Daily Health Update for May 19 2021 by Toronto Chiropractor Dr. David Koivuranta in Davisville.

Hello everyone, it's Dr. Dave. Hope you're all doing well, enjoying the middle of your week, looking forward to the weekend coming soon, long weekend here in Canada. And, uh, you know what that means, time to get outside and enjoy the out of doors. So hopefully you're looking forward to that. Coming at you on behalf of the Toronto Neck and Back Pain Clinic with your daily health update. It is Wednesday, May 19th, 2021. Gonna look at 6 areas of health and wellness news and information with you somewhere today around this video. You can read through all 6 of those areas. If you have any questions or you'd like a copy of those 6 pieces of information, you can DM us on social, give us a call here at the clinic, or send us an email. We'll get back to you. Happy to help. Not going to treat, diagnose, prevent, or cure any illness or disease with our time together today. However, by staying tapped into, turned on into, and paying attention to some good information about health and wellness, it may just help support some of your own health and wellness initiatives and those of those people around you that you also support in the many ways and many things that you might do. All right, a stumbling start, but we're good to go. Are you having trouble sleeping? Well, the Sleep Health Report April 2021, uh, says you should probably be eating more fruits and vegetables. They looked at a group of over 1,100 young adults with low fruit and vegetable intake, less than 3 servings a day, and researchers observed that females who doubled their produce consumption experienced improvements in sleep quality. However, no No such association observed in male participants. Maybe males need at least double that on top of that, a little bit more. Good for us to— regardless though, to get those fruits and veggies in. And you never know, if you happen to have trouble sleeping and you increase what you're currently taking, especially if it's low, then there may be some improvement. It's worth a try. The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, April 2021, looks at lifelong exercisers and how it lowers their risk for high blood pressure. They use data from the ongoing Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study, and then the researchers reported that exercising for 300 minutes per week is more effective at reducing hypertension risk than 150 minutes of physical activity a week, especially if one remains active to the same degree as they age. So note that currently the recommendation— North American guidelines for activity or fitness are— is 150 minutes per week. Week. But as we've been saying on the Daily Health Update for some time, that, that is certainly on the low end as a minimum, minimum requirement, and it would be nice to double it indeed. And then what you do with those minutes may have some specific effects as well, but just trying to increase those minutes will lower your risk for high blood pressure. A second language offers cognitive benefits according to the Frontiers in Neurology report, April 2021. Current research suggests that speaking multiple languages may delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease by several years. So if you've found yourself with some extra time or wondering what you could do, especially now that you may not be engaged in other group activities or going out to do things, um, hopefully those things will come back soon, sooner rather than later. But maybe, uh, now for other reasons, even if you'd like to travel, for example, it would be a good time to pick up a second language. Uh, it could offer you some cognitive, uh, benefits down the road. Good for your mind. Um, the American Journal of Kidney Disease came out with a report in April 2021 on how pregnancy can increase kidney stone risk, especially if you have a risk factor for kidney stones. Uh, the first year after, uh, postnatal, those risks decrease. But if you are expecting or plan to be expecting, it may be something you want to keep in mind, research, and talk to your healthcare provider about, and to keep an eye out during your pregnancy to make sure that you're not going to develop those stones. And/or if If you do, at least you know that that's any discomfort you're feeling in certain areas or regions could be related to that as the pregnancy goes on. The National Institutes of Health, April 2021, looked at the dangers of being overweight or obese. The National Institutes of Health note that carrying extra weight can increase one's risk for type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, kidney disease, fatty liver disease, problems with pregnancy, and certain types of cancer. So of course, quite often the BMI, the body mass index, is talked about. And the closer you are to that in terms of ideal range, not too low and not too much higher than that, then you're more likely to mitigate the effects of chronic health conditions based on our lifestyle, especially those that come from being overweight. Certainly there is a genetic component. However, the stressors of not being your ideal body weight may help some of those genes become more active or become predominant, and they have this theory that those genes are in essence turned on or turned off, and that form of epigenetics could be triggered by being overweight. So good to try and stay your ideal body weight. Not always easy, but there are strategies to go forth and try and do so, and you will get the health benefits from those efforts. It's probably time and effort well spent. Finally, the Journal of Manual and Manipulative Therapies, March 2021, looked at therapies that play a role in treating tendinopathy. A literature review found that the analgesic effect provided by joint mobilization and manipulation can aid in the management of tendinopathy, and these manual therapies may also help during the preconditioning process prior to formal exercise loading rehabilitation or other treatment approaches. So of course, joint mobilization and manipulation has been used in the management of many musculoskeletal conditions, including tendinopathies, tendinopathies, by many manual healthcare providers such as chiropractors, osteopaths, even some massage therapists and other physical therapists. So, uh, not just the tendon, not just the muscle for those soft tissue conditions, but the joint that those muscles and tendons work with also has to be functional in order to get some optimum recovery and some perhaps faster and better relief from those conditions. All right, so that's your information-filled daily health update for Wednesday, and always happy to provide it and hope you find it interesting. But at least just by tuning in and turning on some thought when it comes to your health and wellness, it'll help you progress in taking care of anything that you want to see improve and/or maintaining yourself if you're already well. We'll be back tomorrow, Thursday, to continue supporting you in that process. We'll look forward to chatting with you then. In the meantime, stay well and, uh, have a good evening or rest of your day. Take care.