In this daily health update, Dr. David Koivuranta (Dr. Dave) from the Toronto Neck and Back Pain Clinic presents six concise wellness topics for February 4, 2021. He begins by noting the importance of preventive health, then covers: (1) the link between type‑2 diabetes and increased heart risk, and how late‑life depression can raise Alzheimer’s risk in women, urging monitoring of blood sugar and mental health; (2) calcium’s role in bone, heart, muscle, and nerve function, citing Mayo Clinic sources (dairy, leafy greens, fish with bones, fortified foods) and discussing the nuanced debate around supplementation, especially for adolescent women to achieve peak bone density; (3) a practical guide to static lunges—proper stance, weight use, knee alignment, and torso control—to strengthen hips, glutes, thighs, and core; (4) lifestyle recommendations from the Rutgers Cancer Institute (healthy diet, weight management, regular exercise, smoking cessation, preventive care) and the added value of paramedical services; (5) findings from a Perceptual and Motor Skills report showing manual therapies applied to posterior thigh muscles improve strength, hip range of motion, and soccer performance, extending the benefit of manual therapy to all active individuals; and (6) a closing motivational message encouraging viewers to stay positive, share happiness, and look forward to written updates. Throughout, Dr. Dave emphasizes evidence‑based information, practical actions, and a hopeful outlook without providing direct medical treatment.
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Hello everyone, it's Dr. Dave. Hopefully you're all doing well, enjoying a wonderful week to start your February. You made it to Thursday, that's amazing. Coming at you on behalf of the Toronto Neck and Back Pain Clinic with your daily health update today, Thursday, February 4th, 2021, heading into another weekend. Hopefully you're looking forward to it. I'm going to share with you 6 areas of health and wellness today. Somewhere around this video you can read through all 6 areas. If you'd like a copy, DM us on social, send us an email, or call us here at the clinic. We'll be sure to to get that to you. Not gonna treat, diagnose, prevent, or cure any illness or disease with our time together today. However, you just never know what your body's capable of when you create a wonderful environment for it. And listening in, tapping into, tuning into, plugging into some good health and wellness information based on the latest in the research and literature can definitely set the stage for those things to happen. So good for you for being here. I hope you enjoy it. A couple of things you can read around the video are how type 2 diabetes is linked to increased heart risks. And how late-life depression can raise Alzheimer's risk in women. So, good to monitor and keep control of that blood sugar level and take care of your heart and to try and address any changes in personality, character, or mood that could be detrimental to your overall health and wellness. There's definitely people out there who can help with all of these concerns, and it's always a smart step to go out and seek and find that help. The Mayo Clinic, January 2021, talks about the importance of calcium and the different sources that it's available from. It's important for bone health and normal heart, muscle, and nerve function. Um, you can get it from dairy products like cheese, milk, and yogurt, dark green leafy vegetables such as broccoli and kale, fish with edible soft bones such as sardines and canned salmon, and calcium-fortified foods and beverages such as soy products, cereal, fruit juices, and milk substitutes. Um, this article doesn't talk about supplementation. Um, there is some merit supplementation depending on which research and literature you look at. But how you take it, when you take it, the quality of what you take, the type that you take may all be very relevant. And there's also some debate in the research and literature about the effectiveness of some of these natural sources as well, and the benefit versus the risk of some of those sources. And you'll see that dairy products come up high on that list. So as a consumer, what does one do? Well, it's a matter of trying to find out, uh, for yourself what makes the most sense. And unfortunately, it takes some effort to read through and research and talk to different people and come up with a solution that you're comfortable with. However, I don't think it would be argued that for women, especially, uh, in their adolescent years, to ensure that they're getting enough calcium so that their bones develop to their peak bone density sometime in their mid to late 20s. That is a bigger predictor of osteoporosis and bone health later on in life than the things that we're doing later on in life to try and deal with and prevent or treat osteoporosis. So, um, definitely good to get some information in that respect and do what you can. There's a journal or a report from Verywell in January 2021— love that name— where you can lunge your way to stronger legs. Static lunges can help strengthen hips, glutes, and thighs and improve hip flexibility, balance, and core muscle strength. To do a static lunge, you stand with one foot forward and the other foot back about 3 feet, about 1 meter apart. You hold a weight in each hand and bend your knees to lower your body toward the floor. Be sure to keep your front knee behind your toes— very important— when lowering straight down, and don't bend forward— also very important. Keep your torso straight with abdominal muscles tight as you push through the front heel back to your starting position and repeat with the opposite foot forward. So these kinds of static lunges are more of a vertical movement straight up and down than going forward and back, whether with the motion with the legs and/or with the body. Uh, there's different ways to do them and different styles and types, different directions, um, but as an overall exercise, lunges, regardless of how they're done, as long as they're done properly, are very good for you. So throw those into your routine if you can. To help make 2021 a healthier year, the Rutgers Cancer Institute, January 2021, offers the following tips to living a healthier lifestyle: eat a healthy diet, maintain a healthy weight, exercise regularly, quit smoking, and get preventive care made the list. Uh, not too often you see a comment from an established and well-known institute where it's not just about early detection and the regular lifestyle factors, but also and also taking advantage of preventive care that's available to people. And paramedical services, I think, are leading the way in that respect. So add those types of therapies to your routine and you may live a healthier year. Give it a try. You never know what'll happen. 2021 might be the year you discover something that makes you feel better than maybe you felt in a long time or helps keep you that way if you're already there, which is amazing. Manual therapies can improve soccer performance according to the Perceptual and Motor Skills Report, December 2020. There's a very specific, uh, report for you. Among a group of 17 amateur soccer players, researchers found that manual therapies applied to the posterior thigh muscles led to improved strength during leg lifting exercises and hip range of motion assessments, factors which may result in better performance on the field. Of course, manual therapies are utilized by athletes, both recreational and competitive, around the world on a daily basis to help not only keep them in the game and recover from accidents and injuries that occur either within their sport or away from their sport, but also utilized to help improve performance and again prevent those accidents and injuries as much as possible. So manual therapy is very effective, and most of us are athletes every day. There are things we physically engage in. It may not be a sport by definition, but because we use our bodies, manual therapy can be a benefit to most people that are doing things and active throughout their life. Alright, so that was a cool daily health update to wrap up your week with the video format. We'll throw a written version at you tomorrow on Friday, heading you into the weekend. Hope you enjoy it. Share some smiles, make yourself happy, make some people around you happy, pay it forward, and have a good time. Keep your health at the forefront of your mind while you're doing all those positive things, and a good life will be certain to unfold in front of you. Okay, and I'll catch up with you next week on Monday with your next daily health update. Then take care, be well, and we'll catch up with you soon.
