For years I have run a casual email
list serving the chiropractic profession, its students
and various interested non-chiropractor supporters.
Aug 2007
Issue 9
26/08/07 21:08
GO AUSSIES
as always, more research is needed, but I loved this one...
A Single Mechanical Impulse to the Neck: Does It Influence Autonomic Regulation of Cardiovascular Function?
N. Watanabe; B. Polus.
Chiropractic Journal of Australia.
Vol 37 No. 2
June 2007
Abstract:
Objective: This study aims to examine the effects of a simulated cervical manipulation in the absence of any head movement on automomic regulation of cardiovascular funciton in young healthy adults.
Design: A Pre- post-test study design
Setting: An acute laboratory-based study that examined the effect of application of a brief mechanical stimulus (simulating a chiropractic adjustment using an Activator® instrument) to the neck on cardiac automomic nervous and cardiovascular function.
Participants: Eleven young healthy adults completed this study.
Intervention: A single mechanical impulse (“sham” or “authentic” manipulation procedure) was applied to the neck.
Main Outcome Measures: Heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), and non-invasive beat-to-beat blood pressure (BP) were measured.
Results: There were significant reductions in BP after application of the mechanical stimulus in the supine posture (p>.05). Particularly the reductions peaked at 20 sec post-stimulation. Changes in HR and most HRV parameters, however, were not significant in either supine or sitting posture (p>.05). Also there were no significatnt differences in responses between authentic and sham manipulation procedures.
Conclusions: Our results showed that a mechanical stimulus applied to the upper cervical region is capable of acutely influencing cardiovascular function in young adults. The sham spinal manipulative procedure chosen for this study appeared to be contaminated with unspecified factors that had interventional effects, or the response might be due to an arousal reaction. This issue is being addressed in fruther investigations. (Chiropr J Aust 2007; 37:42-48)
-=-=-=-=-=
Fat is good, especially for kids:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6948204.stm
Fat 'crucial' in children's diet
Cucumber is simply not enough, the research warns
While parents may be increasingly worrying about childhood obesity, they must ensure their offspring eat enough fat, research from the US urges.
Concerns about their child becoming overweight means some parents put them on low-fat diets, but the Nutrition Journal study said this was misguided.
Researchers found children burned substantially more fat than adults relative to their calorie intake.
Youngsters needed that fat to grow and thrive, they argued.
Over a third of a child's energy intake should be made up of fat, the researchers at Pennsylvania State University said, a recommendation in line with UK requirements.
"Despite this, many parents and children restrict fat for health reasons," they said. "Sufficient fat must be included in the diet for children to support normal growth and development."
'Absolutely right'
All of the participants - 10 children and 10 adults - were put on the same diet, adjusted to estimated calorie requirements of each one.
Young children need more fat and energy for the whole purpose of growing and living - to give them low-fat and sugar-free products is a bad idea
During testing, none of the group led an active lifestyle. They spent their time watching films, reading, and taking occasional slow walks.
While the children did not use up more fat than adults in total, they burned up substantially more relative to the amount of energy they used, despite all participants' sedentary lifestyle.
UK nutritionists stressed fat, as much as possible, should come from "healthy" sources such as oily fish, while chips and crisps should be cooked in olive or sunflower oil.
"Too much saturated fat in the diet, e.g. from cakes, biscuits, pastries and fatty meats, should be avoided," said Claire Williamson of the British Nutrition Foundation.
The National Obesity Forum welcomed the study.
"I think this research is absolutely right," said board member Tam Fry. "Young children need more fat and energy for the whole purpose of growing and living.
"To give them low-fat and sugar-free products is a bad idea."
-=-=-
Years ago, the head of the Sydney Children's Hospital here said cough meds do not even work...
thats probably why the...
FDA Warns Parents Not to Give Cold, Cough Medicine to Children Under 2
Thursday , August 16, 2007
The U.S. government is warning parents not to give cough and cold medicines to children under 2 without a doctor's order, part of an overall review of the products' safety and effectiveness for youngsters.
Amid questions about benefits and risks, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday its Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee will meet Oct. 18-19 to discuss the use of cough and cold drugs by children.
The FDA issued a public health advisory that cited serious adverse effects linked to children — particularly those 2 and younger — who have received too great a dose of over-the-counter medications for coughs and colds.
Parents should carefully follow directions for use that come with a medication, the FDA said. Other recommendations in the advisory included:
—Do not use cough and cold products in children under 2 unless given specific directions to do so by a health care provider.
—Do not give children medicine that is packaged and made for adults. Use only products marked for use in babies, infants or children, sometimes called "pediatric" use.
—Cough and cold medicines come in different strengths. If unsure about the right product for a child, ask a health care provider.
—If other medicines, whether over-the-counter or prescription, are being given to a child, the child's health care provider should review and approve their combined use.
—Read all of the information in the "Drug Facts" box on the package label to know the active ingredients and the warnings.
—For liquid products, parents should use the measuring device that is packaged with each medicine formulation and is marked to deliver the recommended dose. A kitchen teaspoon or tablespoon is not an appropriate measuring device.
-=-=-=
The debate with EBM and gut instinct continues....
Gut Feelings May Trump Evidence-Based Medicine When Choosing PCI to Treat Stable CAD
News Author: Shelley Wood
August 20, 2007 — Gut instincts may sometimes trump evidence-based medicine when it comes to performing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD), a new study suggests. [1] Cardiologists asked hypothetically about their motives for choosing PCI even in patients who might do just as well or better with medical therapy acknowledged that PCI instinctively seemed a better choice, or that past experiences or anticipated regret sometimes guided their decision.
"The apparent gulf between evidence and practice appears to be motivated primarily by emotional and psychological factors," Dr Grace A Lin (University of California-San Francisco [USCF]) and colleagues write in the August 13/27, 2007 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
To heartwire, senior author on the study Dr Rita F Redberg (UCSF) emphasized that physicians in the focus groups defended their choices, despite agreeing on a lack of evidence to support them. "We did try to point out during the focus sessions that PCI was an invasive therapy and there could be complications secondary to invasive therapy. And people still told us that they would feel much worse about a heart attack or sudden death that could have been prevented than a complication of a PCI, and even though there is no data that they actually would be preventing a heart attack or sudden death by doing PCI."
Emotional Decision-Making
Lin and colleagues conducted three focus groups with a total of 20 interventional and noninterventional cardiologists who were asked to discuss three hypothetical case scenarios and describe what course of action they would take. One case involved a 45-year-old asymptomatic man with a history of myocardial infarction (MI) and a high calcium score; the second hypothetical case was a 55-year-old female smoker with sharp pain in the chest occurring primarily in the evenings and not associated with exercise; the third, a 60-year-old man with no chest pain or shortness of breath who tires early.
Despite reviewing evidence that showed that an invasive approach was not warranted in any of the hypothetical cases, the focus groups generally agreed in all cases that they would send the patient for PCI. Some cardiologists justified their decision by saying that an open artery is always preferable and that they wanted to deliver the best possible therapy, which in their minds is PCI. Others told anecdotes of past patients who had not gotten PCI who went on to have MIs or die suddenly and said that this influenced their subsequent decision-making. Assuaging patient anxiety, particularly if the patient self-referred after obtaining a coronary calcium score, was another driving factor, as was the occulostenotic reflex.
"Once a lesion considered significant was identified, the consensus about current practice was to proceed, in most situations, with PCI at the same time," the authors note. Additional explanations for choosing PCI included medicolegal concerns and technological advancements such as electron-beam computed tomography (EBCT) and computed tomographic (CT) angiography that persuaded cardiologists to refer for or perform angiography and PCI.
The study authors conducted their study before the results of COURAGE (Clinical Outcomes Utilizing Revascularization and Aggressive Drug Evaluation) came out in March. According to Redberg, there is a heightened awareness about the lack of benefit of PCI in stable CAD patients in the wake of the COURAGE trial, "but even before COURAGE came out, people really knew that there never had been a study that found a benefit of PCI over medical therapy, and we do report that data in our paper.... But COURAGE got a lot of publicity and certainly may have changed the way people think about medical therapy vs PCI for stable CAD."
But Redberg also thinks physicians fail to recognize when they themselves are not basing decisions on evidence, preferring to think that it is others who are acting inappropriately. "I think we have to have some sort of understanding or recognition that there is more than evidence that drives practice. I think most people feel that they practice according to the best evidence, but even when we tried to be quite clear that there is just no evidence to support what people are telling us they would do, I don't think anyone changed their minds. They still felt doing an intervention would still be better than not doing one."
Selective Evidence-Based Medicine
An accompanying editorial by Dr Mauro Moscucci (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) points out that PCI is not without its risks: "Inappropriate procedures will put patients who are unlikely to benefit from the procedure at substantial risk of fatal and nonfatal complications," he writes. As such, Lin et al's work is a "sobering first documentation that the practice of medicine pertaining to PCI might be far from evidence based."
Moscucci's views are echoed by Dr William Boden (Buffalo General Hospital, NY), co-primary investigator for the COURAGE trial, who commented on Lin et al's paper for heartwire.
"This just reinforces that there is an apparent disconnect between clinical knowledge and the belief about the benefits of PCI," Boden said. "The benefits of angioplasty in STEMI patients have created a belief that because the procedure is identical to that which is undertaken electively in stable patients, the benefit that accrues in the acute patients will likewise accrue in the chronic patients, and that has become the conventional wisdom."
Boden worries that a study like Lin et al's will "fly below the radar" of most cardiologists, who should, in fact, use this kind of qualitative research to pause and rethink their own decision-making. "Belief systems trump evidence," he said. "We continue to see example after example of how we really don't practice evidence-based medicine in this country. I like to refer to this as either selective evidence-based medicine or feel-good evidence-based medicine. We love studies that reinforce our preconceived belief systems and we go out of our way to tout their virtues. By contrast, when studies like OAT (Occluded Artery Study), ICTUS (Invasive vs Conservative Treatment in Unstable Coronary Syndromes), or COURAGE come out, everybody is quick to criticize them and is very reluctant to incorporate them into their clinical practice approaches."
Boden continued: "We have this peculiar brand of evidence-based medicine in the US, which is that we embrace studies that reinforce our belief systems and disdain, denigrate, go out of our way to bad-mouth studies that collide with our existing belief systems."
Sources
Lin GA, Dudley RA, Redberg RF. Cardiologists' use of percutaneous coronary interventions for stable coronary artery disease. Arch Intern Med 2007;167:1604-1609.
Moscucci M. Behavioral factors, bias, and practice guidelines in the decision to use percutaneous coronary interventions for stable coronary artery disease. Arch Intern Med 2007;167:1573-1575.
The complete contents of Heartwire, a professional news service of WebMD, can be found at www.theheart.org, a Web site for cardiovascular healthcare professionals.
-=-=-
The Sustainability of Chiropractic
Is Greg Stanley a doom-sayer or properly prophetic?
Read for yaself...
http://www.chiroweb.com/archives/25/19/19.html
joe
-=-=-
anyone interested in a paper entitled:
Death by Medicine
by
Gary Null, PhD ~ Carolyn Dean, MD, ND
Martin Feldman, MD ~ Debora Rasio, MD
Dorothy Smith, PhD
Yes?...click the link if you are
-=-=-=-=
while we are on the topic of experimental rubbish (like upper cervical---sarcasm---) masquerading as EBM, here's another wake up call for them...
Use of complementary and alternative medicine in pediatric otolaryngology patients attending a tertiary hospital in the UK.
Shakeel M, Little SA, Bruce J, Ah-See KW.
Department of Otolaryngology, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Aberdeen AB25 2ZN, Scotland, UK.
OBJECTIVE: Little data is available on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use in children attending otolaryngology services. We investigated the prevalence and pattern of CAM use among children attending the pediatric otolaryngology department in a tertiary pediatric teaching hospital in Scotland.
DESIGN: A cross-sectional survey conducted by administering an anonymous questionnaire to the parents accompanying patients attending the pediatric otolaryngology department. Elective admissions and clinic attendees were included over a 3-month period in 2005/2006.
SETTING: Academic tertiary care referral centre in North-East Scotland.
PATIENTS: Five hundred and fifty-four consecutive patients aged less than 16 years were eligible. The response rate was 59% (n=327).
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Prevalence of CAM use in children. Secondary measures include types of CAM used, indications for use and communication with family physicians.
RESULTS: Based on 327 responses, 93 patients (29%) had ever used CAM, 20% within the last year. Commonly used CAM preparations were cod-liver oil, echinacea, aloe vera, cranberry, primrose oil and herbal vitamin supplements. The popular non-herbal CAM included homeopathy, massage, aromatherapy, chiropractic, yoga and reiki. Nineteen percent used CAM for their admission illness. Sixty-one percent of parents thought that CAM was effective and 65% would recommend it to others. Fifty-one percent of parents stated that the family physician was unaware of CAM use by the child.
CONCLUSIONS: Despite concerns regarding the efficacy, safety and cost effectiveness of complementary and alternative medicine, its use among the pediatric otolaryngology population is more common than many providers may realize. This has implications for all healthcare workers involved in their care.
-=-=-=-
Waist to Hip Ratio Calculator
http://www.healthcalculators.org/calculators/waist_hip.asp
good measure of health?
-=-=
Perfect quote to support chiro?
someone asked me for the perfect quote in support of chiropractic for musculoskeletal conditions
years ago, I already created an ad (never used) for it which you can view at my site www.ierano.com
or click here to get the pdf file
not a bad one from a prominent medical specialist
joe
as always, more research is needed, but I loved this one...
A Single Mechanical Impulse to the Neck: Does It Influence Autonomic Regulation of Cardiovascular Function?
N. Watanabe; B. Polus.
Chiropractic Journal of Australia.
Vol 37 No. 2
June 2007
Abstract:
Objective: This study aims to examine the effects of a simulated cervical manipulation in the absence of any head movement on automomic regulation of cardiovascular funciton in young healthy adults.
Design: A Pre- post-test study design
Setting: An acute laboratory-based study that examined the effect of application of a brief mechanical stimulus (simulating a chiropractic adjustment using an Activator® instrument) to the neck on cardiac automomic nervous and cardiovascular function.
Participants: Eleven young healthy adults completed this study.
Intervention: A single mechanical impulse (“sham” or “authentic” manipulation procedure) was applied to the neck.
Main Outcome Measures: Heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), and non-invasive beat-to-beat blood pressure (BP) were measured.
Results: There were significant reductions in BP after application of the mechanical stimulus in the supine posture (p>.05). Particularly the reductions peaked at 20 sec post-stimulation. Changes in HR and most HRV parameters, however, were not significant in either supine or sitting posture (p>.05). Also there were no significatnt differences in responses between authentic and sham manipulation procedures.
Conclusions: Our results showed that a mechanical stimulus applied to the upper cervical region is capable of acutely influencing cardiovascular function in young adults. The sham spinal manipulative procedure chosen for this study appeared to be contaminated with unspecified factors that had interventional effects, or the response might be due to an arousal reaction. This issue is being addressed in fruther investigations. (Chiropr J Aust 2007; 37:42-48)
-=-=-=-=-=
Fat is good, especially for kids:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6948204.stm
Fat 'crucial' in children's diet
Cucumber is simply not enough, the research warns
While parents may be increasingly worrying about childhood obesity, they must ensure their offspring eat enough fat, research from the US urges.
Concerns about their child becoming overweight means some parents put them on low-fat diets, but the Nutrition Journal study said this was misguided.
Researchers found children burned substantially more fat than adults relative to their calorie intake.
Youngsters needed that fat to grow and thrive, they argued.
Over a third of a child's energy intake should be made up of fat, the researchers at Pennsylvania State University said, a recommendation in line with UK requirements.
"Despite this, many parents and children restrict fat for health reasons," they said. "Sufficient fat must be included in the diet for children to support normal growth and development."
'Absolutely right'
All of the participants - 10 children and 10 adults - were put on the same diet, adjusted to estimated calorie requirements of each one.
Young children need more fat and energy for the whole purpose of growing and living - to give them low-fat and sugar-free products is a bad idea
During testing, none of the group led an active lifestyle. They spent their time watching films, reading, and taking occasional slow walks.
While the children did not use up more fat than adults in total, they burned up substantially more relative to the amount of energy they used, despite all participants' sedentary lifestyle.
UK nutritionists stressed fat, as much as possible, should come from "healthy" sources such as oily fish, while chips and crisps should be cooked in olive or sunflower oil.
"Too much saturated fat in the diet, e.g. from cakes, biscuits, pastries and fatty meats, should be avoided," said Claire Williamson of the British Nutrition Foundation.
The National Obesity Forum welcomed the study.
"I think this research is absolutely right," said board member Tam Fry. "Young children need more fat and energy for the whole purpose of growing and living.
"To give them low-fat and sugar-free products is a bad idea."
-=-=-
Years ago, the head of the Sydney Children's Hospital here said cough meds do not even work...
thats probably why the...
FDA Warns Parents Not to Give Cold, Cough Medicine to Children Under 2
Thursday , August 16, 2007
The U.S. government is warning parents not to give cough and cold medicines to children under 2 without a doctor's order, part of an overall review of the products' safety and effectiveness for youngsters.
Amid questions about benefits and risks, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday its Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee will meet Oct. 18-19 to discuss the use of cough and cold drugs by children.
The FDA issued a public health advisory that cited serious adverse effects linked to children — particularly those 2 and younger — who have received too great a dose of over-the-counter medications for coughs and colds.
Parents should carefully follow directions for use that come with a medication, the FDA said. Other recommendations in the advisory included:
—Do not use cough and cold products in children under 2 unless given specific directions to do so by a health care provider.
—Do not give children medicine that is packaged and made for adults. Use only products marked for use in babies, infants or children, sometimes called "pediatric" use.
—Cough and cold medicines come in different strengths. If unsure about the right product for a child, ask a health care provider.
—If other medicines, whether over-the-counter or prescription, are being given to a child, the child's health care provider should review and approve their combined use.
—Read all of the information in the "Drug Facts" box on the package label to know the active ingredients and the warnings.
—For liquid products, parents should use the measuring device that is packaged with each medicine formulation and is marked to deliver the recommended dose. A kitchen teaspoon or tablespoon is not an appropriate measuring device.
-=-=-=
The debate with EBM and gut instinct continues....
Gut Feelings May Trump Evidence-Based Medicine When Choosing PCI to Treat Stable CAD
News Author: Shelley Wood
August 20, 2007 — Gut instincts may sometimes trump evidence-based medicine when it comes to performing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD), a new study suggests. [1] Cardiologists asked hypothetically about their motives for choosing PCI even in patients who might do just as well or better with medical therapy acknowledged that PCI instinctively seemed a better choice, or that past experiences or anticipated regret sometimes guided their decision.
"The apparent gulf between evidence and practice appears to be motivated primarily by emotional and psychological factors," Dr Grace A Lin (University of California-San Francisco [USCF]) and colleagues write in the August 13/27, 2007 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
To heartwire, senior author on the study Dr Rita F Redberg (UCSF) emphasized that physicians in the focus groups defended their choices, despite agreeing on a lack of evidence to support them. "We did try to point out during the focus sessions that PCI was an invasive therapy and there could be complications secondary to invasive therapy. And people still told us that they would feel much worse about a heart attack or sudden death that could have been prevented than a complication of a PCI, and even though there is no data that they actually would be preventing a heart attack or sudden death by doing PCI."
Emotional Decision-Making
Lin and colleagues conducted three focus groups with a total of 20 interventional and noninterventional cardiologists who were asked to discuss three hypothetical case scenarios and describe what course of action they would take. One case involved a 45-year-old asymptomatic man with a history of myocardial infarction (MI) and a high calcium score; the second hypothetical case was a 55-year-old female smoker with sharp pain in the chest occurring primarily in the evenings and not associated with exercise; the third, a 60-year-old man with no chest pain or shortness of breath who tires early.
Despite reviewing evidence that showed that an invasive approach was not warranted in any of the hypothetical cases, the focus groups generally agreed in all cases that they would send the patient for PCI. Some cardiologists justified their decision by saying that an open artery is always preferable and that they wanted to deliver the best possible therapy, which in their minds is PCI. Others told anecdotes of past patients who had not gotten PCI who went on to have MIs or die suddenly and said that this influenced their subsequent decision-making. Assuaging patient anxiety, particularly if the patient self-referred after obtaining a coronary calcium score, was another driving factor, as was the occulostenotic reflex.
"Once a lesion considered significant was identified, the consensus about current practice was to proceed, in most situations, with PCI at the same time," the authors note. Additional explanations for choosing PCI included medicolegal concerns and technological advancements such as electron-beam computed tomography (EBCT) and computed tomographic (CT) angiography that persuaded cardiologists to refer for or perform angiography and PCI.
The study authors conducted their study before the results of COURAGE (Clinical Outcomes Utilizing Revascularization and Aggressive Drug Evaluation) came out in March. According to Redberg, there is a heightened awareness about the lack of benefit of PCI in stable CAD patients in the wake of the COURAGE trial, "but even before COURAGE came out, people really knew that there never had been a study that found a benefit of PCI over medical therapy, and we do report that data in our paper.... But COURAGE got a lot of publicity and certainly may have changed the way people think about medical therapy vs PCI for stable CAD."
But Redberg also thinks physicians fail to recognize when they themselves are not basing decisions on evidence, preferring to think that it is others who are acting inappropriately. "I think we have to have some sort of understanding or recognition that there is more than evidence that drives practice. I think most people feel that they practice according to the best evidence, but even when we tried to be quite clear that there is just no evidence to support what people are telling us they would do, I don't think anyone changed their minds. They still felt doing an intervention would still be better than not doing one."
Selective Evidence-Based Medicine
An accompanying editorial by Dr Mauro Moscucci (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) points out that PCI is not without its risks: "Inappropriate procedures will put patients who are unlikely to benefit from the procedure at substantial risk of fatal and nonfatal complications," he writes. As such, Lin et al's work is a "sobering first documentation that the practice of medicine pertaining to PCI might be far from evidence based."
Moscucci's views are echoed by Dr William Boden (Buffalo General Hospital, NY), co-primary investigator for the COURAGE trial, who commented on Lin et al's paper for heartwire.
"This just reinforces that there is an apparent disconnect between clinical knowledge and the belief about the benefits of PCI," Boden said. "The benefits of angioplasty in STEMI patients have created a belief that because the procedure is identical to that which is undertaken electively in stable patients, the benefit that accrues in the acute patients will likewise accrue in the chronic patients, and that has become the conventional wisdom."
Boden worries that a study like Lin et al's will "fly below the radar" of most cardiologists, who should, in fact, use this kind of qualitative research to pause and rethink their own decision-making. "Belief systems trump evidence," he said. "We continue to see example after example of how we really don't practice evidence-based medicine in this country. I like to refer to this as either selective evidence-based medicine or feel-good evidence-based medicine. We love studies that reinforce our preconceived belief systems and we go out of our way to tout their virtues. By contrast, when studies like OAT (Occluded Artery Study), ICTUS (Invasive vs Conservative Treatment in Unstable Coronary Syndromes), or COURAGE come out, everybody is quick to criticize them and is very reluctant to incorporate them into their clinical practice approaches."
Boden continued: "We have this peculiar brand of evidence-based medicine in the US, which is that we embrace studies that reinforce our belief systems and disdain, denigrate, go out of our way to bad-mouth studies that collide with our existing belief systems."
Sources
Lin GA, Dudley RA, Redberg RF. Cardiologists' use of percutaneous coronary interventions for stable coronary artery disease. Arch Intern Med 2007;167:1604-1609.
Moscucci M. Behavioral factors, bias, and practice guidelines in the decision to use percutaneous coronary interventions for stable coronary artery disease. Arch Intern Med 2007;167:1573-1575.
The complete contents of Heartwire, a professional news service of WebMD, can be found at www.theheart.org, a Web site for cardiovascular healthcare professionals.
-=-=-
The Sustainability of Chiropractic
Is Greg Stanley a doom-sayer or properly prophetic?
Read for yaself...
http://www.chiroweb.com/archives/25/19/19.html
joe
-=-=-
anyone interested in a paper entitled:
Death by Medicine
by
Gary Null, PhD ~ Carolyn Dean, MD, ND
Martin Feldman, MD ~ Debora Rasio, MD
Dorothy Smith, PhD
Yes?...click the link if you are
-=-=-=-=
while we are on the topic of experimental rubbish (like upper cervical---sarcasm---) masquerading as EBM, here's another wake up call for them...
Use of complementary and alternative medicine in pediatric otolaryngology patients attending a tertiary hospital in the UK.
Shakeel M, Little SA, Bruce J, Ah-See KW.
Department of Otolaryngology, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Aberdeen AB25 2ZN, Scotland, UK.
OBJECTIVE: Little data is available on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use in children attending otolaryngology services. We investigated the prevalence and pattern of CAM use among children attending the pediatric otolaryngology department in a tertiary pediatric teaching hospital in Scotland.
DESIGN: A cross-sectional survey conducted by administering an anonymous questionnaire to the parents accompanying patients attending the pediatric otolaryngology department. Elective admissions and clinic attendees were included over a 3-month period in 2005/2006.
SETTING: Academic tertiary care referral centre in North-East Scotland.
PATIENTS: Five hundred and fifty-four consecutive patients aged less than 16 years were eligible. The response rate was 59% (n=327).
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Prevalence of CAM use in children. Secondary measures include types of CAM used, indications for use and communication with family physicians.
RESULTS: Based on 327 responses, 93 patients (29%) had ever used CAM, 20% within the last year. Commonly used CAM preparations were cod-liver oil, echinacea, aloe vera, cranberry, primrose oil and herbal vitamin supplements. The popular non-herbal CAM included homeopathy, massage, aromatherapy, chiropractic, yoga and reiki. Nineteen percent used CAM for their admission illness. Sixty-one percent of parents thought that CAM was effective and 65% would recommend it to others. Fifty-one percent of parents stated that the family physician was unaware of CAM use by the child.
CONCLUSIONS: Despite concerns regarding the efficacy, safety and cost effectiveness of complementary and alternative medicine, its use among the pediatric otolaryngology population is more common than many providers may realize. This has implications for all healthcare workers involved in their care.
-=-=-=-
Waist to Hip Ratio Calculator
http://www.healthcalculators.org/calculators/waist_hip.asp
good measure of health?
-=-=
Perfect quote to support chiro?
someone asked me for the perfect quote in support of chiropractic for musculoskeletal conditions
years ago, I already created an ad (never used) for it which you can view at my site www.ierano.com
or click here to get the pdf file
not a bad one from a prominent medical specialist
joe
|
Issue 8
14/08/07 13:03
Obese Aussies a hazard for mortuaries
- More Health News -
MSNBC.com
eeeeek, what a story
so glad we are catching up with Americans...god bless ozmerica!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20134672/
Updated: 3:07 p.m. ET Aug. 5, 2007
SYDNEY - More than two-thirds of Australians living outside major cities are overweight or obese, and extremely obese corpses are creating a safety hazard at mortuaries, according to two studies released on Sunday.
Nearly three quarters of men and 64 percent of women were overweight in a study of people in rural areas. Just 30 percent of those studied recorded a healthy weight, said research published in the Medical Journal of Australia.
“Urgent action is required at the highest level to change unhealthy lifestyle habits by improving diet, increasing physical activity and making our environments supportive of these objectives,” wrote the lead researcher, Professor Edward Janus.
=-=-=-=-
Flexner
Hi Joe,
The group may be interested in downloading this report.
It is the one famous for setting up the current medical system and giving chiropractic a hard time over the years.
http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/files/elibrary/flexner_report.pdf
Donald
-=-=-
Anything made by McDonald's tastes better
CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Anything made by McDonald's tastes better, preschoolers said in a study that powerfully demonstrates how advertising can trick the taste buds of young children.
Even carrots, milk and apple juice tasted better to the kids when they were wrapped in the familiar packaging of the Golden Arches.
The study had youngsters sample identical McDonald's foods in name-brand and unmarked wrappers. The unmarked foods always lost the taste test.
Download whole story at: http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/diet.fitness/08/06/mcdonalds.preschoolers.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Many thanks Dr Henry Battistoni for this...
-=-=-
Exercise vs SMT
seems like the PTs are justifying their "exercise" approach and, ONCE again, we may ask "what about specific manipulation, ie: adjustment a la chiropractic, compared herewith...
certainly of interest
Comparison of general exercise, motor control exercise and spinal manipulative therapy for chronic low back pain: A randomized trial
Manuela L. Ferreiraa, Paulo H. Ferreirab, Jane Latimerc, Robert D. Herbertc, Paul W. Hodgesd, Matthew D. Jenningse, Christopher G. Maherc, Corresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author and Kathryn M. Refshaugec
aSchool of Physiotherapy, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Brazil
bSchool of Physiotherapy, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
cSchool of Physiotherapy, University of Sydney, Australia
dDivision of Physiotherapy, The University of Queensland, Australia
eDepartment of Physiotherapy, Liverpool Hospital, Sydney, Australia
Received 24 June 2006; revised 29 October 2006; accepted 7 December 2006. Available online 23 January 2007.
Abstract
Practice guidelines recommend various types of exercise and manipulative therapy for chronic back pain but there have been few head-to-head comparisons of these interventions.
We conducted a randomized controlled trial to compare effects of general exercise, motor control exercise and manipulative therapy on function and perceived effect of intervention in patients with chronic back pain.
Two hundred and forty adults with non-specific low back pain greater-or-equal, slanted3 months were allocated to groups that received 8 weeks of general exercise, motor control exercise or spinal manipulative therapy. General exercise included strengthening, stretching and aerobic exercises. Motor control exercise involved retraining specific trunk muscles using ultrasound feedback. Spinal manipulative therapy included joint mobilization and manipulation. Primary outcomes were patient-specific function (PSFS, 3–30) and global perceived effect (GPE, −5 to 5) at 8 weeks. These outcomes were also measured at 6 and 12 months. Follow-up was 93% at 8 weeks and 88% at 6 and 12 months. The motor control exercise group had slightly better outcomes than the general exercise group at 8 weeks (between-group difference: PSFS 2.9, 95% CI: 0.9–4.8; GPE 1.7, 95% CI: 0.9–2.4), as did the spinal manipulative therapy group (PSFS 2.3, 95% CI: 0.4–4.2; GPE 1.2, 95% CI: 0.4–2.0).
The groups had similar outcomes at 6 and 12 months. Motor control exercise and spinal manipulative therapy produce slightly better short-term function and perceptions of effect than general exercise, but not better medium or long-term effects, in patients with chronic non-specific back pain.
Pain. Volume 131, Issues 1-2, September 2007, Pages 31-37
-=-=-
Asia
Hello friends,
This seems serious.
A friend in Singapore contacted me re: his grief...
Hi Joe how are you? just wondering, with your vast knowledge and
experience including being in the media,how would you respond to nasty
orthopods. They wrote something in the newspaper here that there's no
scientific evidence of chiros helping pts with scoliosis and some bad
mouthing as well. Have you ever written anything back to fight back
like what you have written in journals and etc? Thank you. We are
having a tough time here. The ministry of health does not want to
register us either and the orthopods are using that as leverage that
we are unscientific, unregulated and unregistered. Argh. Anthony
There is an interesting story about Asia in the CAA newsletter this month. Written by Krystina Brown. There are so many unregistered charlatans, she writes, calling themselves chiropractors, that the mind boggles.
What would I say to an Ortho Surgeon who claims chiropractors dont help scoliosis?
1. do you subscribe to the chiropractic journals that publish results with scoliosis? Or are you aware of such studies?
2. what is the success rate of surgical approaches to idiopathic scoliosis and how do hey compare with conservative treatment?
3. Rapid advancement of idiopathic, or otherwise, scoliosis requires urgent referral to orthopaedic surgeon for assessment, usually in the range of 20-40º, and certainly for advances greater than 40º. Meanwhile, musculoskeletal imbalance can be addressed through chiropractic technique regimes to complement any required medical therapies and allow the patient to experience pain relief or sometimes suspension of scoliotic advancement.
Other associated discomfort due to scoliotic involvement can be relieved, such as suboccipital tension contributing to headache, or erector spinae hypertonicity creating thoracic tension triggering organ reflex symptoms through neuro-genic stimulation, which can be successfully alleviated with specific manipulative techniques to restore normality to the vertebral motion segments.
Scoliosis sufferers commonly endure reflexogenic effects of thoracic curvature such as stomach problems, diaphragm pressures like reflux and hiatus hernias...all relieved by gentle chiropractic work.
Many specific techniques look at the role of pelvic instability, or the upper cervical spine in the neurogenic link to postural distortions through injury or other means.
In essence, the work of chiropractic care is not always to cure scoliosis, which is, in fact, rare in any medical or chiropractic case. The essence of chiropractic is to alleviate human suffering, educate the patient in maintaining optimal health, and finally to advise the patient when to refer to medical specialists where indicated.
The dangers of surgery are known. The benefits too. In all cases, sound medical advice would have consideration for any possible help to be gained by chiropractic care. All good orthopaedic specialists do not rush into surgery unless the odds are toward the beneficial outcomes.
In Australia, UK and North American institutions, chiropractors are educated at UNIVERSITIES to work together with medical physicians to help people and complement the benefits of all therapies registered by the government.
....hope this helps friend.
And for what its worth "illegitimati non carborundum"...or whatever they say!
joe
-=-=-=-=-
jim sigafoose article
makes sense to me
http://www.planetc1.com/cgi-bin/n/v.cgi?c=1&id=1186549764
personally I have an "all encompassing" approach....but I still get more bang for my buck by adjusting C1, specifically, using x ray 99% of the time, in the time honoured approach BJ shared.
we certainly loved this...
My patient Greg Buchanan says "adjusting C1 specifically is what will help us patients..."
-=-=-
Quote
the germans have it here...
super quote for your files
thanks greg
joe
"Cranial Trauma & Head Joints (C1,2) -Many discomforts subsequent to cranial trauma remain latent for a considerable length of time and were unexplainable until now. They are due to subluxations of atlas and axis. They consist of muscular reflectoric, radicular and sympathetic nervous system symptoms. Chiropractic treatment aimed at realigning cervical vertebrae is the recommended course of action and can relieve all symptoms completely. G. Gutmann, MD, (1955) Cranial Trauma and Head Joints (German Medical Weekly), 80, 1503"
_______________________________________________________
Regards
Greg Buchanan - www.upcspine.com; www.uppercervicalpatients.com; www.whattimetuesday.com
Upper Cervical Patient Advocate - Australia
'The greatest natural resource that any country can have is its children' - Danny Kaye
-=-=-=-
for the music lovers
just saw the Johnny Cash movie Walk the Line
for fans, look at this song in his old age
someone sent it to me saying it was his most beautiful
so I posted it on my
myspace blog
enjoy
joe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go
-=-=-
Coffe OD
my friend in USA is still not convinced of the health benefits of
coffee,
after this story, no wonder....but I still like my "one a day" drug.
joe
Teenage girl rushed to hospital after overdosing on coffee
By PAUL SIMS - More by this author »
Last updated at 01:28am on 14th August 2007
A teenage waitress overdosed on caffeine after drinking 14 shots of
espresso.
Jasmine Willis, 17, could hardly breathe and was taken to hospital
with a high temperature and heart palpitations.
She had drunk almost three times the recommended daily amount of
caffeine in just four hours.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/
dietfitness.html?
in_article_id=475021&in_page_id=1774&ICO=HEALTH&ICL=TOPART
-=-=-=-
NEW FILM
Read this Film review
SiCKO strikes a chord
Janis Hass, BAA
Ottawa, Ont.
SiCKO Written, produced and directed by Michael Moore; Alliance Atlantis; 2007; 116 min
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/177/4/379?etoc
-=-=-=--
WOW, look at this, thanks also to Dr Love of the UK.
When are we going to broadcast this and not the "others"??
So maybe kyphotic necks aren't normal after all?!
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12457-bad-posture-could-raise-your-blood-pressure.html
Bad posture could raise your blood pressure
14:12 11 August 2007
NewScientist.com news service
THAT office job might be raising your blood pressure in more ways than one.
A link between the muscles in the neck, blood pressure and heart rate has long been suspected. Now Jim Deuchars and colleagues at the University of Leeds, UK, have found a direct neural connection between these neck muscles and a part of the brainstem - called the nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS) - which plays a crucial role in regulating heart rate and blood pressure.
Deuchars's team was using mice to investigate how the brain responds to a variety of stimulatory and inhibitory proteins. They noticed that a group of brain cells connected to the neck muscles kept firing in response to both types of proteins, suggesting the cells played a very active role in the brain.
"The cells lit up time and time again, so we looked at what they were doing," says team member Ian Edwards. It turned out that these cells are also connected to the NTS (The Journal of Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.0638-07.2007).
Edwards says the finding could explain why blood pressure and heart rate sometimes change when the neck muscles are injured - through whiplash, for example. Similarly, it is possible that hours spent hunched over a computer may raise blood pressure. "The pathway exists for bad posture to really have an effect," Edwards says.
AND MORE:
RAW DATA ON LAST E-MAIL:
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/31/8324?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=neck+blood+pressure&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT
The Neurochemically Diverse Intermedius Nucleus of the Medulla as a Source of Excitatory and Inhibitory Synaptic Input to the Nucleus Tractus Solitarii
Ian J. Edwards,1 * Mark L. Dallas,1 * Sarah L. Poole,1 Carol J. Milligan,1 Yuchio Yanagawa,2 Gábor Szabó,3 Ferenc Erdélyi,3 Susan A. Deuchars,1 and Jim Deuchars1
1Institute of Membrane and Systems Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom, 2Department of Genetic and Behavioral Neuroscience, Gunma University Graduate School of Medicine, and Solution Oriented Research for Science and Technology, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Maebashi 371-8511, Japan, and 3Department of Gene Technology and Developmental Neurobiology, Institute of Experimental Medicine, H-1450 Budapest, Hungary
Correspondence should be addressed to either Jim Deuchars or Susan A. Deuchars, Institute of Membrane and Systems Biology, Garstang Building, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. Email: J.Deuchars@leeds.ac.uk or Email: S.A.Deuchars@leeds.ac.uk
Sensory afferent signals from neck muscles have been postulated to influence central cardiorespiratory control as components of postural reflexes, but neuronal pathways for this action have not been identified. The intermedius nucleus of the medulla (InM) is a target of neck muscle spindle afferents and is ideally located to influence such reflexes but is poorly investigated. To aid identification of the nucleus, we initially produced three-dimensional reconstructions of the InM in both mouse and rat. Neurochemical analysis including transgenic reporter mice expressing green fluorescent protein in GABA-synthesizing neurons, immunohistochemistry, and in situ hybridization revealed that the InM is neurochemically diverse, containing GABAegric and glutamatergic neurons with some degree of colocalization with parvalbumin, neuronal nitric oxide synthase, and calretinin. Projections from the InM to the nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS) were studied electrophysiologically in rat brainstem slices. Electrical stimulation of the NTS resulted in antidromically activated action potentials within InM neurons. In addition, electrical stimulation of the InM resulted in EPSPs that were mediated by excitatory amino acids and IPSPs mediated solely by GABAA receptors or by GABAA and glycine receptors. Chemical stimulation of the InM resulted in (1) a depolarization of NTS neurons that were blocked by NBQX (2,3-dioxo-6-nitro-1,2,3,4-tetrahydrobenzo[f]quinoxaline-7-sulfonoamide) or kynurenic acid and (2) a hyperpolarization of NTS neurons that were blocked by bicuculline. Thus, the InM contains neurochemically diverse neurons and sends both excitatory and inhibitory projections to the NTS. These data provide a novel pathway that may underlie possible reflex changes in autonomic variables after neck muscle spindle afferent activation.
eeeeek, what a story
so glad we are catching up with Americans...god bless ozmerica!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20134672/
Updated: 3:07 p.m. ET Aug. 5, 2007
SYDNEY - More than two-thirds of Australians living outside major cities are overweight or obese, and extremely obese corpses are creating a safety hazard at mortuaries, according to two studies released on Sunday.
Nearly three quarters of men and 64 percent of women were overweight in a study of people in rural areas. Just 30 percent of those studied recorded a healthy weight, said research published in the Medical Journal of Australia.
“Urgent action is required at the highest level to change unhealthy lifestyle habits by improving diet, increasing physical activity and making our environments supportive of these objectives,” wrote the lead researcher, Professor Edward Janus.
=-=-=-=-
Flexner
Hi Joe,
The group may be interested in downloading this report.
It is the one famous for setting up the current medical system and giving chiropractic a hard time over the years.
http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/files/elibrary/flexner_report.pdf
Donald
-=-=-
Anything made by McDonald's tastes better
CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Anything made by McDonald's tastes better, preschoolers said in a study that powerfully demonstrates how advertising can trick the taste buds of young children.
Even carrots, milk and apple juice tasted better to the kids when they were wrapped in the familiar packaging of the Golden Arches.
The study had youngsters sample identical McDonald's foods in name-brand and unmarked wrappers. The unmarked foods always lost the taste test.
Download whole story at: http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/diet.fitness/08/06/mcdonalds.preschoolers.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Many thanks Dr Henry Battistoni for this...
-=-=-
Exercise vs SMT
seems like the PTs are justifying their "exercise" approach and, ONCE again, we may ask "what about specific manipulation, ie: adjustment a la chiropractic, compared herewith...
certainly of interest
Comparison of general exercise, motor control exercise and spinal manipulative therapy for chronic low back pain: A randomized trial
Manuela L. Ferreiraa, Paulo H. Ferreirab, Jane Latimerc, Robert D. Herbertc, Paul W. Hodgesd, Matthew D. Jenningse, Christopher G. Maherc, Corresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author and Kathryn M. Refshaugec
aSchool of Physiotherapy, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Brazil
bSchool of Physiotherapy, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
cSchool of Physiotherapy, University of Sydney, Australia
dDivision of Physiotherapy, The University of Queensland, Australia
eDepartment of Physiotherapy, Liverpool Hospital, Sydney, Australia
Received 24 June 2006; revised 29 October 2006; accepted 7 December 2006. Available online 23 January 2007.
Abstract
Practice guidelines recommend various types of exercise and manipulative therapy for chronic back pain but there have been few head-to-head comparisons of these interventions.
We conducted a randomized controlled trial to compare effects of general exercise, motor control exercise and manipulative therapy on function and perceived effect of intervention in patients with chronic back pain.
Two hundred and forty adults with non-specific low back pain greater-or-equal, slanted3 months were allocated to groups that received 8 weeks of general exercise, motor control exercise or spinal manipulative therapy. General exercise included strengthening, stretching and aerobic exercises. Motor control exercise involved retraining specific trunk muscles using ultrasound feedback. Spinal manipulative therapy included joint mobilization and manipulation. Primary outcomes were patient-specific function (PSFS, 3–30) and global perceived effect (GPE, −5 to 5) at 8 weeks. These outcomes were also measured at 6 and 12 months. Follow-up was 93% at 8 weeks and 88% at 6 and 12 months. The motor control exercise group had slightly better outcomes than the general exercise group at 8 weeks (between-group difference: PSFS 2.9, 95% CI: 0.9–4.8; GPE 1.7, 95% CI: 0.9–2.4), as did the spinal manipulative therapy group (PSFS 2.3, 95% CI: 0.4–4.2; GPE 1.2, 95% CI: 0.4–2.0).
The groups had similar outcomes at 6 and 12 months. Motor control exercise and spinal manipulative therapy produce slightly better short-term function and perceptions of effect than general exercise, but not better medium or long-term effects, in patients with chronic non-specific back pain.
Pain. Volume 131, Issues 1-2, September 2007, Pages 31-37
-=-=-
Asia
Hello friends,
This seems serious.
A friend in Singapore contacted me re: his grief...
Hi Joe how are you? just wondering, with your vast knowledge and
experience including being in the media,how would you respond to nasty
orthopods. They wrote something in the newspaper here that there's no
scientific evidence of chiros helping pts with scoliosis and some bad
mouthing as well. Have you ever written anything back to fight back
like what you have written in journals and etc? Thank you. We are
having a tough time here. The ministry of health does not want to
register us either and the orthopods are using that as leverage that
we are unscientific, unregulated and unregistered. Argh. Anthony
There is an interesting story about Asia in the CAA newsletter this month. Written by Krystina Brown. There are so many unregistered charlatans, she writes, calling themselves chiropractors, that the mind boggles.
What would I say to an Ortho Surgeon who claims chiropractors dont help scoliosis?
1. do you subscribe to the chiropractic journals that publish results with scoliosis? Or are you aware of such studies?
2. what is the success rate of surgical approaches to idiopathic scoliosis and how do hey compare with conservative treatment?
3. Rapid advancement of idiopathic, or otherwise, scoliosis requires urgent referral to orthopaedic surgeon for assessment, usually in the range of 20-40º, and certainly for advances greater than 40º. Meanwhile, musculoskeletal imbalance can be addressed through chiropractic technique regimes to complement any required medical therapies and allow the patient to experience pain relief or sometimes suspension of scoliotic advancement.
Other associated discomfort due to scoliotic involvement can be relieved, such as suboccipital tension contributing to headache, or erector spinae hypertonicity creating thoracic tension triggering organ reflex symptoms through neuro-genic stimulation, which can be successfully alleviated with specific manipulative techniques to restore normality to the vertebral motion segments.
Scoliosis sufferers commonly endure reflexogenic effects of thoracic curvature such as stomach problems, diaphragm pressures like reflux and hiatus hernias...all relieved by gentle chiropractic work.
Many specific techniques look at the role of pelvic instability, or the upper cervical spine in the neurogenic link to postural distortions through injury or other means.
In essence, the work of chiropractic care is not always to cure scoliosis, which is, in fact, rare in any medical or chiropractic case. The essence of chiropractic is to alleviate human suffering, educate the patient in maintaining optimal health, and finally to advise the patient when to refer to medical specialists where indicated.
The dangers of surgery are known. The benefits too. In all cases, sound medical advice would have consideration for any possible help to be gained by chiropractic care. All good orthopaedic specialists do not rush into surgery unless the odds are toward the beneficial outcomes.
In Australia, UK and North American institutions, chiropractors are educated at UNIVERSITIES to work together with medical physicians to help people and complement the benefits of all therapies registered by the government.
....hope this helps friend.
And for what its worth "illegitimati non carborundum"...or whatever they say!
joe
-=-=-=-=-
jim sigafoose article
makes sense to me
http://www.planetc1.com/cgi-bin/n/v.cgi?c=1&id=1186549764
personally I have an "all encompassing" approach....but I still get more bang for my buck by adjusting C1, specifically, using x ray 99% of the time, in the time honoured approach BJ shared.
we certainly loved this...
My patient Greg Buchanan says "adjusting C1 specifically is what will help us patients..."
-=-=-
Quote
the germans have it here...
super quote for your files
thanks greg
joe
"Cranial Trauma & Head Joints (C1,2) -Many discomforts subsequent to cranial trauma remain latent for a considerable length of time and were unexplainable until now. They are due to subluxations of atlas and axis. They consist of muscular reflectoric, radicular and sympathetic nervous system symptoms. Chiropractic treatment aimed at realigning cervical vertebrae is the recommended course of action and can relieve all symptoms completely. G. Gutmann, MD, (1955) Cranial Trauma and Head Joints (German Medical Weekly), 80, 1503"
_______________________________________________________
Regards
Greg Buchanan - www.upcspine.com; www.uppercervicalpatients.com; www.whattimetuesday.com
Upper Cervical Patient Advocate - Australia
'The greatest natural resource that any country can have is its children' - Danny Kaye
-=-=-=-
for the music lovers
just saw the Johnny Cash movie Walk the Line
for fans, look at this song in his old age
someone sent it to me saying it was his most beautiful
so I posted it on my
myspace blog
enjoy
joe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go
-=-=-
Coffe OD
my friend in USA is still not convinced of the health benefits of
coffee,
after this story, no wonder....but I still like my "one a day" drug.
joe
Teenage girl rushed to hospital after overdosing on coffee
By PAUL SIMS - More by this author »
Last updated at 01:28am on 14th August 2007
A teenage waitress overdosed on caffeine after drinking 14 shots of
espresso.
Jasmine Willis, 17, could hardly breathe and was taken to hospital
with a high temperature and heart palpitations.
She had drunk almost three times the recommended daily amount of
caffeine in just four hours.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/
dietfitness.html?
in_article_id=475021&in_page_id=1774&ICO=HEALTH&ICL=TOPART
-=-=-=-
NEW FILM
Read this Film review
SiCKO strikes a chord
Janis Hass, BAA
Ottawa, Ont.
SiCKO Written, produced and directed by Michael Moore; Alliance Atlantis; 2007; 116 min
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/177/4/379?etoc
-=-=-=--
WOW, look at this, thanks also to Dr Love of the UK.
When are we going to broadcast this and not the "others"??
So maybe kyphotic necks aren't normal after all?!
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12457-bad-posture-could-raise-your-blood-pressure.html
Bad posture could raise your blood pressure
14:12 11 August 2007
NewScientist.com news service
THAT office job might be raising your blood pressure in more ways than one.
A link between the muscles in the neck, blood pressure and heart rate has long been suspected. Now Jim Deuchars and colleagues at the University of Leeds, UK, have found a direct neural connection between these neck muscles and a part of the brainstem - called the nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS) - which plays a crucial role in regulating heart rate and blood pressure.
Deuchars's team was using mice to investigate how the brain responds to a variety of stimulatory and inhibitory proteins. They noticed that a group of brain cells connected to the neck muscles kept firing in response to both types of proteins, suggesting the cells played a very active role in the brain.
"The cells lit up time and time again, so we looked at what they were doing," says team member Ian Edwards. It turned out that these cells are also connected to the NTS (The Journal of Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.0638-07.2007).
Edwards says the finding could explain why blood pressure and heart rate sometimes change when the neck muscles are injured - through whiplash, for example. Similarly, it is possible that hours spent hunched over a computer may raise blood pressure. "The pathway exists for bad posture to really have an effect," Edwards says.
AND MORE:
RAW DATA ON LAST E-MAIL:
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/31/8324?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=neck+blood+pressure&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT
The Neurochemically Diverse Intermedius Nucleus of the Medulla as a Source of Excitatory and Inhibitory Synaptic Input to the Nucleus Tractus Solitarii
Ian J. Edwards,1 * Mark L. Dallas,1 * Sarah L. Poole,1 Carol J. Milligan,1 Yuchio Yanagawa,2 Gábor Szabó,3 Ferenc Erdélyi,3 Susan A. Deuchars,1 and Jim Deuchars1
1Institute of Membrane and Systems Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom, 2Department of Genetic and Behavioral Neuroscience, Gunma University Graduate School of Medicine, and Solution Oriented Research for Science and Technology, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Maebashi 371-8511, Japan, and 3Department of Gene Technology and Developmental Neurobiology, Institute of Experimental Medicine, H-1450 Budapest, Hungary
Correspondence should be addressed to either Jim Deuchars or Susan A. Deuchars, Institute of Membrane and Systems Biology, Garstang Building, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. Email: J.Deuchars@leeds.ac.uk or Email: S.A.Deuchars@leeds.ac.uk
Sensory afferent signals from neck muscles have been postulated to influence central cardiorespiratory control as components of postural reflexes, but neuronal pathways for this action have not been identified. The intermedius nucleus of the medulla (InM) is a target of neck muscle spindle afferents and is ideally located to influence such reflexes but is poorly investigated. To aid identification of the nucleus, we initially produced three-dimensional reconstructions of the InM in both mouse and rat. Neurochemical analysis including transgenic reporter mice expressing green fluorescent protein in GABA-synthesizing neurons, immunohistochemistry, and in situ hybridization revealed that the InM is neurochemically diverse, containing GABAegric and glutamatergic neurons with some degree of colocalization with parvalbumin, neuronal nitric oxide synthase, and calretinin. Projections from the InM to the nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS) were studied electrophysiologically in rat brainstem slices. Electrical stimulation of the NTS resulted in antidromically activated action potentials within InM neurons. In addition, electrical stimulation of the InM resulted in EPSPs that were mediated by excitatory amino acids and IPSPs mediated solely by GABAA receptors or by GABAA and glycine receptors. Chemical stimulation of the InM resulted in (1) a depolarization of NTS neurons that were blocked by NBQX (2,3-dioxo-6-nitro-1,2,3,4-tetrahydrobenzo[f]quinoxaline-7-sulfonoamide) or kynurenic acid and (2) a hyperpolarization of NTS neurons that were blocked by bicuculline. Thus, the InM contains neurochemically diverse neurons and sends both excitatory and inhibitory projections to the NTS. These data provide a novel pathway that may underlie possible reflex changes in autonomic variables after neck muscle spindle afferent activation.
Issue 7
06/08/07 12:14
Cat
this is astounding enough to pass on
joe
Nursing home cat predicts death
-=-=-=-=
Cervical Cancer Vax
I dont have the full article, but the title says it all: blame the media whenever you can, if money's at stake.
joe
Medicine and the media: Fainting schoolgirls wipe $A1bn off market value of Gardasil producer
-=-=-=
More on Vax
I send this out only because it was reported in the British Medical Journal and not a media circus
joe
HPV Vaccine: Gardasil may be a killer
14 June 2007
The HPV vaccine – which is being given to girls aged between 11 and 12 to prevent cervical cancer in later life – may be a killer. So far three young girls have died after being vaccinated, and there have been 1,637 adverse reactions reported in under a year.
In Australia 25 girls at the same school who had been given their first HPV vaccine last month experienced headache and nausea, and four ended up in hospital.
The vaccine, Gardasil, has courted controversy since it was approved for use last year. Some states in the USA have decided to make the vaccine compulsory, which has caused an outcry among parents who see the vaccine as a license for sexual relationships outside of marriage.
Gardasil is supposed to protect against human papillomavirus types 6, 11, 16 and 18, which cause most cervical cancers and genital warts.
A public interest group, Judicial Watch, discovered the extent of the adverse reactions only when they made a request to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the Freedom of Information Act.
Presumably the FDA would have preferred to have stayed silent rather than alert the public about a vaccine that may need more safety trials.
(Source: British Medical Journal, 2007; 334: 1182).
-=-=-=-
Bush To Veto Ban On Mercury In Vaccines
Clear links to neurological disorders ignored, removed from animal vaccines but fine for babies
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Friday, July 20, 2007
President Bush is to veto a bill that would ban mercury in flu vaccines for children despite its known links to autism and other neurological disorders and despite the fact that he pledged in 2004 to support such a move when campaigning for re-election.
The White House stated on Tuesday that President
Bush would veto the FY 2008 HHS-Labor-Education Appropriations Bill because of the cost and "objectionable provisions" such as a measure to ban the use of childhood flu vaccines that contain thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, a press release from Autism advocacy group Safe Minds on the PRNewswire-USNewswire states.
Bush is calling for an amendment that would remove the children's safety provision from the bill.
Safe Minds warns:
"Under the current administration, mercury has been and will continue to be knowingly injected into the youngest of American citizens. The controversial mercury-containing preservative thimerosal has been linked by thousands of parents as being the cause of their children's mercury poisoning and autism."
The flu vaccine, which continues to be manufactured with mercury, is recommended for all pregnant women, infants and children despite the fact that the Institute of Medicine in 2001 recommended against the policy of
exposing these same sensitive groups to thimerosal containing vaccines.
Mercury is the second most toxic metal known to man behind Uranium. Thimerosal is used in vaccines not because it is good for you, but purely because it prevents vaccine contamination. Yet some have questioned why thimerosal is even considered for vaccines because there are obviously safer alternatives to preventing contamination. Questions also remain about how pharmaceutical companies conduct vaccine research and how the government regulates those companies.
Despite these facts, sickening reports such as the one below continue to make out that injecting the second most poisonous substance in the world into babies is actually GOOD for their health:
During Bush's reelection campaign in 2004 he stated:
"I support the removal of Thimerosal from vaccines on the childhood national vaccine schedule. During a second term as President, I will continue to support increased funding to support a wide variety of research initiatives aimed at seeking definitive causes and/or triggers of autism. It is important to note that while there are many possible theories about causes or triggers of autism, no one material has been definitely included or excluded."
Despite this he now plans to veto a bill that would remove Thimerosal because of "costs". What costs would these be? Do the costs of big pharmaceutical companies and fat government kickbacks outweigh the costs of the healthy brains of every child in America? Seemingly so.
-=-=-=-
got to laugh...
thanks to Dr Doug Hart
joe
Subject: Hospital Charts
Writings from hospital charts)
1. The patient refused autopsy.
2. The patient has no previous history of suicides.
3. Patient has left white blood cells at another hospital.
4. She has no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night.
5. Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.
6. On the second day the knee was better and on the third day it disappeared.
7. The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.
8. The patient has been depressed since she began seeing me in 1993.
9. Discharge status: Alive but without permission.
10. Healthy appearing decrepit 69-year old male, mentally alert but forgetful.
11. Patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch.
12. She is numb from her toes down.
13. While in ER, she was examined, x-rated and sent home.
14. The skin was moist and dry.
15. Occasional, constant infrequent headaches.
16. Patient was alert and unresponsive.
17. Rectal examination revealed a normal size thyroid.
18. She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life, until she got a divorce.
19. I saw your patient today, who is still under our car for physical therapy.
20. Both breasts are equal and reactive to light and accommodation.
21. Examination of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized.
22. The lab test indicated abnormal lover function.
23. Skin: somewhat pale but present.
24. The pelvic exam will be done later on the floor.
25. Patient has two teenage children, but no other abnormalities
-=-=-=-
Quiz Here
These neurology quizzes are tough!
thanks Dr M Sola & A Patterson
http://library.med.utah.edu/kw/animations/hyperbrain/pathways/index.html
-=-=
PTs have their say
July 30, 2007 - 2:39PM
What Ails You: Role of physical therapist more complicated than some understand
...and I can safely say this article will confuse you ever more...
joe
http://www.desertdispatch.com/news/physical_1126___article.html/therapist_therapy.html
-=-=-=-=
good exercise info
Take a break to burn fat fast
Reuters
It's the news that reluctant gym-goers have been waiting for. Taking a few minutes break between exercise sessions seems to help burn more fat.
Japanese and Danish researchers have found that men who exercise for two 30 minute stretches, taking a 20 minute break in between, burn more fat than when they exercise for a single 60 minute session and then rest afterwards.
see whole story at:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1993725.htm?health
-=-=-=-=
looks interesting...
joe
Changes in Physical State and Self-Perceptions in Domains of Health Related Quality of Life Among Public Safety Personnel Undergoing Chiropractic Care
Wesley McAllister BA, DC Bio WR Boone DC, Ph.D Bio
[August 6, 2007, pp 1-7]
this is astounding enough to pass on
joe
Nursing home cat predicts death
-=-=-=-=
Cervical Cancer Vax
I dont have the full article, but the title says it all: blame the media whenever you can, if money's at stake.
joe
Medicine and the media: Fainting schoolgirls wipe $A1bn off market value of Gardasil producer
-=-=-=
More on Vax
I send this out only because it was reported in the British Medical Journal and not a media circus
joe
HPV Vaccine: Gardasil may be a killer
14 June 2007
The HPV vaccine – which is being given to girls aged between 11 and 12 to prevent cervical cancer in later life – may be a killer. So far three young girls have died after being vaccinated, and there have been 1,637 adverse reactions reported in under a year.
In Australia 25 girls at the same school who had been given their first HPV vaccine last month experienced headache and nausea, and four ended up in hospital.
The vaccine, Gardasil, has courted controversy since it was approved for use last year. Some states in the USA have decided to make the vaccine compulsory, which has caused an outcry among parents who see the vaccine as a license for sexual relationships outside of marriage.
Gardasil is supposed to protect against human papillomavirus types 6, 11, 16 and 18, which cause most cervical cancers and genital warts.
A public interest group, Judicial Watch, discovered the extent of the adverse reactions only when they made a request to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the Freedom of Information Act.
Presumably the FDA would have preferred to have stayed silent rather than alert the public about a vaccine that may need more safety trials.
(Source: British Medical Journal, 2007; 334: 1182).
-=-=-=-
Bush To Veto Ban On Mercury In Vaccines
Clear links to neurological disorders ignored, removed from animal vaccines but fine for babies
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Friday, July 20, 2007
President Bush is to veto a bill that would ban mercury in flu vaccines for children despite its known links to autism and other neurological disorders and despite the fact that he pledged in 2004 to support such a move when campaigning for re-election.
The White House stated on Tuesday that President
Bush would veto the FY 2008 HHS-Labor-Education Appropriations Bill because of the cost and "objectionable provisions" such as a measure to ban the use of childhood flu vaccines that contain thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, a press release from Autism advocacy group Safe Minds on the PRNewswire-USNewswire states.
Bush is calling for an amendment that would remove the children's safety provision from the bill.
Safe Minds warns:
"Under the current administration, mercury has been and will continue to be knowingly injected into the youngest of American citizens. The controversial mercury-containing preservative thimerosal has been linked by thousands of parents as being the cause of their children's mercury poisoning and autism."
The flu vaccine, which continues to be manufactured with mercury, is recommended for all pregnant women, infants and children despite the fact that the Institute of Medicine in 2001 recommended against the policy of
exposing these same sensitive groups to thimerosal containing vaccines.
Mercury is the second most toxic metal known to man behind Uranium. Thimerosal is used in vaccines not because it is good for you, but purely because it prevents vaccine contamination. Yet some have questioned why thimerosal is even considered for vaccines because there are obviously safer alternatives to preventing contamination. Questions also remain about how pharmaceutical companies conduct vaccine research and how the government regulates those companies.
Despite these facts, sickening reports such as the one below continue to make out that injecting the second most poisonous substance in the world into babies is actually GOOD for their health:
During Bush's reelection campaign in 2004 he stated:
"I support the removal of Thimerosal from vaccines on the childhood national vaccine schedule. During a second term as President, I will continue to support increased funding to support a wide variety of research initiatives aimed at seeking definitive causes and/or triggers of autism. It is important to note that while there are many possible theories about causes or triggers of autism, no one material has been definitely included or excluded."
Despite this he now plans to veto a bill that would remove Thimerosal because of "costs". What costs would these be? Do the costs of big pharmaceutical companies and fat government kickbacks outweigh the costs of the healthy brains of every child in America? Seemingly so.
-=-=-=-
got to laugh...
thanks to Dr Doug Hart
joe
Subject: Hospital Charts
Writings from hospital charts)
1. The patient refused autopsy.
2. The patient has no previous history of suicides.
3. Patient has left white blood cells at another hospital.
4. She has no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night.
5. Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.
6. On the second day the knee was better and on the third day it disappeared.
7. The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.
8. The patient has been depressed since she began seeing me in 1993.
9. Discharge status: Alive but without permission.
10. Healthy appearing decrepit 69-year old male, mentally alert but forgetful.
11. Patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch.
12. She is numb from her toes down.
13. While in ER, she was examined, x-rated and sent home.
14. The skin was moist and dry.
15. Occasional, constant infrequent headaches.
16. Patient was alert and unresponsive.
17. Rectal examination revealed a normal size thyroid.
18. She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life, until she got a divorce.
19. I saw your patient today, who is still under our car for physical therapy.
20. Both breasts are equal and reactive to light and accommodation.
21. Examination of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized.
22. The lab test indicated abnormal lover function.
23. Skin: somewhat pale but present.
24. The pelvic exam will be done later on the floor.
25. Patient has two teenage children, but no other abnormalities
-=-=-=-
Quiz Here
These neurology quizzes are tough!
thanks Dr M Sola & A Patterson
http://library.med.utah.edu/kw/animations/hyperbrain/pathways/index.html
-=-=
PTs have their say
July 30, 2007 - 2:39PM
What Ails You: Role of physical therapist more complicated than some understand
...and I can safely say this article will confuse you ever more...
joe
http://www.desertdispatch.com/news/physical_1126___article.html/therapist_therapy.html
-=-=-=-=
good exercise info
Take a break to burn fat fast
Reuters
It's the news that reluctant gym-goers have been waiting for. Taking a few minutes break between exercise sessions seems to help burn more fat.
Japanese and Danish researchers have found that men who exercise for two 30 minute stretches, taking a 20 minute break in between, burn more fat than when they exercise for a single 60 minute session and then rest afterwards.
see whole story at:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1993725.htm?health
-=-=-=-=
looks interesting...
joe
Changes in Physical State and Self-Perceptions in Domains of Health Related Quality of Life Among Public Safety Personnel Undergoing Chiropractic Care
Wesley McAllister BA, DC Bio WR Boone DC, Ph.D Bio
[August 6, 2007, pp 1-7]