Healthy Habits

The University of South Carolina conducted an inspirational study that embodies everything that this column is about.  They took a group of middle-aged adults to measure exactly what benefits they could gain from a healthy lifestyle. The researchers reported that adults age 45 to 64 who began eating five or more fruits and vegetables every day, exercising for at least 2 1/2 hours a week, keeping weight down and not smoking decreased their risk of heart disease by 35 percent and risk of death by 40 percent in the four years after they started.

The really exciting part about these findings is that within four years, their mortality rate and rate of heart attacks matched the people who had been doing these behaviors all along.  This means that changing behavior allowed them to “catch up” with people who had always been healthy. Dr. Dana King who led the research added “even if you have not had a healthy lifestyle previously, it’s not too late to adopt those healthy lifestyle habits and gain almost immediate benefits.”

The four key habits are eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables everyday, exercising for 2 ½ hours per week, not smoking and maintaining a healthy weight.  A critical point learned in the study is that it took all four habits — having just three of the healthy habits yielded no heart benefits and a more modest decrease in overall risk of death.  As I’ve said in the past, health exists on a continuum and no matter where you are on that line, information like this proves that simple changes in lifestyle will move anyone further toward health and away from disease.

Caffeine & Water

What do Coffee, Tea, Alcohol and Soda have in common?  Anything you drink with caffeine or alcohol can dehydrate you by turning off anti-diuretic hormone in your kidneys.  This hormone causes your kidneys to return water back to the body.  If it is shut off, you lose water.  When you take water out of your body, you dry up causing: fatigue, muscle aches, joint pain, headaches, toxicity, etc.  Staying hydrated is one of the most important things you can do to promote health!

I’m amazed with how many people “don’t like water.”  This is equivalent to saying, “I don’t like air.”  Our bodies are about 65% water by weight.  Water is one of the least forgiving of all the nutrients – you can only survive a couple days without it. It is responsible for the transport of nutrients, oxygen, and waste products, as well as regulating your body temperature and serving as the medium in which almost all of your body’s chemical reactions take place.  Drinking an adequate amount of clean water is one of the most overlooked but simple ways of keeping healthy. 

Most agree that you should have around 8-10 (8 oz) glasses of water each and every day.  Others say you should take your weight in pounds and divide that number by ‘2’ and this number is the amount of water in ounces you should drink daily.  Regardless, it is my experience that most people could benefit from more water.

If you truly cannot learn to like the taste of water, I recommend mineral water, unsweetened green or black teas, water with lemon added or mixed with fruit juice.  You can substitute a couple glasses of unsweetened fruit juice each day.  However, you cannot count caffeinated tea, coffee, or soda as the water that is in these is lost through the kidneys as a result of caffeine.

Immune Booster

In the past couple articles, I’ve discussed how sugar decreases a person’s potential for wellness by compromising the immune system and limiting a person’s defense.  In this article, I’d like to point out one of the many ways to strengthen the immune system and improve defense.

One of the studies that inspired me to pursue chiropractic in the first place was performed in 1989 by Ronald Pero, Ph.D.  Dr. Pero was the chief cancer prevention researcher at New York University.  Since cancer is recognized as an immune system problem, Dr. Pero decided to check the immune systems of people under chiropractic care as compared to people in the general population and to people with cancer or other serious disease.  In a 3 year study of 107 individuals who had been under regular chiropractic care for at least 5 years, he found that this chiropractic group had a 200% greater immune function than the general public.  More than this, he found that the chiropractic group had a 400% greater immunity than people with cancer and other disease.

In his conclusion, Dr. Pero reported, “I have never seen a group other than this chiropractic group to experience a 200% increase over the normal patients.”

In addition to regular exercise, proper diet and reduced stress, maintaining the proper function of your spine and nervous system through regular chiropractic adjustments is proven to be a vital component of optimal health and wellness.