How to Ease the Aches and Pains of Cold Weather

By Dr. Karen Kim

Winter is upon us again and most of the country is covered in layers of freezing snow. Some folks know winter is here because they can see the snow through their window or hear about it on the news, but some of us know winters is coming long before it arrives. We can predict the cold because our joints and body ache like the devil and old injuries that we barely remember come back to haunt us.

Whether you have arthritis, sinusitis, fibromyalgia, carpel tunnel syndrome or just a bad knee from that fall you took off grandma's porch 30 years ago, winter can be a time to cringe in pain rather than binge on eggnog. Luckily, there are simple steps you can take to ease the aches of cold weather pain.

It may sound like common sense, but it bears repeating. The best way to avoid cold-related aches and pains is to stay warm. Dress warmly, even when you're inside the house, and plug in that electric blanket and heater. You can also turn your house's heating system up or buy one of those snug new blanket-robes. When dressing to keep warm, you should also remember that several layers of clothing will keep you warmer than one overlarge jacket or sweater. By keeping your body warm, your joints won't stiffen up and hurt. Warm muscles and joints are a less likely to snap or spasm which can lead to new injuries and renewed pain.

Another way to combat winter-related joint pain is to drink sufficient fluids to keep your body properly hydrated. Dehydration can cause muscle cramps, lethargy and general muscle soreness. Those over 65 should take particular care to drink enough as seniors are more affected by dehydration than others. Even better, you can drink a hot beverage such as decaffeinated tea to stay warm and hydrated at the same time

When choosing your beverages, be careful to avoid caffeine. Restricted blood flow or poor circulation can bring on debilitating joint diseases including Reynaud's Phenomenon, where fingers and toes become numb and turn blue. Two of the many substances that cause blood to flow less freely are caffeine and nicotine. Reducing, or eliminating, your intake of both substances will reduce the chances of developing major joint pain. Caffeine is found in coffee, tea and most sodas and nicotine, in tobacco.

Another way to keep your muscles and joints warm and flexible would be to plan, and stick to, a regular exercise routine. The advantages of exercising include increased joint mobility and muscle strength and the maintenance of a healthy level of bone density. If you don't usually exercise, then start slowly with a relatively mild routine before moving on to something more strenuous. Another option would be to become a member of the local YMCA or gym and take advantage of the exercise equipment and personal trainers that these places offer.

The best treatment for any pain is prevention. If you suffer from joint, back or neck pain then regular visits to a chiropractor can do wonders to keep winter aches and pains at bay. Spinal manipulation and other chiropractic techniques may help by treating your specific conditions that are aggravated by the cold each year.

Cold and humid weather has been scientifically proven to worsen the symptoms of several disorders and to aggravate old injuries. However, contrary to some beliefs, winter aches and pains are not something that you must "learn to live with." Your chiropractor can determine a course of treatment and make recommendations to ease the pain and may have your muscles feeling like Spring again.

Dr. Karen Kim is a Long Beach Chiropractor at Chiropractic Neurology Center in Southern California. She treats patients with seasonal ailments all year long to help them attain and maintain optimal health. Discover how a chiropractor can make a difference in your health online at http://www.neurochiro.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3508716

Protein and Weight Loss

By G. Douglas Andersen, DC, DACBSP, CCN

Recently I was asked by the staff at Dynamic Chiropractic to referee some of their water-cooler discussions regarding nutrition. Topping their list was this one about protein and weight loss: "Why is protein important for weight loss and how much should I eat (to lose weight)?" Before I answer, I would like to share a few thoughts on weight loss in general.

Weight Loss: A Tricky Topic

I believe the topic of weight loss is much more confusing, contentious, complicated and controversial than it should be – for a number of reasons, including the following:

• The marketing of diets, exercise plans, fitness equipment and a huge array of nutritional supplements is a billion-dollar industry that is very competitive.
• The Information Age we live in produces a constant stream of new research that is rapidly disseminated, selectively edited, commonly misinterpreted and excessively extrapolated – usually for secondary financial gain.
• The biochemical and physiological diversity of people means there is more than one path to the top of the weight-loss mountain.

To lose weight, there must be caloric deficit, period. Caloric deficit is achieved by eating fewer calories, burning more calories or a combination of both. Now we are ready to address the question about protein and weight loss.

Why Is Protein Important for Weight Loss?

When people lose weight, it is a combination of lean mass (muscle) and body fat. When people say they want to lose weight, what they actually mean is that they want to lose fat. It is impossible to lose only fat, but:

Consuming enough protein can reduce muscle loss at the expense of fat loss in varying degrees, depending on the person. This can be amplified with exercise targeted at the muscles a person does not want to lose.

Protein can satisfy hunger with a greater degree of effectiveness than fats and carbs in many (but not all) people.

Dietary protein requires a higher percentage of the calories it provides to metabolize than carbohydrates and fats. It can raise a person's metabolic rate for as long as 10-12 hours. 

How Much Protein Should I Eat (to Lose Weight)? There is no exact answer to this question because "just enough and not too much" is quite variable. The amount of protein a dieter should eat is the level that reduces the most body fat and least muscle in a way that best moderates the degree of hunger. This number depends on age, sex, genetics, activity, sleep, stress and more. Ask 10 weight-loss professionals this question and you'll get a variety of responses.

There is no recommendation for weight loss. When we look at weight-loss studies that compare different amounts of protein, the results are the average of individual responses. In other words, when we see a conclusion that the group that ate X protein lost more weight than the group that ate Y protein,not everyone in group X will lose more than everyone in group Y.

Finally, when a person asks me this question, I will ask them, "How much protein are you eating now and how much protein were you eating when you gained the weight?" In most cases they cannot answer either question, so giving them a number is meaningless until I determine their current intake and the results they are experiencing.

The Best Advice

Confused? Don't be. Just remember that to lose body fat, every step and every bite count every day. My rule of thumb for protein is this: If a person is losing weight and maintaining their exercise strength, endurance and recovery, they are getting enough protein. And that means, if you look at Table 2, they are getting no less than what is recommended for athletes, which is around double the RDA of 0.8 g/kg/bw/d. Next month, we will continue this discussion by examining a specific study on weight loss, exercise and different levels of protein.

Source: http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=56550

Flu bug got you down?

Concerned about coming down with something like everybody you know?  Guess what.....Chiropractic adjustments boost the immune system!!

(NaturalNews) The nervous system and immune system are hardwired and work together to create optimal responses for the body to adapt and heal appropriately. Neural dysfunctions due to spinal misalignments are stressful to the body and cause abnormal changes that lead to a poorly coordinated immune response. Chiropractic adjustments have been shown to boost the coordinated responses of the nervous system and immune system.

The autonomic nervous system is hardwired into the lymphoid organs such as the spleen, thymus, lymph nodes, and bone marrow that produce the body's immune response. Growing evidence is showing that immune function is regulated in part by the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system.

Subluxation is the term for misalignments of the spine that cause compression and irritation of nerve pathways affecting organ systems of the body. Subluxations are an example of physical nerve stress that affects neuronal control. According to researchers, such stressful conditions lead to altered measures of immune function & increased susceptibility to a variety of diseases.

Inflammatory based disease is influenced by both the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. Nerve stimulation directly affects the growth and function of inflammatory cells. Researchers found that dysfunction in this pathway results in the development of various inflammatory syndromes such as rheumatoid arthritis and behavioral syndromes such as depression. Additionally, this dysfunctional neuro-endo-immune response plays a significant role in immune-compromised conditions such as chronic infections and cancer.

Wellness based chiropractors analyze the spine for subluxations and give corrective adjustments to reduce the stress on the nervous system. A 1992 research group found that when a thoracic adjustment was applied to a subluxated area the white blood cell (neutrophil) count collected rose significantly.

In 1975, Ronald Pero, Ph.D., chief of cancer prevention research at New York's Preventive Medicine Institute and professor in Environmental Health at New York University, began researching the most scientifically valid ways to estimate individual susceptibility to various chronic diseases. He has conducted a tremendous amount of research in this area that includes over 160 published reports in peer reviewed journals.

Pero and his colleagues discovered that various DNA-repairing enzymes could be significantly altered following exposure to carcinogenic chemicals. He found strong evidence that an individual's susceptibility to cancer could be determined by these enzymes. Lack of those enzymes, Pero said, 'definitely limits not only your lifespan, but also your ability to resist serious diseaseconsequences.'

Pero was fascinated by the relationship cancer-inducing agents had on the endocrine system. Since the nervous system regulates hormone balance, he hypothesized that the nervous system had to also have a strong influence on one's susceptibility to cancer.

To support this argument he found a substantial amount of literature linking various kinds of spinal cord injuries and cancer. Pero found that these injuries led to a very high rate of lymphomas and lymphatic leukemias. This understanding led Pero to consider Chiropractic care as a means of reducing the risk of immune breakdown and disease.

Pero's team measured 107 individuals who had received long-term Chiropractic care. The chiropractic patients were shown to have a 200% greater immune competence than people who had not received chiropractic care, and a 400% greater immune competence than people with cancer or serious diseases. Interestingly, Pero found no decline with the various age groups in the study demonstrating that the DNA repairing enzymes were just as present in long-term chiropractic senior groups as they were in the younger groups.

Pero concluded, 'Chiropractic may optimize whatever genetic abilities you have so that you can fully resist serious disease...I have never seen a group other than this show a 200% increase over normal patients.'


Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/031206_chiropractic_immunity.html#ixzz2f5ttBejt

Sitting Is the New Smoking

By Jeffrey Tucker, DC, DACRB

In the May 25, 2013 edition of the Los Angeles Times, Anup Kanodia, a physician and researcher at the Center for Personalized Health Care at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center said, "Sitting is the new smoking." He cited an Australian study published in October 2012 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine that compared sitting and smoking.

According to the study, every hour of TV that people watch, presumably while sitting, cuts about 22 minutes from their lifespan, while it's estimated that smokers shorten their lives by about 11 minutes per cigarette.

This information is important for us to share with our patients, especially if we want to become known as healthy-aging doctors. I encourage each practitioner to focus on the fundamental messages – taking microbreaks, getting up from sitting and moving around frequently, maintaining good posture, a little about proper diets, a little about functional fitness, a little about stress reduction and proper rest. These basics take care of the majority of cases quite nicely. I relate a healthy-aging theme throughout all of my treatment programs in my office. [See Dr. Tucker's four-part series on healthy aging online, beginning with part 1 in the March 1, 2013 issue.]

No one wants to grow old with low back pain. As we sit on our butts more, manual therapists should remain aware that the possible etiology of "inhibited," "weak," "poor motor control," "underactive" gluteal muscles in patients with low back pain can be from hip flexor tightness as a result of excess sitting. Prolonged and excess sitting is common, and it especially relates to those cases with chronic low back and hip pain.

Professor McGill uses the term gluteal amnesia as a prevalent complication in chronic low back pain people who "forget" to recruit the glutes! I prefer to tell my patients they need gluteal reawakeningand then start to teach them a progression to "get off their butt." One simple recommendation is to start walking at least 30 minutes every day. However, getting people up and walking does not ensure good gluteal muscle activation. Abnormal gait can cause low back pain (symptom), excess sitting is a part of the cause, and the disease may affect multiple muscles, nerves and joints.

Prolonged periods of sitting are bad for the back, but prolonged sitting without proper lumbar support or loss of neutral in the lumbar spine is worse. Prolonged flexed or slumped postures can cause disruption of the disc, leading to radial and/or circumferential tears. Disc thinning can cause the facets to bear more weight, and once tears occur in the innervated part of the annulus or when the facets bear more weight, the body overreacts to this damage and starts producing increased muscle tone. More nerve fibers are irritated and then you get the vicious cycle of chronic pain.

The patient presents with increased sensitivity to sitting, awkward postures, or increased sensitivity to certain movements or unexpected movements. The cascade of chronic low grade back pain or recurrent episodes of acute pain is evident. Pain in and of itself can cause inhibition of the deep lumbar and hip stabilizer muscles, which further destabilizes the spinal segments, allowing excessive aberrant motion. The weakened disc is likely to suffer further tears from uncontrolled segmental movements or sudden motions, especially first thing in the morning and bending over, or after sitting and standing, or going from sitting to standing to lifting or carrying. Lumbopelvic-hip complex "instability" is a common scenario in our offices; if you can break the pain cycle, the patient will feel better.

A common frustration for patients (and doctors) with discogenic back pain is that the patient starts to feel better, muscle tone begins to improve, motion improves and then something happens … they sit on a long plane flight, they sit in a restaurant leaning forward too long, they sit through a long movie, they go on a long car drive, some random, sudden event happens, or they overdo it trying to start an exercise program back up. What happens? Pain increases (flares up), the stabilizer (inner) muscles become inhibited again and the global (outer) muscles become hypertonic.

The lesson we have learned is that the deep or local stabilizer muscles in the low back and hips don't automatically come back to normal. Then we are right back where we started, telling patients to "move." But have we prepared them for this?

In previous articles, I have discussed that standing upright, walking and running all require gluteal muscle activation. If the patient has poor lumbar stability, the multifidus and glutes may need reawakening for these activities. Running presents more of a challenge for frontal-plane stability because pelvic stabilization must occur with only one foot on the ground.

The gluteus medius is a stabilizer muscle and plays a very important role in providing frontal-plane stability for the pelvis during running.¹ For runners, a weakened gluteus medius could play a role in running-related injuries such as iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS) and patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS).

Hip abductor weakness has been observed in distance runners with ITBS when compared with the uninjured limb.² After six weeks of gluteus medius-specific exercise training, 22 of 24 athletes were pain free and able to return to running. Based on this study alone, it is hard to tell if weakness in the gluteus medius contributed to ITBS or if ITBS caused gluteus medius weakness. Regardless, increasing the strength of the gluteus medius paralleled symptom improvement and return to activity.

Over the years I have seen some serious cases of ITBS. Some have even required surgery. Gluteus medius strengthening often helps some cases, but not all of them. I still consider the glute medius an important component of my "reawakening" and strengthening programs for all of my low back pain patients, as well as my training routines for all of the runners I see.

I like to include glute exercises as part of a dynamic warm-up. Based on research by David M. Selkowitz, et al., to determine which exercises are best for activating the gluteus medius and the superior portion of the gluteus maximus, while minimizing activity of the tensor fascia lata (TFL),³ the preferred exercises for recruiting the gluteal muscles while minimizing TFL activity are unilateral and bilateral bridging, quadruped hip extension (knee flexed and extending), the clam, sidestepping, and squatting.

What we can conclude is if the goal of rehabilitation is to preferentially activate the gluteal muscles while minimizing TFL activation, then the clam, sidestep, unilateral bridge, and both quadruped hip extension exercises would appear to be the most appropriate.

For glute activation in the more athletic patients, they seem to like the single-leg deadlift toe touch, single-leg step down, exercise band loops wrapped around the ankles or knees while side walking, and kettlebell swings. I also like to include some glute-specific exercises following running to challenge the abductors in a fatigued state.

I also found that weak abductors and valgus stress have been common factors in people experiencing plantar fasciitis. Follow the logic in the case of a patient who presents with months of suffering from plantar fasciitis. Patient is in her 50s. About five months ago she increased her walking program because she was told she was sitting too much in front of the computer, contributing to her low back pain.

She has an underactive glute medius, as demonstrated in the side-lying hip abduction test. She also demonstrates the need for lumbar stability training. The glute medius attaches to the anterior ilium and is related to decreased core strength. The underactive glute medius allows the knees to adduct (internally rotate) during gait; the tibia abducts, causing the navicular to drop; eversion occurs; a forward talus occurs; a lengthened posterior tibialis muscles occurs, leading to plantar fascitis.

How will I ever get this complex case to walk again? I used a new technology called radial shock-wave therapy to the plantar fascia; I taught her how to get the "knots" out of her hip flexors, and foam roll her TFL; I taught her how to lengthen the calf muscles, hip flexors, adductors and TFL; I taught her how to activate the glut med with side-lying hip abduction exercises; activate the multifidus with the "bird dog"; and I taped the plantar fascia so she could walk without repeating the cycle. If I can keep her feet feeling better, I can keep her moving more frequently and help her reset the "siting is the new smoking" dysfunction.

References

1. Presswood L, Cronin J, Keogh JWL, Whatman C. Gluteus medius: applied anatomy, dysfunction, assessment, and progressive strengthening. Strength &Conditioning J,2008;30(5):41-53.
2. Fredericson M, Cookingham CL, Chaudhari AM, et al. Hip abductor weakness in distance runners with iliotibial band syndrome. Clin J Sports Med, 2000;10(3):169-75.
3. Selkowitz DM, Beneck GJ, Powers CM. Which exercises target the gluteal muscles while minimizing activation of the tensor fascia lata? J Ortho Sports Phys Ther, 2013;43(2):54-64.

Source: http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=56575

Adrenal Function

No bigger than a walnut and weighing less than a grape, each of your two adrenal glands sits like a tiny pyramid on top of a kidney ("ad" "renal" means "over" the "kidneys"). But don't let their size fool you; these powerful little endocrine glands manufacture and secrete steroid hormones such as cortisol, estrogen and testosterone that are essential for life, health and vitality. They modulate the functioning of every tissue, organ and gland in your body to maintain homeostasis during stress and keep you alive. They also have important effects on the way you think and feel.

The main purpose of your adrenals is to enable your body to deal with stress from every possible source, ranging from injury and disease to work and relationship problems. They largely determine the energy of your body's responses to every change in your internal and external environment. Whether they signal attack, retreat or surrender, every cell responds accordingly, and you feel the results. It is through the actions of the adrenal hormones that your body is able to mobilize its resources to escape or fight off danger (stress) and survive. In a more primitive society that would mean being able to run away quickly, fight or pursue an enemy or game, endure long periods of physical challenge and deprivation, and store up physical reserves when they are available.

In modern society, these same responses are triggered by such circumstances as a difficult boss, air pollution, family quarrels, financial problems, too little sleep, infections and overindulgence in orsensitivities to food or substance abuse. If your adrenal function is low, as it is in adrenal fatigue, your body has difficulty responding and adapting properly to these stresses.* This can lead to a variety of physical and psychological health problems that are themselves a further source of stress.*

It is also your adrenal glands' job to keep your body's reactions to stress in balance so that they are appropriate and not harmful. For example, the protective activity of anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant adrenal hormones like cortisol helps to minimize reactions like swelling and inflammation in situations ranging from allergies to autoimmune disorders. These hormones closely modulate many metabolic processes:

• the utilization of carbohydrates and fats
• the conversion of fats and proteins into energy
• the distribution of stored fat  – especially around your waist (the spare tire) and at the sides of your face
• normal blood sugar regulation
• proper cardiovascular function
• gastrointestinal function

 After mid-life (menopause in women), the adrenal glands gradually become the major source of the sex hormones circulating throughout the body in both men and women. These hormones themselves have a whole host of physical, emotional and psychological effects, from the level of your sex drive to the tendency to gain weight. Every athlete knows that steroids (adrenal hormones) affect muscular strength and stamina.

Even your propensity to develop certain kinds of diseases and your ability to respond to chronic illness is influenced significantly by the adrenal glands.* The more chronic the illness, the more critical the adrenal response becomes. You cannot live without your adrenal hormones and, as you can see from this brief overview, how well you live depends a great deal on how well your adrenal glands function.

Source: http://www.adrenalfatigue.org/adrenal-function

Statin Drugs: Overprescribed, Pose Unnecessary Health Risks

By James P. Meschino, DC, MS

Over the years I have been commissioned to deliver many wellness and lifestyle medicine lectures to employees of large companies, financial institutions, and legal and accounting firms in Canada and the United States.

In conversations with the human resource directors of these corporate entities, they often tell me that a major financial drain on their respective employee health benefits plans is the cost of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs.

A 2012 report showed that 32 million Americans are prescribed a statin drug – a drug one takes daily for the rest of their life.¹ As reported in October 2012 by Glenn D. Braunstein, MD, chairman of the Department of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai, one in four Americans older than age 45 is presently taking a statin drug. "As people age, odds increase they will take one of the drugs; some 36 percent of women ages 65 to 74 take a statin and a full 50 percent of men in that age bracket take one of these prescription drugs aimed at lowering their cholesterol."²

Statins Shown to Prevent Second Heart Attack

There is solid evidence that if a person has suffered a heart attack or stroke, or has advanced atherosclerosis (narrowing of the artery with calficied plaque), statin drugs help reduce the risk of a future cardiovascular incident.² However, in patients who do not have advanced atherosclerosis and no previous history of a heart attack or stroke, these drugs may be unnecessary and may do more harm than good, according to recent evidence. For example, the Johns Hopkins-led Multi-Ethnic Study on Atherosclerosis (MESA)³ gives clear evidence that statin drugs are overprescribed and not required in many cases in which doctors have been instructed to prescribe them.

Ineffective at Preventing Heart Attack and Stroke

The MESA study selected candidates from a pool of 7,000 ethnically diverse adults, including African Americans, Chinese Americans, Caucasians and Hispanics, and were monitored at Johns Hopkins and five other medical centers in North America. The study selected the same types of patients who were followed in the much-cited JUPITER trial ("Justification for the Use of Statins in Primary Prevention: An Interventional Tool Evaluating Rosuvastin," known to most people as Crestor), published in 2008, which focused on patients with a high c-reactive protein (CRP) blood reading. (High CRP suggests inflammation in the blood vessel wall and is considered to be a risk factor for heart attack.) The JUPITER study showed that Crestor reduced the risk of heart and stroke in this population of patients.

The MESA study showed, however, that only patients with advanced atherosclerosis demonstrated any clear benefit from the use of a statin drug. Researchers of the MESA study point out that promoting statin drugs as "preventive therapy" for future heart attacks in healthy men and women who don't already have artery-clogging calcium deposits is just bad medicine. They caution against the overprescribing of statin drugs because these drugs can cause hyperglycemia (an increase in blood sugar levels) and increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.

New Label Warning for Statin Drugs

A 2012 warning on the label of statin drugs imposed by the FDA indicates they can also causememory loss.² The new label warning was imposed because post- marketing surveillance shows that statin drugs can cause memory loss, memory impairment, and/or confusion (occurring anywhere from one day after initiation of the statin to years after initiation) and is not age-specific, as it occurs across a range of age groups. The new label also tells patients who experience fatigue, loss of appetite, dark urine, upper stomach pain or jaundice to notify their doctor immediately, as these symptoms can indicate the onset of a life-threatening kidney problem (rhabdomyolysis). As well, as many as 5 percent of people on statins develop serious side effects, such as muscle pain, and one in 255 individuals develops diabetes.⁴

Alternatives to Statins

The John Hopkins researchers highlight the fact that high cholesterol, along with most other cardiovascular risk factors, can be lowered in most people naturally by lifestyle changes such as exercise, a healthy diet and keeping weight under control. For individuals who have not yet had a heart attack or stroke, and do not have advanced-stage atherosclerosis (with calcification), the most prudent way to reduce cholesterol, without risk of side effects, is to follow a proper diet and lifestyle plan.²

I have routinely lowered patients' cholesterol, triglyceride and glucose (blood sugar) levels using a two-stage nutritional approach. In some cases, I add a natural cholesterol- and triglyceride-lowering supplement, which has none of the damaging side effects of statin drugs. If these methods fail to lower total cholesterol to below 200 mg/dL (5.2 mmol/L), then I believe a statin drug or bile acid sequestrant drug (e.g., cholestyramine) should be considered. However, my experience is that 90-95 percent of patients can get their blood cholesterol into the ideal range using simple dietary / lifestyle modifications and a natural supplement.

Many experts agree that statin drugs are overprescribed and that lifestyle modification is the most appropriate strategy for the majority of patients with high cholesterol.² Yet many doctors continue to prescribe statin drugs in these cases, instead of providing patients with an opportunity to lower cholesterol using simple and natural lifestyle changes. I predict that society will pay a significant price for the overprescribing of these drugs in people who don't really need them.

The risk is that the cumulative damage, over many years of daily statin drug use, may result in an escalation in the number of cases of memory loss and Alzheimer's disease, liver disease, kidney damage, muscle pain, muscle weakness and other problems. This has the potential to add up to a significant cost with respect to unnecessary human suffering. As such, I implore chiropractors and other complementary health practitioners to become more involved in the discussion about high cholesterol with patients, outlining the importance of lifestyle modifications as the first approach to achieving an ideal cholesterol reading in cases of primary prevention.

Reference

1. "Stain Drugs Are Overprescribed in Healthy People Who Have No Evidence of Heart Disease." NaturalNews.com.
2. Braunstein GD. "Be Smart on Statins: Heart Health Can't Rely on Just Cholesterol-Cutting Drugs." Huffington Post (Los Angeles), April 16, 2012.
3. Post W, et al. The Multi-Ethic Study of Atherosclerosis. Johns Hopkins Medicine, Heart and Vascular Institute.
4. Young S. "Stain Labels Will Come With New Safety Warnings." CNNHealth.com, March 5, 2012.

Source: http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=56301

Myofascial Pain: Relief by Post-isometric Relaxation

The post-isometric relaxation technique begins by placing the muscle in a stretched position. Then an isometric contraction is exerted against minimal resistance. Relaxation and then gentle stretch follow as the muscle releases. This technique was applied to tight, tender muscles that are commonly associated with musculoskeletal pain and was systematically tested on 351 muscle groups in 244 patients. The method produced immediate pain relief in 94%, lasting pain relief in 63%, as well as lasting relief of point tenderness in 23% of the sites treated. Patients who practiced autotherapy on a home program were more likely to realize lasting relief. Pain was relieved in both the muscle itself and at tender insertion points. The technique is useful in addition to, or in place of, local anesthetic injection or dry needling. These results confirm other observations that the increased tension of the affected muscles and the resulting pain and dysfunction are both relieved by restoring the full stretch length of the muscle.


Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6466075