In this daily health update, Dr. Dave of the Toronto Neck and Back Pain Clinic reviews six recent research findings spanning nutrition, cardiovascular risk, exercise performance, mental health, pediatric cardiac screening, and musculoskeletal degeneration. He highlights that an inflammatory Western diet raises mid‑life depression risk by up to 33% while fruit and vegetable intake can cut it by 15%. Unhealthy lunch patterns (high cheese, processed meat, refined grains, fat, sugar) are linked to a 44% higher risk of premature heart‑disease death. Listening to music while running can boost performance for those experiencing mental fatigue. Cannabis use in depressed young adults is associated with increased suicidal ideation. The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends routine screening of children for fainting, seizures, chest pain, shortness of breath, and family heart‑disease history to catch early cardiac risk. Finally, data from the Johnston County Osteoarthritis Project show that knee osteoarthritis and obesity raise the risk of lumbar facet osteoarthritis, disc space narrowing, spinal arthritis, and spondylolisthesis, underscoring the importance of weight management and holistic musculoskeletal assessment. Dr. Dave ties these findings together with practical advice on diet, activity, and preventive care, encouraging viewers to adopt healthier habits and seek comprehensive evaluations.
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Hello everyone, it's Dr. Dave. Hopefully you're all doing well. You had a nice start to your week. You're looking forward to your day today. I hope you make it a great one. Coming at you on behalf of the Toronto Neck and Back Pain Clinic with your daily health update for Tuesday, July 27th, 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. You have any questions or you'd just like to reach out, you can DM us on social, send us an email, or even give us a call here at the clinic. Always happy to help you out. Not going to treat, diagnose, prevent, or cure any illness or disease with our time together today. However, you just never know what that body of yours is capable of when you start giving it a great environment to do what it's able to do. And some of the research and literature shares or tells us, directs us, guides us with what some of those things might be. So it's good to stay tapped in, tuned in, and turned on to that information so that it starts to influence your own thoughts, decisions, and actions each day. When it comes to your own health and wellness and the health and wellness of those around you. So good for you for being here. Share it with your friends, your family, your enemies. Let's get everyone as good as we can get them. All right, so Aging Research Reviews, July 2021, looked at dietary choices and how they influence midlife depression risk. A review of data from 33 published studies found that consuming an inflammatory diet pattern such as high-fat, high-added sugar— the Western-style diet, if you will— can increase the risk for depression in middle age by up to 33%. 3%, while a high intake of fruit and vegetables can cut the depression risk by up to 15%. So eating well, good for our bodies, good for our body parts, all our organs, glands, tissues, down to the cellular level. But believe it or not, it also affects our cognitive function, our overall health, our mood. All right, so eating well can maybe help avoid some midlife depression issues. Uh, on with our nutritional components. The Journal of the American Heart Association, June 2021, looked at unhealthy lunches and how that could be linked to heart risks. An analysis of data concerning over 21,000 adults showed that regularly consuming a lunch characterized by high amounts of cheese, processed meat, refined grains, fat, and sugar is associated with up to a 44% increased risk of premature death from heart disease. So again, along the same lines, cleaning up that diet and getting more fruits and vegetables and less processed and refined foods into our system all day long will support what your body's capable of doing on the cellular level to take care of all your parts, and you'll be a happier, healthier person for it. All right, so good choices, good decisions. The research and literature supports it. We want to create some habits and patterns around going with the flow and just ignoring the noise. Stay away from that bad stuff. If you're a runner, the Journal of Human Sport and Exercise, June 2021, wants to let you know that listening to music could help with that running. For individuals who feel mentally fatigued, listening to music while running can improve their import— performance. A brief summary on that. It'd be interesting to see how they studied that and what the impact actually was, but perhaps there is a spillover effect just letting us know that if we listen to some good music, something that we enjoy, it'll get us through our day and what we're doing with a little less fatigue as well, perhaps. So that's worth considering. The Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open has an interesting perspective in June 2021 on pot use and how it may increase risk of suicidal ideation in depressed young adults. So suppressing that nervous system beyond what it may already be depressed by in life may not be a good combination. So you could read through that if you like, in, in case it's valuable in some way. And finally, in the journal Pediatrics— oh sorry, not quite finally, but almost finally— in the journal Pediatrics for our children, June 2021, they're saying that all kids should be screened for heart problems. The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends that all children be screened for a history of fainting, unexplained seizures, chest pain, shortness of breath, of a family history of heart conditions before age 50, as these may all suggest an elevated risk for future heart problems before the age of 25. The study author writes that this screening is incorporated into a child's regular exam at least every 2 to 3 years. Ideally, the pediatrician is in an ideal position to check on a child's development into the teenage years and is aware of family history that may raise a red flag for potential heart-related issues. So being proactive in a preventive fashion and maybe early intervention if there are some conditions that remain latent or unknown until later on in life. We want to watch out and keep an eye on our children to make sure that development is nice and healthy and strong, right? Now, finally, Arthritis Care and Research reports in May 2021 that there are some risk factors for degenerative spinal conditions—too much wear and tear on that spine of ours, or perhaps other things that cause it to prematurely, uh, not last. The parts start to fall apart, if you will, or degenerate. Following an evaluation of data from the Johnston County Osteo— Osteoarthritis Project, researchers report that individuals with a history of knee osteoarthritis have an elevated risk for lumbar facet osteoarthritis. So if you have some wear and tear arthritis in your knees, may also be happening in your lower back. Additionally, the data show that obesity is associated with an increased risk for spinal disc— for spinal disc space narrowing, spinal arthritis, and spondylolisthesis, a slip that occurs where a bone is no longer sitting over top of the next bone the way that it should be. The findings suggest that maintaining a healthy weight and addressing issues that can negatively affect one's gait, or how they walk, may reduce the risk for degenerative spinal conditions. So some good information there, basically saying that if you keep everything in your body sitting and moving properly, and that you engage it in, in with a positive amount of stress and use and activity, and you're not too sedentary, and you don't overwhelm it either with excessive use or misuse, or if you don't compress it beyond what it might naturally intend to be compressed by, given something closer to the ideal body weight, then it should last a pretty long darn time and feel pretty good with you every day. So, uh, that's good to know. There's room for improvement. Keep an eye on those things. And again, just because one area is sore, if you focus on treating just that one area, you may be leaving other things behind that are getting affected. So good to have a thorough assessment of all the parts that might be connected, for example, between your knees and your lower back. All right, that's your daily health update for Tuesday this week, and, um, we'll be back tomorrow, Wednesday, with the next one, so we'll look forward to chatting with you then. Be well, take care, keep a smile on that face. We'll talk soon.
