is needed or rehabilitation is required, we will be happy to create a plan that works for you.  We also know that recovery is just as important as exercise in maintaining your health and we want to be there for our patients to reach their maximum potential.

Filed Under: Exercise, General Tagged With: , ,

Diet & Nutrition

June 20, 2011 By spencer Leave a Comment

Hippocrates once said “Let food by thy medicine and medicine by thy food.”  What you eat is very important because if you think about it, all the energy you receive comes from what you eat.  This is why diet and nutrition are a big piece to our health as a whole.  People that eat foods high in nutrients are more likely to be in better physical shape, think better, and be less sick than those that don’t.  We all know that junk food is bad for us (why else would they call it “junk”?), but food has changed so much in a generation, it is hard to keep track of what we should be eating for our health.

  • Should I eat eggs normally or just the egg whites?
  • What’s the difference between cage free, grain fed, grass fed chicken eggs?
  • What about grass fed beef?
  • What’s better for you, butter or margarine?
  • Is milk bad for you?
  • Can soy cause cancer?
  • What is a detox?  Do I need to do it?
  • Is organic food really necessary?
  • Can supplements actually be bad for me?  What are whole food supplements?
  • What’s worse, not eating fish, or being exposed to mercury?
  • Will artificial sweeteners allow me to lose weight?
  • What is gluten?  Is whole wheat bad for me if it contains gluten?

These are some of the more difficult questions that people are asking and they don’t always get straight answers.  One of my passions is to stay current on all the nutrition news.  I believe that diet and nutrition play an extremely important role in one’s health.  Creating a diet and nutrition plan is just one of the services we have to offer at Spencare Chiropractic Health to help patients reach their personal health goals.

Filed Under: General, Nutrition Tagged With: ,

Stress Management and Your Health

June 20, 2011 By spencer 1 Comment

You are Stressed!

In life there are good stresses and there are bad stresses, but whether you think you are or not, everyone is stressed.  Stress is good for the body in that it helps you adapt to change and get stronger.  When you get more stress than it can handle however, it has negative consequences and will always lead to a decrease in health.

The 3 Stresses

There are 3 main stresses that everyone encounters, physical, chemical, and emotional stress.  When most people think of stress, they often think of emotional ones, which could include but are not limited to family, financial, and social concerns.  Physical stresses are ones that are done on the body such as falls, injuries, accidents.  Repetitive injury however, is also a physical stress such as overuse of a particular movement (computer work leading to carpal tunnel), poor posture or poor lifting habits or exercise techniques.  A sedentary lifestyle is also a stress on the body due to inactivity.  Chemical stress is the least often thought of, but consists of all the types of substances we put on our in our bodies.  The obvious negative stresses are alcohol, nicotine, drugs, junk food, and to some extent caffeine.  Lack of the right nutrients is also a chemical stress and pollution is definitely one, albeit one we can’t really control.  Finally beauty products is one that most people don’t consider, but many of the things we put on our skin is absorbed through it.  Deodorant is a very common product, but did you know that the #1 active ingredient in it is aluminum, a neurotoxin (chemical that negatively affects the brain)?

Stress and your Health

Obviously it is impossible to avoid all these stresses in your life.  The body is able to handle a certain amount of it, some people more than others.  It is the function of your nervous system to filter the stresses coming in and adapt your body to handle them.  If your nervous system can keep up with the amount of stress coming in, you should not experience any negative side effects, and you will be healthy.

Managing your stress is thus very important.  It is a good idea to look inward and identify the stresses you experience and how you can decrease or control the amount coming in.  It is also a good idea to increase your stress handling capacity, which generally can be done by living a healthy lifestyle.  Chiropractic is great for helping people handle stress and encourages patients to also live healthy lifestyles.  Take an active role in handling your stress and creating a healthier version of you!

Related Articles:
What is Health?
The Three Parts of your Nervous System
How the Nervous System Affects your Health

Filed Under: Chiropractic, General Tagged With: ,

How the Nervous System Affects your Health

June 20, 2011 By spencer Leave a Comment

A healthy nervous system leads to a healthy individual!

Your Nervous System and your Health

Health is a state of optimal function – physically, mentally, and physiologically.  Your nervous system controls every cell in your body and provides the communication process between these cells so that your body can function.  Since the nervous system controls your body’s ability to self heal, if your nervous system becomes suboptimal, so does your health.

One of the processes that the nervous system controls, that is integral to your health is your ability to naturally heal itself.  If you cut your finger while cooking dinner for example, the cut will heal.  If however there is interference with this process, such as putting a wire into the cut, it won’t heal or will take much longer.

Interference with the Nervous System is Interference with your Health

The nervous system is constantly trying to heal your body from the many stresses you endure through out the day.  If it can handle the amount of stress you take on, your body will remain functioning at its best and you will remain healthy.  If there is interference with your nervous system, your body will not be able to take on as much stress and your health will go down.  It was found that when your body is misaligned, it can interfere with your nervous system and cause a decrease in its ability to communicate.  Seeing a chiropractor is one of the several ways to help your nervous system be interference free, to help promote your body to work at its best, and get your truly healthy.

Related Articles:
What is Health?
Stress Management and your Health

Filed Under: Chiropractic, General Tagged With: ,

What is Health?

June 19, 2011 By spencer Leave a Comment

What is Health?

Health is a state of optimal physical, mental, and social well-being.  It is NOT simply the absence of pain, symptoms, or disease.  Put simply, health is a state of optimal function!

What about Pain?

Many people may define health for them as being “pain free”.  While this is part of health, it probably not the most accurate description.  If it were, one would simply need to take the strongest form of pain medication to instantly be healthy.  Some people are already on these medications.  They are usually found in a hospital, and are not in their most optimal state of health.  From the opposite spectrum, if you dropped a brick on your foot, would you suddenly be unhealthy?

There are many nerves in the body, but did you know that only 10% of these nerves have the ability to feel pain?  This is the reason that pain is not always felt while a problem is developing.  Instead, it may actually be your body’s final warning sign to you that something is wrong such as in cancer or a heart attack.

How we Promote Health

At Spencare Chiropractic Health, our goal is to focus on increasing the overall function of your entire body, including the nervous system.  The nervous system commands your entire body, and is behind the body’s natural healing processes.  By insuring that your nervous system works properly, your body will be able to fully express itself, which is the key to overall health.  When it is functioning properly, you will not have to worry about symptoms, such as pain, because they will not exist anymore or will be decreasing through the body’s natural healing process.  This will also prevent future problems from occurring, build up your body’s natural resistance to disease, and insure a higher quality state of life.

Filed Under: Chiropractic, General Tagged With: , ,

What is Craniosacral Therapy?

May 8, 2011 By spencer Leave a Comment

Craniosacral Therapy is a procedure that addresses the relationship between the cranial bones, dura of the spinal cord, and the sacrum.  While on opposite sides of the body, the bones of the skull and your sacrum or tail bone are connected via a membrane called the dura mater.  The dura mater is a tough fibrous membrane that sheathes the brain and spinal cord, the two most important and sensitive organs in the body.  Just like the spine, dysfunctions in the dura, cranial bones, and sacrum (the sacrum is actually part of the spine) can easily cause dysfunctions in your nervous system and lead to a decrease in health.  These three areas of the body can stay healthy through proper alignment, breathing, and movement.  It is most commonly utilized to help deal with headaches and migranes, difficulties concentrating, neck and back pain, TMJ dysfunction, and even fibromyalgia.

Craniosacral Therapy is originally an osteopathic procedure, developed by Dr. William Sutherland.  It is currently utilized not only by osteopaths by also by many chiropractors, acupuncturists, and massage therapists.  Craniosacral therapy is one of the many forms of treatments utlized in Applied Kinesiology.  The theory is that there is a normal flow of cerebral spinal fluid or CSF (the liquid in between your joints of the spine) that flows from the head to the bottom of you spine via the dura mater.  Due to irregular movements or fixated joints, this flow can become impeded interrupting the normal functioning of the body.

The most common mode of treatment is to adjust the cranial bones and sacroiliac joints.  Even though most people think the skull as an inanimate object, it is comprised of 8 cranial bones that have shown to move during breathing.  Remember that 2 bones form a joint and the movment of dysfunctionally moving joints is what chiropractors do!  Of course the cranial adustment as with all other craniosacral therapy adjustments may look very different from the stereotypical chiropractic adjustment, but the purpose behind the two are one and the same, and they both can be very beneficial to the patient.

Related Articles:

Filed Under: Chiropractic, General Tagged With: , , ,
« Older Posts