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Fibromyalgia

Posted on 2009-10-16 14:31:20

Your Seattle Chiropractor knows that you don’t need anyone to tell you about the difficult symptoms of fibromyalgia if you suffer from the pain created by it. The painful symptoms can be extensive, occurring above and below the waist, and involve both sides of the body. The deep aching that accompanies the condition often travels, shoots, stings, and even gnaws at your body.

As if the acute pain and suffering from fibromyalgia weren’t enough, a surprising ninety percent of fibromyalgia sufferers also experience chronic fatigue syndrome, and you might be one of them. It is this “double whammy” that can result in your not only suffering from pain and fatigue, but also anxiety, headaches, numbness and pins and needles, dizziness, sleep disturbance, swollen feeling in tissues, stiffness, sensitivity to noise and stress, and cognitive impairment.

If you are suffering from one, or both, of these two debilitating conditions, you may find it difficult to participate in even the simplest activities in life, and you may even be feeling depressed and defeated. Fortunately, your chiropractor can help you. Chiropractic techniques have been found to be highly beneficial in reversing trauma-induced injuries by reducing inflammation to the nerves in the brain stem and spinal cord that can bring about pain, neuromuscular dysfunction, and fatigue.

What do “trauma-induced injuries” have to do with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome? You may find the connection surprising

While the specific cause of these syndromes is unknown, recent research has pointed to traumatic neck injuries, such as whiplash and concussion, as risk factors for the onset of both fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. And, here’s the thing: even though the pain and fatigue generated by spinal injuries can begin immediately, in many cases it can take quite a long time, perhaps months or years to develop. By the time fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome symptoms become apparent, these injuries may not be remembered.

When it comes knowledge the spine and how to take care of it, your chiropractor is an expert. Chiropractic treatment has been proven to be highly effective in reversing trauma-induced spinal injury. See your chiropractor today to see if chiropractic care the pain and suffering you’ve been experiencing from fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.

From Seattle Chiropractor Aug 2009

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Swine Flu Vaccine could be associated with Guillan-Barre Syndrome

Posted on 2009-09-09 11:41:00

Notice to Neurologists on Influenza A (H1N1) Virus Vaccination

A request from the American Academy of Neurology and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Neurologists are being asked to report to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) any cases of suspected Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) associated with vaccination against the 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) virus. The request is a joint effort of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Neurology. Although the new vaccine is not expected to increase the risk for GBS, the request is being made proactively because of the GBS cases associated with the 1976 swine flu vaccine.

A monovalent vaccine against the H1N1 virus is in development, and vaccinations are planned to start this fall, with a focus on infants, children, and young adults through age 24; adults older than 24 with underlying health conditions; and healthcare workers.

The AAN last published guidelines on treating GBS in 2003. Either plasma exchange or intravenous immunoglobulin (but not both) is recommended to speed recovery, although more adverse effects have been associated with plasma exchange.

Report forms for the CDC/FDA VAERS program are available at http://vaers.hhs.gov.

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Worst and Best Pizza to Eat

Posted on 2009-09-01 15:49:55

The Best and Worst Pizzas in America

By David Zinczenko, with Matt Goulding - Posted on Fri, Aug 28, 2009, 1:46 pm PDT

Eat This, Not That
by David Zinczenko, with Matt Goulding a Yahoo! Health Expert for Nutrition

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Somewhere between the brick ovens of Italy and the delivery cars of America something went horribly wrong. The traditional pizza, made with just bread, cheese and tomatoes, is now tricked out with inflated crusts, four-cheese toppings, and a surplus of pepperoni, all of which contribute to its quadrupled caloric count. And man, do we love it. With 69,000 pizza joints scattered across the U.S., it's no wonder that each man, woman and child devours an average of 46 slices a year. That's the equivalent of 23 pounds of pie!

Any way you slice it, we're taking in a lot more fat than our slimmer friends in Italy, where only 9 percent of the population is obese compared to our 34 percent . Their secret: Thin crust, half the formaggio, and extra vegetables. That's why we've included Best and Worst pizzas in our new book: Eat This, Not That! The Best (& Worst!) Foods in America! The following 7 problematic pies are pulled straight from the book: Avoid them at all costs, and see how, with the help of the Eat This, Not That! series, you can lose 10 pounds or more of belly fat--while still eating all of your favorite foods!

7. WORST SEAFOOD PIZZA
Red Lobster Lobster Pizza
720 calories
30 g fat (13 g saturated)
1,390 mg sodium
69 g carbs

It's a cool concept (certainly more appetizing than your grandfather's old anchovies habit), but it makes for a heavy meal that's stuffed with more sodium than you should eat in one sitting. Fare from the sea is one of the best ways to go, but sprinkled over a bed of starchy dough and fatty cheese and you've got a different story altogether. Billed as a starter, this Lobster Pizza is the only pizza on Red Lobster's menu. Luckily it shares space with one of the world's greatest appetizers--shrimp cocktail--and the chain restaurant is among the healthiest chain restaurants in the land, so you'll have no problem finding better options.

Eat This Instead!
Chilled Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail
120 calories
1 g fat (0 g saturated)
590 mg sodium
9 g carbs

Note: This one simple Eat This, Not That! swap will save you 600 calories. Try this once a day with your other favorite foods and you'll lose more than a pound a week--without dieting!

6. WORST VEGGIE PIZZA
Papa John's Pan Crust Garden Fresh Pizza (2 slices)
740 calories
38 g fat (12 g saturated)
1,320 mg sodium
78 g carbs

Just because it's topped with veggies doesn't make it healthy. The real problem here isn't the toppings, though; it's the excessively thick, greasy pan crust that sinks this veggie-strewn ship. Two slices of this garden fresh pie will set you back the caloric equivalent of 7 ½ Rice Krispies Treats, and it'll stuff your belly with as much salt as you'll find in nearly 4 large orders of McDonald's French Fries. Save over 300 calories by switching to a larger pie (14") with a thinner crust. Just another example of why crust is king when trying to find a healthy pie. (See other nutrition landmines masquerading as "healthy" meals on our SLIDESHOW: The 30 Worst Foods in America.)

Eat This Instead!
Thin Crust Garden Fresh Pizza (2 slices)
420 calories
22 g fat (5 g saturated)
940 mg sodium
46 g carbs

5. WORST STUFFED PIZZA
Sbarro Stuffed Pepperoni Pizza
960 calories
(Sbarro doesn't offer other nutritional information)

Sbarro's individual pizza slices are oversized to begin with, but throw in the stuffed factor and you're looking at this single worst slice of pizza in America--the equivalent of almost 4 pepperoni slices from Pizza Hut. A rule of thumb for ordering pizza in general (and it's especially applicable at Sbarro) is to always choose the thinnest crust possible, and to always avoid any "stuffed" options, which indicate at least double the toppings. Downsize this massive wedge for a Fresh Tomato Pizza--and be sure to limit yourself to just one.

Eat This Instead!
Fresh Tomato Pizza
450 calories

4. WORST PIZZA LUNCH COMBO
Romano's Macaroni Grill Sicilian Mio Pizza and Insalata Blu
1,010 calories
58 g fat (22 g saturated)
2,755 mg sodium
71 g carbs

Consuming over half your daily calories at lunch is asking for energy trouble in the afternoon (not to mention difficulties with your belt buckle). Macaroni Grill boasts about their perfect sized lunch combos as if super-sized individual pizzas and high-calorie "side" salads are a good thing. Even more disturbing is the fact that recent research found that people tend to underestimate portion sizes when their meals have more variety in them, so you're bound to eat more when you have more pieces to your meal. All the more reason to skip the Mac Grill combo meals and choose a simpler lunch, instead. (But beware: Healthy doesn't come easy at this restaurant, especially with pasta. Canneloni or Pasta Pomodoro are the only two bowls with less than 1,000 calories.)

(Beware the sodium overload on our list of The 20 Saltiest Foods in America 2009.)

Eat This Instead!
Chicken Cannelloni Lunch
590 calories
29 g fat (17 g saturated)
1,710 mg sodium
41 g carbs

3. WORST CALZONE
Pizza Hut Meaty P'Zone Pizza
1,480 calories
66 g fat (30 g saturated, 2 g trans)
3,680 mg sodium
152 g carbs

The word "calzone" alone should spell trouble, but this Pizza Hut Meaty P'Zone takes bad pizza pockets to a completely different level. The worst part is that Pizza Hut brags about their massive P'Zone like it's something to be proud of: The website reads "Over 1 LB of pizza goodness." Why is it over a pound? Because it's a regular-sized 12" pizza folded over onto itself and stuffed with meat and cheese. There's nothing impressive about eating an entire pizza by yourself.

Eat This Instead!
Meat Lover's 12" Pan Pizza (1 slice)
330 calories
18 g fat (7 g saturated, 0 g trans)
820 mg sodium
27 g carbs

2. WORST PIZZA APPETIZER
Uno Chicago Grill Pizza Skins
2,400 calories
155 g fat (45 g saturated)
3,600 mg sodium
195 g carbs

How are pizza skins different from an actual pizza? Well, they're not--they just come topped with crumbly processed bacon bits and a big fat dollop of sour cream. The only reason this monstrous dish didn't make it to our number one worst pizza spot is because it's supposed to be an appetizer, which means that some of the damage is mitigated by the fact that multiple people are digging in (or should be, at least). But even if you're traveling with a party of 5, it makes no sense to order what's essentially a family-sized pizza before your meal. To put it in perspective, a medium 12" pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut only racks up 1,840 calories. That's nearly 600 fewer calories than you'll find in this one appetizer! Disgusting. (Related: Appetizers and drinks are both easy ways to ruin a meal. Avoid any item on our SLIDESHOW: The 20 Worst Drinks in America.)

Eat This Instead!
Crispy Cheese Dippers
840 calories
48 g fat (18 g saturated)
2,490 mg sodium

1. WORST PIZZA IN AMERICA
Uno Chicago Grill Chicago Classic Deep Dish Individual Pizza
2,310 calories
165 g fat (54 g saturated)
4,920 mg sodium
120 g carbs

This individual pizza has been named Worst Pizza in America three years in a row now, but Uno Chicago Grill doesn't seem to care--all they've done to minimize the epic impact of this monstrous meal is to change the nutrition labels on their website to reflect the calories "per serving," instead of the total calories per dish as a whole. What's revealing about that slight of hand is that it shows that Uno knowingly sells an individual pizza that actually has three servings' worth of calories, fat, sodium, and carbs. This one individual pizza has more calories than you should eat in a day and more than two days' worth of sodium. (That's as much salt as you'll find in 27 small bags of Frito Lays Potato Chips!) The only way to go at Uno is to steer away from the infamous deep dish Chicago-style pizzas and opt for a flatbread pie instead.

Eat This Instead!
Cheese and Tomato Flatbread Pizza (1/2 pizza)
405 calories
16.5 g fat (7.5 g saturated)
1,065 mg sodium
46 g carbs

HALL OF FAME
THE BEST PIZZAS IN AMERICA

Next time you're hankering for a pie, grab a slice from one of these premium pizzas.

BEST VEGGIE PIZZA
Pizza Hut 12" Fit and Delicious Diced Red Tomato, Mushroom and Jalapeno (2 slices)
300 calories
16 g fat (7 g saturated)
1,220 mg sodium
46 g carbs

BEST HAWAIIAN PIZZA
Domino's Thin Crust Ham and Pineapple Pizza (2 slices)
294 calories
14 g fat (5 g saturated)
790 mg sodium
30 g carbs

BEST INDIVIDUAL PIZZA
Chuck E. Cheese Individual Cheese
540 calories
19 g fat (8 g saturated)
1,255 mg sodium
69 g carbs

BEST MEAT-LOVER'S PIZZA
Pizza Hut Meat Lover's 12" Pan Pizza (1 slice)
330 calories
18 g fat (7 g saturated, 0 g trans)
820 mg sodium
27 g carbs

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Yoga and health

Posted on 2009-08-21 08:02:17

Regular yoga practice is associated with mindful eating

Study suggests that mindful eating can play a key role in long-term weight maintenance

SEATTLE — Aug. 3, 2009 — Regular yoga practice is associated with mindful eating, and people who eat mindfully are less likely to be obese, according to a study led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

The study was prompted by initial findings reported four years ago by Alan Kristal, Dr.P.H., and colleagues, who found that regular yoga practice may help prevent middle-age spread in normal-weight people and may promote weight loss in those who are overweight. At the time, the researchers suspected that the weight-loss effect had more to do with increased body awareness, specifically a sensitivity to hunger and satiety than the physical activity of yoga practice itself.

The follow-up study, published in the August issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, confirms their initial hunch.

"In our earlier study, we found that middle-age people who practice yoga gained less weight over a 10-year period than those who did not. This was independent of physical activity and dietary patterns. We hypothesized that mindfulness – a skill learned either directly or indirectly through yoga – could affect eating behavior," said Kristal, associate head of the Cancer Prevention Program in the Public Health Sciences Division at the Hutchinson Center.

The researchers found that people who ate mindfully – those were aware of why they ate and stopped eating when full – weighed less than those who ate mindlessly, who ate when not hungry or in response to anxiety or depression. The researchers also found a strong association between yoga practice and mindful eating but found no association between other types of physical activity, such as walking or running, and mindful eating.

"These findings fit with our hypothesis that yoga increases mindfulness in eating and leads to less weight gain over time, independent of the physical activity aspect of yoga practice," said Kristal, who is also a professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health.

Kristal, a yoga enthusiast for the past 15 years, said that yoga cultivates mindfulness in a number of ways, such as being able to hold a challenging physical pose by observing the discomfort in a non-judgmental way, with an accepting, calm mind and focus on the breath. "This ability to be calm and observant during physical discomfort teaches how to maintain calm in other challenging situations, such as not eating more even when the food tastes good and not eating when you’re not hungry," he said.

To test whether yoga in fact increases mindfulness and mindful eating, Kristal and colleagues developed a Mindful Eating Questionnaire, a 28-item survey that measured a variety of factors:

• disinhibition – eating even when full;
• awareness – being aware of how food looks, tastes and smells;
• external cues – eating in response to environmental cues, such as advertising;
• emotional response – eating in response to sadness or stress; and
• distraction – focusing on other things while eating.

Each question was graded on a scale of 1 to 4, in which higher scores signified more mindful eating. The questionnaire was administered to more than 300 people at Seattle-area yoga studios, fitness facilities and weight-loss programs, among other venues. More than 80 percent of the study participants were women, well-educated and Caucasian, with an average age of 42. Participants provided self-reported information on a number of factors, including weight, height, yoga practice, walking for exercise or transportation and other forms of moderate and strenuous exercise.

More than 40 percent of the participants practiced yoga more than an hour per week, 46 percent walked for exercise or transportation for at least 90 minutes per week and more than 50 percent engaged in more than 90 minutes of moderate and/or strenuous physical activity per week.

The average weight of the study participants was within the normal range – not surprising considering that the study sample intentionally consisted of people more physically active than the U.S. population in general. Body-mass index was lower among participants who practiced yoga as compared to those who did not (an average of 23.1 vs. 25.8, respectively).

Higher scores on the mindfulness questionnaire overall (and on each of the categories within the questionnaire) was associated with a lower BMI, which suggests that mindful eating may play an important role in long-term weight maintenance, Kristal said.

"Mindful eating is a skill that augments the usual approaches to weight loss, such as dieting, counting calories and limiting portion sizes. Adding yoga practice to a standard weight-loss program may make it more effective," said Kristal, who himself scored high on the mindful-eating survey and has a BMI within the normal range.

Moving forward, Kristal and colleagues suggest that their Mindful Eating Questionnaire, the first tool of its kind to characterize and measure mindful eating, may be useful both in clinical practice and research to understand and promote healthy dietary behavior.

"Beyond calories and diets, mindful eating takes a more holistic approach that can empower individuals to build positive relationships with food and eating, said first author Celia Framson, M.P.H., R.D., C.D., a former graduate student of Kristal's – and former yoga teacher – who now works with adolescents with eating disorders at Seattle Children's Hospital. "The Mindful Eating Questionnaire offers a new and relevant dimension for measuring the effectiveness of dietary behavior interventions. It also encourages nutrition and medical practitioners to consider the broad scope of behavior involved in healthy eating," she said.

Other authors on the paper included Denise Benitez, owner of Seattle Yoga Arts; Alyson Littman, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at the UW School of Public Health and Department of Veterans Affairs; Steve Zeliadt, Ph.D., of VA Puget Sound Healthcare; and Jeanette Schenk, R.D., a research dietitian in the Hutchinson Center's Cancer Prevention Program.

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center funded the study.

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Rheumatoid Arthritis

Posted on 2009-08-18 10:43:17

Physician's First Watch for August 18, 2009
David G. Fairchild, MD, MPH, Editor-in-ChiefPhysician's First Watch for August 18, 2009

Chinese Herb Appears Better Than Standard Treatment for Rheumatoid Arthritis

U.S. researchers randomized some 120 adults with active rheumatoid arthritis to receive the extract (180 mg) or sulfasalazine (2 g) daily for 24 weeks. Participants were allowed to use stable prednisone dosing (up to 7.5 mg/day) but not disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs.

In intent-to-treat analyses, significantly more patients assigned to TwHF versus sulfasalazine achieved at least a 20% improvement in arthritis symptoms (65% vs. 33%). In analyses limited to the roughly 50% of patients who completed the study, results were similar. Adverse events did not differ between the two groups.

The authors write that three of TwHF's metabolites — triptolide, tripdiolide, and triptonide — may account for its anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive effects.

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2009

Fibromyalgia

Swine Flu Vaccine could be associated with Guillan-Barre Syndrome

Notice to Neurologists on Influenza A (H1N1) Virus Vaccination

Worst and Best Pizza to Eat

The Best and Worst Pizzas in America

Visit Nutrition Home »

More By This Expert

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Yoga and health

Regular yoga practice is associated with mindful eating

Study suggests that mindful eating can play a key role in long-term weight maintenance

Rheumatoid Arthritis

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