Health Update Feb 2 2021

Hello everyone, it's Dr. Dave. Hopefully you're all doing well. You had a nice start to your week and to your month of February. It's Groundhog Day. Let's see what the groundhogs in North America have to say today. Coming at you on behalf of the Toronto Neck and Back Pain Clinic with your daily health update for Tuesday, February 2nd, 2021. Gonna look at 6 areas of health and wellness today. As always, somewhere around this video, hopefully you can find the written format. You can read through all those 6 areas. If you'd like a copy, you can DM us on give us a call at the clinic, send us an email, and we'll be sure to get that in your hands. Not going to treat, diagnose, prevent, or cure any illness or disease together— together or with our time together today, but you just never know what your body's capable of when you make some small and/or significant changes to your daily routine, to some of your lifestyle choices and habits, and those thoughts, decisions, and actions every day when it comes to your health and wellness options. You can just improve just about anything, I would bet, and definitely help keep you well for the future. So good on you for being here. The journal Circulation, January 2020, looked at the difference in impact on heart disease with smoking plus vaping versus just smoking alone. So I guess they replaced some of the smoking with vaping, and they found that there was no difference, uh, in the biomarkers associated with heart disease in those two groups. It would be interesting to see what vaping alone did against smoking alone in that same kind of study, but I guess it's probably out there, just not in this study. But replacing some smoking with vaping, no better for heart disease risk. So both of those are habits that we wanna curtail or change in order to support our health and wellness. There's always a debate about food choices and acne as well in the research and literature, but according to the International Journal of Dermatology, January 2021, they looked at 53 different studies and they believe there is an association with high intake of added sugars and processed foods in association with cases of acne. So, but those kinds of foods, added sugars, processed foods, generally not good for us and could lead to other health problems as well. So it doesn't hurt to eliminate those and/or then reduce them to some kind of moderation that makes sense to see what happens to your overall health and wellness. May just help with the complexion. For those of you who dread working out in the cold, especially now because there's not a lot of indoor places to go to get your fitness, the Journal of Applied Physiology, December 2020, says that if you're working out in the cold, you may burn more fat. They did an experiment involving moderately fit but overweight adults, and they noticed that exercising at 0°C led nearly to a nearly threefold increase in lipid oxidization in the body compared to when they worked out in a more temperate setting. So that was the breakdown and metabolism physiologically of your fat cells, and 3 times as much in the cold. So get out there in that chilly weather and get some fitness in, even if it's a brisk walk, probably still has a good impact, plus good for other parts of your health and wellness, especially your emotional or mental health. Get out, get some fresh air, and smile while you're doing it. Let's see if that double effect is even better for you. Unfortunately, some people have suffered some injuries that make it hard for them to sometimes smile. There are people who have had a traumatic brain injury, and quite often they suffer from a comorbidity of depression after that, and some post-traumatic stress disorder. And unfortunately, because of those three things, you could imagine that those people might be at greater risk to harming themselves or even taking their own life. So very important if someone you know or if you yourself has had a traumatic brain injury to be under appropriate care to monitor for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder because you would want to seek appropriate care for those side effects of that brain injury, according to the research from the Brain Injury Journal, January 2021. Acid reflux is not fun, a byproduct of sometimes the foods we eat. However, there is, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine, January 2020, a way to reduce that They looked at data from the Nurses' Health Study, and they said that if you maintain a healthier weight, you don't smoke, you exercise for 30 minutes a day, you eat a healthy diet, and you moderate your coffee, tea, and soda intake to 2 or fewer cups a day, that will in— reduce your risk of gastrointestinal reflux by up to 37%. I would wager to say that if you maintain as close to healthy weight as possible, you don't smoke, you exercise for 30 or more minutes a day, eat a healthy diet, and you moderate that coffee, tea, and soda intake, you might just be able to feel better in a lot of different ways with a lot of different health conditions, and maybe even stack the deck in your favor to prevent or avoid some health problems. So, um, some good advice, just again supported by the research and literature, things that we know, but we certainly want to do our best to act on. The Journal of Sports Rehabilitation, December 2020, talked about an activity near and dear to my heart, uh, with running, and they looked at at how manipulation benefits runners with knee condition. Patellofemoral pain syndrome, also known as PFPS, is a common cause of knee pain for runners. They looked at 82 of those runners with that condition, and they observed that when they use joint manipulation and myofascial release to the lower back, the hip, the SI joints, and, uh, the knee and the ankle, it led to improvements in the knee pain and improved lower limb function. Decreasing the plantar pressure in the middle foot and increasing the posterior thigh flexibility. So, uh, some positive changes there by applying the appropriate kinds of treatment. And then I'm sure, uh, supporting that with the appropriate self-care and some good advice in terms of warm-up, cool-down, uh, your shoe selection and keeping those shoes fresh can all help a runner stay in the running game. Same can apply to running and other activities as well. You want to make sure you address some of those biomechanical changes that might be happening and make sure your gear, your warm-up, your cool-down, your technique, and a whole bunch of other stuff is just lined up. Line those ducks up in a row with your activities and you'll be able to do them and enjoy them for the rest of your life. Alright, so that's your daily health update for Tuesday. We'll see what the groundhogs say. This morning when I left, I can't say it, it's Chubba, Chubba Nakanaki, Chubba Naki Sam. One of them did not see his shadow, so they're predicting one early spring in that respect. But there's a few other groundhogs out there that still needed to report, but hopefully the news is good. However, if you're like my son, he is kind of disappointed. He wants winter to go on a bit longer. Some of us just enjoy the winter season, which is great. So hopefully that's good news for you, whatever you're hoping for. All right, enjoy the rest of your week. We'll catch up tomorrow with you on Wednesday for your daily health update. Take care, be well. Meanwhile, share some smiles and have a great day.