Daily Health Update for August 18 2021 by Toronto Chiropractor Dr. David Koivuranta in Davisville.

Hello everyone, it's Dr. Dave. Hopefully you're all doing well, enjoying your week. You made it to Wednesday, congratulations! Coming at you on behalf of the Toronto Neck and Back Pain Clinic with your daily health update for Wednesday, August 18th, 2021. Gonna look at 6 areas of health and wellness news and information. Somewhere around this video you can read through all 6 areas. If you would like a copy or you have questions, you can reach out to us, DM us on social, send us an email here at the clinic, or even give us a call. We We are always happy to help you out. Not going to treat, diagnose, prevent, or cure any illness or disease with our time together today. However, the purpose of the Daily Health Update is to keep you in front of some health information so that you keep your health front of mind as you make your own thoughts, decisions, actions, and choices when it comes to your health and wellness each and every day, and maybe for the health and wellness of those around you, because as it's top priority and you keep it front of mind, that way you can steer it in a good direction, improve it if it needs it, support it if you want to, and away we go. All right, so the Journal of Gerontology, July 2021, looked at diabetes and how it's linked to dementia. Using data from the UK Biobank, investigators have determined that individuals with type 2 diabetes have an elevated risk for dementia, especially those with a longer history of diabetes and poor, poor glycemic control. So very important to note that if you have been diagnosed with and are managing diabetes, that you do your best to operate in a healthy way so that you don't have secondary or concomitant conditions happen as a side effect of trying to navigate life with what's already a challenging condition to manage. So take good care. Do not let one condition lead to another. It's unfortunate. Sometimes it may seem unfair. It's always work, but there is no investment like your health, and especially to avoid some of these future complications or side effects of having those conditions. Okay, the Annual Review of Nutrition, August 2021, looks at diet and sleep and how they have a bi-directional relationship. Past research has shown that individuals with a sleep disorder are more likely to make unhealthy food choices. A new study found that a diet that includes tryptophan and melatonin-rich foods— certain fruits, vegetables, and legumes, for example— can lead to better sleep, suggesting the link between diet and sleep is a two-way relationship. You get enough sleep, uh, you probably have better appetite control. When you control what kinds of foods you're putting into your body, you may get better sleep, and it's an upward positive spiral, which is what we want when we're trying to avoid those downward negative health spirals where one thing just seems to lead to another. So you can be better, your body will heal, there is improvement, uh, and it takes little efforts like this when combined together, uh, will create that upward spiral. And that's how treatment works. It's an amazing thing. But self-care is often quite effective for many things in a similar way. And another example of some self-care you could be doing is aerobic exercise. The journal, or the report from NeuroImage, June 21, 2021, talks about how aerobic exercise is good for the brain. Researchers recruited 180 sedentary but otherwise healthy older adults and assigned them to a walking class, a dance class, or a waiting list. After 6 months, brain imaging revealed that participants in the walking and dance groups experienced increases in white matter in the areas of the brain most vulnerable to aging. The study demonstrates one mechanism by which physical activity protects the aging brain. So motion is life, life is motion, and that life occurs also in your nervous system, including your brain. So when you get out there and you're active, uh, it will help deter, uh, some of the side effects of what we all succumb to over time, which is aging. Journal Neurology, July 2021, also looks at that cognitive function of ours and how reading games and puzzles can protect some of that brain function among a group of 2,000 elderly adults, researchers observed that those who spent the most time engaged in brain-stimulating activities such as reading, playing games, or doing crossword puzzles developed dementia up to 5 years later than participants who refrained from such activities. So stimulating that brain, creating some input, provides better output, better control. And, uh, just like feeding our bodies that healthy food, we want to feed our bodies and our mind healthy activities. And some of those activities are physical, but some of them are also engaging us in some kind of cognitive fashion with our emotions, our logic, our mental health and wellness, and some of our thought faculties. All right? So keep using that noggin of yours. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, July 2021, looked at drowning prevention tips. So at the tail end of the summer here, if you are still engaged in some pool and/or lake activities, you wanna make sure that you learn some life lifesaving skills, and you want to see— make sure that everyone has learned some basic swimming skills as well, how to perform CPR. If you have a backyard pool, you want to be sure that it's fenced off properly and make sure that the latch mechanisms lock properly. Make life jackets available, and for those who aren't strong swimmers, make sure that they're wearing them when and if they need them. And always, always, always participate in water activities with some kind of supervision. Don't swim alone, especially. All right, and finally, the Journal of Back and Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation, June 2021, looked at fascial treatment and how it benefits those with chronic neck pain. Fascial treatment involves hands-on techniques that aim to improve the movement and flexibility of the connective tissue that holds muscles, nerves, and blood vessels in place. In a recent study, researchers observed that fascial treatment reduced pain and disability in patients with chronic neck pain. Sometimes some manual practitioners will use fascial treatment in conjunction with other hands-on therapies in the management chronic neck pain and/or other musculoskeletal disorders. However, quite often, uh, someone works alongside those manual practitioners or they work in tandem. So chiropractors quite often work with, uh, massage therapists and vice versa. And then there's also specific fascial therapists and connective tissue therapists out there that do different techniques, and it all works to your benefit. If you've walked the planet for some years now, there's probably no doubting you would benefit in some way from one or more of those manual therapies to keep that body of yours sitting and moving well. So when you're out trying to meet those activity requirements and/or just enjoy your day, your body can do so and fully participate with no negative side effects. And that means you will feel good every day, creating those great experiences that you want in your life. And one of the steps to doing that is tuning into the daily health update. So we're glad you're here. We'll be back tomorrow, Thursday, with the next little version for you to sit through, and, uh, we'll look forward to chatting with you then. Stay well, keep smiling, have some fun. All the best.