Daily Health Update for March 8 2021 by Toronto Chiropractor Dr. David Koivuranta ( Davisville )

Hello everyone, it's Dr. Dave. Hopefully you're all doing well, you had a nice March weekend, you're looking forward to a wonderful week. I hope it goes well for you. Coming at you on behalf of the Toronto Neck and Back Pain Clinic with your daily health update. It's Monday, March 8th, 2021. I'm gonna look at 6 areas of health and wellness today. Somewhere around this video you can read through all 6 areas, and if you'd like a copy, DM us on social, give us a call at the clinic, or send us an email, and we'll be sure to get that to you. Not going to treat, diagnose, prevent, or cure any illness or disease with our time time together today. However, you just never know what your body's capable of when you keep supporting it in a positive direction, and the daily health update will help you do that based on the latest and greatest in the research and literature when it comes to health and wellness. So, uh, some areas you can read through today on your own. There's, uh, the Journal of Clinical Medicine, February 2021, looks at endometriosis and how it can increase some pregnancy risks. So there may be some strategies you could talk to with your healthcare provider there. And naturopaths, and some naturopath clinics as well as some chiropractors and other paramedical providers focus on those areas of care, pregnancy care, as well as care for children, pediatric care. Another interesting area in the Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention Report, February 2021, they looked at food choices and how they affect cancer, breast cancer survival. So another interesting area, what you eat eat even after you've had a health challenge like breast cancer can help increase the likelihood of a positive recovery and ongoing good future health. So that's something good to read through. The Psychological Medicine Journal, January 2021, looks at the regular use of cannabis and how it's being linked to a declining IQ. So that might be interesting read for you. You can check that one out as well. A little bit late for the season, we're looking forward to spring, but the Forbes magazine magazine or a report from January 2021 looked at winter wellness tips. May not be a bad idea to review, and there are some things you can do during the colder months to stay healthy. You can shift your sleep cycle earlier by 1 hour. Uh, you can take magnesium, which is a common deficiency. Practice simple breathing techniques to keep calm, focused, and energized. Maybe good year-round regardless of the season. Avoid drinking alcohol more than 3 days per week. Improve your vitamin D status with sun exposure, diet, or supplementation. Hopefully we'll get more sun exposure in the northern hemisphere coming soon. Exercise is always good to add into your healthy routine. Of course, increase your intake of omega-3 fatty acids, take prebiotics and probiotics, eliminate refined sugar and carbohydrates, and connect with others. Keep a positive social circle around you. That will also help in most any season. So some good tips there, not only for winter, but perhaps a good reminder again on your overall health. So it is, uh, well into March, and if you had some intentions of making 2021 a healthy year and you're doing doing well, or maybe, uh, you started out well but it's starting to linger. Good, good to do a check-in now, a self-check-in, and you can follow some of these suggestions if you're looking for areas where you can make improvement. Grip strength is something they looked at in the Nutrition, Metabolism, and Cardiovascular Diseases journal, November 2020, and that grip strength may identify individuals at risk for heart disease. Interestingly, hand grip strength is a tool used by researchers to estimate an individual's overall fitness level.. And a study that reviewed health records of over 3,000 middle-aged and older adults identified an association between reduced grip strength and greater calcium buildup in the aortic artery, a risk factor for heart disease. So of course, fitness and activity is good for us, and, uh, if we stay fit, one of the biggest side effects, the benefits of that fitness is actually helping food, water, and nutrition get into and out of our tissues and cells. And that includes, uh, the healthy cells that make up the lining of those arteries in your body. We don't want them to be scarred, damaged, injured, or become stagnant. And the more we exercise or engage our body, we get that blood pressure up and get our pulse rate up. It helps those blood vessels function the way they're supposed to, but it also helps nourish their own soft tissue— soft muscles— smooth muscle, sorry— and keep them functioning well. So fitness has lots of positive side effects, not just on our physical body but also on our mood and on our overall tissue health, which is probably the most important side effect of staying active and fit is getting the waste out of our cells and tissues and those nutrients that we need into those cells and tissues so that every single body part can stay the way it was supposed to be from the beginning to the end. So include that fitness or exercise as part of your routine, and, uh, you know, spring is a good time to get back into that activity now when the seasons turn around. And finally, if you're working from home or working at work, um, It's been a little bit challenging during the pandemic. There's been some changes that need to be made. Some people have certainly found it easier than others perhaps, but regardless, computer work is never perfectly easy. It was something that we're not generally designed to do, especially for long periods. So the journal Ergonomics, December 2020, came out and looked at the relationship between sit-stand stations and sitting when you're working, especially as it relates to low back pain. They did an experiment with 24 individuals and it revealed that standing with seated breaks at a 3:1 ratio may be an effective strategy for mitigating one's risk for experiencing back pain associated with prolonged standing. So you may want to spend, um, 3 minutes standing for every minute that you sit each hour or period throughout the day. And how that's distributed is also very important because previous research shows that many people with a sit-stand station will sit until they're sore, then stand to get some relief, and then they'll stand until they feel sore or fatigued and then sit again. And that cycle is too long. If, if you're already feeling sore from sitting or standing or fatigued, then you should have taken a break or someone should have taken a break a little bit sooner. So the research shows it was an unusual number, somewhere between 24 and 42 minutes, something like that. But basically on average, every 30 to 40 minutes, regardless of how you're feeling, you want to switch, sit from sitting to standing and then back from standing to sitting. And that constant rotation, that change from sitting to standing is what will help decrease the side effects of that sedentary repetitive work you might be doing at the desk, whether it's computer work or otherwise. So high rotation with that sit-stand station is best. All right, that's your info to start out your Monday. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you have a wonderful week. Enjoy the changing season, and we have some good things to look forward to, and hopefully some good things to look forward to in how the pandemic is unfolding around the world. And we'll embrace that good news and excitement to get back to those things that we need and want and love to do in our lives. So I hope a lot of that is coming your way soon, and it starts this week. So have a great week, and we'll catch you tomorrow with your next Daily Health Update Tuesday. Talk to you then.