What is Inflammation?

Whether we are conscious of it or not, we all experience inflammation on a daily basis, yet few among us fully understand the vital purpose that inflammation serves in our bodies and the havoc it can wreak upon us when it goes unchecked. Many see inflammation as the redness, heat, swelling, and pain that we get upon injury, and while this is true, it represents only one kind of inflammation: acute inflammation. Inflammation, by itself, is a natural process and without it healing could not take place in the body. Acute inflammation is seen as the body’s reaction to injury, helping to aid in repair and protect damaged tissue, and is at the heart of protecting our bodies from disease and illness. This type of inflammation acts to heal by getting more nourishment and immune system activity to the area that needs it most.

Where inflammation becomes dangerous and even deadly is when it manifests as chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation, as the name suggests, represents inflammation that lasts weeks, months, and even years and occurs when the initial stimulus which led to acute inflammation persists, as the body interprets the stimulus as unresolved. This form of inflammation can be sinister in nature, silently damaging your tissues without the usual redness, heat, swelling or pain that would normally be seen with acute inflammation. Tissue damage is a classic hallmark of chronic inflammation, often forming fibrous or scar tissue from the tissue which once existed in the site of repair. New blood vessel formation (or angiogenesis) is another common hallmark of chronic inflammation, which plays a part in many disease processes, such as cancer.

Chronic inflammation has been linked with autoimmune disorders, allergic reactions, viral and bacterial infections, and a host of other diseases and disease processes, such as:

10 Ways to Decrease Inflammation Naturally

1. Ready. Set. GO!

In addition to naturally lowering inflammation throughout the body, exercise has been proven to reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, while lowering blood pressure, cholesterol, and improving mood and anxiety (lowering the risk of depression) and improving blood sugar levels, helping to optimize body weight, while reducing fat. If you’re not accustomed to exercising, start slowly by simply walking every day. Yoga and water aerobics are my two favorite low-impact forms of exercise—as you build more stamina and strength, you can begin to incorporate more into your life. An important point to drive home is this: exercise need not be stuffing yourself into a gym. Gardening, cleaning, walking, biking, and other forms of physical activity is something we all require, so simply moving every day, in conjunction with eating a healthy diet, are the two most important thing you can do for your body.

2. Redefine Your Sweet Tooth

Simple sugars, such as those found in most processed foods, wreak havoc on our bodies, causing an abrupt spike in our blood sugar levels, while raising insulin levels to counterbalance the spike. This leads to lowered immune system function, promotion of obesity, and a rise in inflammation, increasing the levels of C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation in the body. Eating complex carbohydrates, whole grains, fruits, nuts, seeds, vegetables, and healthy sources of protein can help balance blood sugar levels while improving satiety and decreasing inflammatory processes in the body. As a general rule, the more natural and unprocessed the food source, the more regulated your blood sugar levels will become.

3. Trim the FAT

Excess fat stored in fat cells (adipose tissue), by itself, causes inflammation and inflammatory processes to occur in the body. In fact, these very inflammatory processes can lead to insulin resistant type II diabetes as well as resistance to cortisol, making it even more difficult to lose weight in those suffering from obesity. Diet modification, regular daily exercise, food portion control, chewing your food twice as long as you normally would (while eating at a slower pace), and having the support of family and friends can help overcome obesity once and for all, helping to avoid the many health conditions associated with obesity.

4. Break the Habit

Aside from smoking being the number one cause of preventable disease and premature death, smoking has also been linked with causing inflammation and raising C-reactive protein inflammatory markers, contributing to heart disease, stroke, lung disease, and atherosclerosis. From a chiropractic perspective, patients who smoke have altered healing times, so a bone fracture can take considerably longer to heal for a smoker in comparison to non-smokers. The body has a tremendous ability to heal itself and quitting smoking today can greatly improve the chances of avoiding the harmful and potentially life-threatening effects smokers face. Click here for an excellent depiction of the timeline for healing after breaking the habit.

5. Tea Time

The beneficial effects of tea, especially green and white tea, has become well known in popular culture, but it’s worth highlighting the many benefits of tea, stemming primarily from the polyphenol compounds they contain—helping to hold inflammation at bay through the powerful antioxidants they contain. Tea has been shown clinically to reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, atherosclerosis, bowel disease, and liver disease (to name a few), while helping with weight loss and the effects of arthritis (and other inflammatory diseases). When choosing a tea, make sure it’s organic. Also, realize that all non-herbal teas contains these beneficial polyphenol compounds, from green tea to black tea, but the darker the tea, the more fermentation and processing has taken place and the more caffeine is present, so choosing a white tea or green tea will give you more of these beneficial compounds.

6. Find Your Inner Peace

Stress is an absolute killer—that much is known to us, yet the degree to which stress kills is remarkable. Stress has been linked with heart disease, stroke, high cholesterol, depression, diabetes, colds, kidney disease, asthma, ulcers, and cancer (to name a few) and has been shown to raise C-reactive protein, driving inflammation in the body. Finding ways to curb stress in your life is of the utmost importance. Some stress reducing methods include: daily exercise, meditation and prayer to clear the mind, talking it out with loved ones or a therapist, yoga and tai chi (or qi gong), taking time to spend with family and friends, laughing daily, and, as Dr. Mercola always suggests, emotional freedom technique (an EFT example can be found here), which I personally use and recommend. In chiropractic, we find many people carry stress in their neck, shoulders, and low back and much of the pain our patients experience can be attributed to stress. We have found that regular adjustments in our clinic have helped our patients deal with the side-effects of stress, aiding in stress management.

7. The Good Fat

As the name suggests, essential fatty acids are fats that are essential to our survival—our bodies are unable to make them, so we must obtain these fats from our diets. Unfortunately, the standard American diet contains 14 to 25 times more omega-6 fats than omega-3; this despite the fact that the ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 should be closer to 1:1. There are innumerable conditions associated with inadequate omega-3 fat consumption, ranging from heart disease to mood disorders like ADHD and schizophrenia to rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. The bottom line is that we need to make a conscious effort daily to ensure we are getting our omega-3 fats to help drive down inflammation in the body and protect our brain, heart, and neural tissue. Good sources of omega-3 fats can be found in many seeds and nuts, like walnuts and flax seeds, as well as wild caught varieties of fish, especially wild caught salmon and krill or cod liver oil, and eggs that are of the free-range (or cage-free) variety. It is important to make the distinction between farm-raised salmon and wild caught salmon—they are not the same and contain vastly different levels of the nutrients our bodies need. Also, with increased pollution, it has become very important to make sure to buy fish that contains the lowest levels of heavy metals, like mercury.

8. Healthy Herbs (and Spices!)

Cox-II inhibitors are prevalent in many of our prescription pain medications and were present in Vioxx, the drug that was eventually pulled from the market for its link to heart attack and stroke. Cox-II inhibitors are also naturally present in many herbs, to a much lesser potency than prescription drugs and with fewer side effects, working to decrease inflammation present in the body. Many herbs were used to model drugs we use today, and in the case of aspirin, it was originally modeled after white willow bark which contains salicin (similar to, but less potent than the synthetic acetylsalicylic acid in aspirin). Herbs like turmeric (curcumin), white willow bark, ginger, devil’s claw, boswellia, and hops have all been proven to decrease inflammation naturally, providing benefits especially with people suffering from arthritis. While not an herb, Bromelain, a protein-digesting enzyme found in pineapple, has also proven effective with inflammation, as well as treating injury to the body. Consider cooking more meals at home using fresh, organic herbs and spices, as many contain beneficial compounds that boost our body’s innate ability to heal itself naturally.

9. Chemical-Free

The Environmental Working Group and the President’s Cancer Panel have both issued reports this year detailing the hazards of certain chemicals, toxins, and pollutants which pose particular risks to our health. Conditions affiliated with environmental pollutants and toxins are vast, but typically include: endocrine and nervous system defects, asthma, cancer, skin, eye, and lung irritation, ADHD, and a weakened immune system. These reports were in agreement that people should buy organically whenever possible, that they should drink filtered water, be aware of environmental pollutants (such as radon), and that they should make efforts to avoid certain household chemicals.

10. Take Your Taste Buds on a Trip to the Mediterranean

The Mediterranean Diet has long proven effective in helping to curb heart disease, cancer, Alzeheimer’s disease, obesity and type-II diabetes, among the multitude of other health benefits it promotes. The diet centers on eating plenty of fresh, preferably locally-grown fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, whole grains, and heart-healthy oils (like olive oil) on a daily basis, while incorporating herbs and spices into your meals in the place of salt. Red meat is consumed sparingly in favor of fish, chicken, and eggs—all of which are consumed in vastly fewer quantities than what we typically consume in the standard American diet. When considering your diet, take into account the trends around us, noting that the way we do things now is not how we’ve always done things, and that obesity, type II diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and the like are on the rise. In 1950, Americans consumed (on average) 144 pounds of meat per person, per year. Jump ahead to 2007 and we see that the average American now eats close to 222 pounds of meat per year—an astounding 78 pounds more meat annually per person in the course of only 57 years! The change begins with you.

(click to enlarge)

About Our Event

Family-friendly entertainment, incredibly tasty (and healthy) refreshments, games, and over $1,000 in prizes and giveaways herald in our open house, celebrating health and wellness in the Lee’s Summit community. Our event will be on Sunday, July 18th from 2 to 4 p.m., and we welcome you to share in the festivities.

Guests will be provided with gift bags containing complimentary gifts and nutritional goodies, with a raffle for big-ticket items at 3:30 p.m. Entertainment includes the performance stylings of Mario Mancini, a local magician and entertainer extraordinaire, with his wife, Victoria, providing face-painting and balloon artistry free to those in attendance. We will also be offering a tour of our clinic, showcasing our services and providing information on natural ways to improve your health and avoid pain without the use of medication.

The Open House event’s main objective is to promote health and wellness within the Lee’s Summit and Kansas City communities. Our passion, at Axis Chiropractic + Wellness, is healthy living through preventative care, believing that illness and pain can be avoided to a large extent through simple lifestyle changes, such as proper diet, exercise, and nutrition, accompanied with regular chiropractic care. We offer healthy and natural alternatives, which is our gift to the community, helping people to avoid needless suffering by preventing both pain and illness from taking root in the body.

This Open House event is free to the public and all are welcome to attend!

Our Sponsors

We would like to thank our event sponsors for supporting our Open House. These sponsors have donated prizes and giveaways, which we will be raffling off to those in attendance—totaling over $1000!

Spending Does Not Equal Success

The Commonwealth Fund has released four reports over the last seven years and one truth has remained a constant: the U.S. continually ranks last in health among the countries in these studies. This year’s report was no different as the trends remained unchanged. The “why” for our nation’s ranking is simple: our healthcare costs more than double that of the other nations in this study and our access to care remains poor, especially among the uninsured. In effect, we are paying more money for less care and those in need of medical assistance are opting out of the medical system for financial reasons—leading to many preventable deaths due to conditions which would be readily treatable had adequate and affordable options been available. Going further, the report states, “The U.S. ranks a clear last on nearly all measures of equity. Americans with below average incomes were much more likely than their counterparts in other countries to report not visiting a physician when sick, not getting a recommended test, treatment, or follow-up care, not filling a prescription, or not seeing a dentist when needed because of costs.”

What the U.S. is Learning from the Netherlands

While not perfect, the reforms passed in 2010 will at least make strides towards providing access to care for more Americans nationwide—the effect of which is cited numerous times in the Commonwealth Fund report as a possible saving grace to America’s healthcare woes of the past. In many respects it mirrors that of the Netherlands’ own healthcare system, yet falls short at many levels. The Netherlands ranked first in the 2010 report, scoring highest for such measures as equity, safeness, effectiveness, and coordinated care. The Netherlands has a hybrid system of healthcare, blending elements of both socialized healthcare and privatized healthcare to form a cohesive system. What stands out in the Netherlands’ healthcare system is a built-in protection mechanism for insurance companies to offset financial risks they face when insuring patients with pre-existing conditions—while also covering the poor and chronically ill, providing them access to greater healthcare without the need to factor in bankruptcy when these individuals face matters of life-and-death. Insurance, in the Netherlands, is mandated to cover a defined scope of health services and anything that falls outside of that scope is covered under a government law on exceptional health costs (with these “exceptional health costs” covered by the public through taxes). The Dutch are also mandated to buy into either private insurance or health savings accounts—a similar design to what we will be seeing in the U.S. by 2014.

With a general distaste for anything deemed “socialized” in America, it seems that a hybrid system provides a possible solution for which many Americans will find at least palatable in helping to amend a broken system, meeting the world half-way on the issue of complete governmental control of healthcare. The reforms in 2010 will provide:

• Expansion of Medicaid eligibility to those making up 133% of the federal poverty level (FPL)
• Insurance premiums subsidies for those making up to 400% of the FPL
• Additional incentives for businesses to provide worker health benefits
• Measures to prevent insurance companies from denying claims based on “pre-existing conditions”, while prohibiting health insurance “caps” for healthcare spending
• The establishment of health insurance exchanges
• Financial support for medical research

And Perhaps Most Important…

• Tax penalties for those who do not obtain health insurance (unless exempt due to low income); forcing the issue of coverage by mandating insurance

The Missing Piece

The emphasis on prevention is an interesting idea raised in the debate for how to effectively curb healthcare costs while raising the healthcare standard for Americans. Germaine to the issue is what we currently spend as a country on conditions such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes—which together account for 70% of all deaths and 75% of all healthcare expenditures. Heart disease alone accounts for over $475 billion spent annually. Yet all of these conditions are preventable and this is why true healthcare reform must include an emphasis towards cost-cutting measures that provide real value to the people in the form of lasting health through disease prevention. Taking control of your health will not only save your family money, but prevent illness from taking root. It is our diet and our environments which provide the engines for disease growth and disease prevention and the decisions we make on a daily basis push these processes in a direction of health or disease contingent upon our actions. If we as a country simply took these necessary strides towards prevention in our own lives, to the betterment of our families and our communities, imagine the health savings we would experience as a nation!

Proton-pump inhibiting drugs (PPIs) account for $13.6 billion in sales in the U.S. with 110 million prescriptions written yearly. These impressive numbers for drugs originally invented for use in extreme gastrointestinal conditions (e.g. bleeding ulcers, severe gastric reflux, ulcerative esophagitis, etc.) pose a particular risk taken by the public en masse, placing casual users of these drugs, such as those simply coping with heartburn, at particular risk over long-term use—with an estimated 53-69% of proton-pump inhibiting drug over-prescription. The mounting evidence has only recently caught the attention of the FDA, prompting them to issue a warning to the public about the risk of bone fracture with long-term use of PPIs. However, as you’ll see, the risks of these drugs don’t end with bone fractures.

Studies have shown the following:

• An eight-year study by the University of Washington studied the effect of PPIs on a sample of over 140,000 postmenopausal women, finding a 25% increase in the risk of fractures among women using PPIs in the study (with a 47% increase in spinal fractures and 26% increase of forearm and wrist fractures)
• A five-year study by the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, measuring data from 100,000 patients discharged from the hospital, found that the risk for C. difficile, a type of bacteria that can cause severe diarrhea and possibly death if not treated properly, rose according to the levels of PPIs the patients were on. For instance, patients taking no PPIs had a 0.3% risk of C. difficile, while those taking heavy doses of PPIs had a 1.4% chance of infection—a 366% increase!
• A study by Boston Medical Center supports the theory that C. difficile risk is raised in patients using PPIs—finding that among the 1,166 patients treated in the study for C. difficile, 25.2% of those taking PPIs suffered a recurrence of their infection, representing a 36% increase in risk among those not taking PPIs in the study.

Why proton-pump inhibitors cause side-effects such as fracture or increased risk of C. difficile infection is still debated among healthcare professionals, but the prevailing belief is that altering stomach pH decreases the body’s ability to kill food-born illnesses (increasing the risk for food-poisoning) while making minerals harder to separate from the food sources from which they came. Hydrochloric acid or HCL (the acid present in the stomach) aids in separating minerals for use in the body while helping to kill off bacteria that reaches the stomach. Limiting the production of HCL in the stomach is believed to affect the body’s ability to breakdown minerals for use in the body—specificially, calcium, zinc, and iron, thus increasing the risk for fractures in individuals taking PPIs as a long-term solution to acid reflux or heartburn.

Treating Heartburn Naturally

There are many cases where proton-pump inhibiting drugs can be of benefit to the patient, but these cases are relegated to more extreme health conditions—not for the prevention of heartburn or minor acid reflux. Taking PPIs prophylactically to ward off the symptoms of heartburn ignores the cause of heartburn and leads to drug-dependence of PPIs, which places the patient at greater risk for side-effects associated with PPIs. If you are taking PPIs, consider discussing alternative therapies with a qualified healthcare professional.

Some natural alternatives include:

• Eating less food with each meal, making sure to chew your food completely while eating at a slower pace, giving the body a break from the task of digesting more food than it was intended to digest. Over the last 20 years, plate sizes have grown from 10 inches to 12 inches and so have our waistlines, as this increase in plate size has been accompanied by an increase in food portions. With this increase in plate size and portion size, we have seen a four-fold increase in patients seeking treatment for acid reflux. Coincidence?
• Consider supplementing with: enzymes to help ease the body’s workload in digesting food; probiotics to keep H. pylori in check, while boosting the beneficial bacteria in your gut; betaine HCL—many in the alternative health community believe it is a lack of HCL (acid), not too much acid, which causes acid reflux; aloe vera, which is effective at healing damage to the stomach and gastrointestinal tract
• Limit water or fluid consumption during meals as this dilutes stomach acid, but increase water consumption throughout the day, making sure to keep adequately hydrated with clean, pure water
• A teaspoon of apple cider vinegar mixed with a little honey and water can be effective in curbing heartburn when taken before a meal
• Ginger and fennel has been taken for 1000’s of years in Eastern cultures to aid in digestion
• Avoid common food triggers of acid reflux and heartburn, such as spicy foods, fried foods, carbonated beverages, chocolate, NSAIDS (aspirin, ibuprofen, etc.), alcohol, nicotine and caffeine—and if there are any known food triggers you’ve experienced acid reflux with before, it’s best to avoid these foods as well

Remember, never embark on any regimen, natural or conventional, without first consulting with a qualified healthcare professional. As mentioned previously, there are instances where PPIs are effective and warranted and if you are presently taking PPIs for heartburn or acid reflux, never go off of them cold-turkey as this can actually increase your symptoms. You must wean your way off of these drugs with the assistance of your primary care physician who prescribed these drugs to you.

EWG’s 2010 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides

The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a non-profit organization based out of Washington, DC whose goals include protecting “the most vulnerable segments of the human population…from health problems attributed to a wide array of toxic contaminants” and replacing “federal policies…with policies that invest in conservation and sustainable development”, issued a guide earlier this year which provides a much needed insight into the potential contamination present in conventionally-grown produce. This guide details and compares produce commonly found at your local grocery store, compiling data from nearly 100,000 produce pesticide reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, all taken from produce which had been power-washed by the USDA to remove external pesticides present on the produce’s outer layer.

Higher risk produce, containing higher levels of contaminants, were deemed the “Dirty Dozen” and produce which were considered relatively safe to consume in a conventionally-grown manner were deemed the “Clean Fifteen”. For instance, celery, which has the highest pesticide concentration among the conventionally-grown produce tested, contained up to 67 ingestible pesticides! Many of the pesticides used with conventionally-grown produce are taken up in the roots (due to soil contamination) or permeate the skin of the produce, dispelling the often held belief that simply washing the outside of the produce will remove pesticide contamination. As a general rule, the thicker the produce’s skin, the lower the pesticide burden, which is why onions, avocados, and pineapples were among the safest foods to eat in a non-organic or conventionally-grown form.

The EWG’s Case for Organically-Grown Produce

The crux of the EWG’s case for organically-grown produce rests primarily on the health concerns conventionally-grown produce poses to the consumer. The following is a brief overview of the EWG’s argument for organic produce:

• Pesticides are designed to kill organisms and as such can cause harm to humans, especially children, whose developing bodies may leave them particularly vulnerable to endocrine and nervous system defects
• Conditions associated with pesticide consumption include: nervous system toxicity, cancer, hormone system effects, skin, eye, and lung irritation, ADHD, and a weakened immune system, correlating pesticides to many other health conditions
• Foods deemed the “dirty dozen” contain up to 47 to 67 pesticides per serving—by buying the organic version of the “dirty dozen”, consumers can reduce exposure to pesticides by up to 80% (which is supported by the President’s Cancer Panel)

The Dirty Dozen

The “Dirty Dozen” comprise produce which is the highest risk to the consumer’s health when grown using non-organic or conventionally-grown methods. The following list is ordered according to toxicity, from highest to lowest toxicity:

1. Celery
2. Peaches
3. Strawberries
4. Apples
5. Domestic Blueberries
6. Nectarines
7. Sweet Bell Peppers
8. Spinach, Kale, and Collard Greens
9. Cherries
10. Potatoes
11. Imported Grapes
12. Lettuce

The Clean Fifteen

The “Clean Fifteen” comprise produce which contain lower levels of pesticides. They are not pesticide-free, but due, in part, to qualities inherent in the produce, such as thicker skin, they are less pesticide-dense. The EWG offers this selection for those of us shopping on a budget or those who cannot access the organic versions of this produce at a local grocer. As always, organically-grown produce is more nutrient-rich with fewer contaminants, so choosing organic is preferred if it is within your budget or readily available to you. The list below is ordered from lowest to highest toxicity among the low-risk produce group:

1. Onions
2. Avocados
3. Sweet Corn
4. Pineapples
5. Mango
6. Sweet Peas
7. Asparagus
8. Kiwi Fruit
9. Cabbage
10. Eggplant
11. Cantaloupe
12. Watermelon
13. Grapefruit
14. Sweet Potatoes
15. Sweet Onions

For a full list from the EWG’s 2010 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides, click here.

Hospitalizations for Poisoning by Prescription Opioids, Sedatives, and Tranquilizers

A recent study by Dr. Jeffrey H. Coben in the Journal of Preventive Medicine tracked the increase of hospitalizations for prescription opioids, sedatives, and tranquilizers from the period of 1999 to 2006—collecting data from the US Nationwide Inpatient Sample database, which contains records for approximately 8 million Americans hospitalized annually. Some of the startling revelations from the seven-year study period includes:

• Rising hospitalizations for opioids, sedatives, and tranquilizer overdose from 43,000 in 1999 to 71,000 in 2006 (a 65% increase in hospitalizations, dwarfing all other hospitalizations for prescription-drug overdose)
• Accidental poisoning by opioids, sedatives, and tranquilizers rising by 37 percent—16 percent higher than other prescriptions drugs during this period
• Accidental overdose of prescription drugs surpassing motor vehicle accidents as the number one cause of unintentional injury death among 35 to 54-year-olds
• Intentional overdoses, in cases of suicide (or self-poisoning) or poisoning by someone else, more than doubling from 10,000 in 1999 to nearly 24,000 in 2006, compared with a 54 percent increase for all other prescription drugs during the same period

Prescription Drug Overdose: Not Just a Celebrity Phenomenon

What was once portrayed as a celebrity affliction has come full-circle from Hollywood to Main Street, broadly sweeping as an epidemic across this nation. When we think of prescription-drug overdose, images of Michael Jackson, Anna Nicole Smith, or Heath Ledger may come to mind. Sadly, the easy attainability of these drugs coupled with an attitude that they are safer and less addictive than street drugs has laid the foundation for abuse, especially among adolescents and middle-aged women. In fact, the easy accessibility to prescription drugs has led to these drugs gaining favor among adolescents, age 12 to 17, now equaling that of marijuana use among this group—with over 2 million adolescent users of prescription drug tranquilizers alone!

Prescription-drug abuse aside, there is particular risk for those simply taking drugs as prescribed by medical physicians. According to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, which followed 10,000 adults who were prescribed at least three opioid prescriptions for chronic pain such as back pain within a 90 day study period, 51 experienced at least one episode of overdose and six died from complications related to the drug taken as directed. In all fairness, the dosage level of the drug prescribed is tied directly to the chance of overdose. Case in point: in individuals given less than 20 mg of morphine a day for pain management, the rate of overdose is close to one in 500, whereas individuals prescribed morphine at 100 mg or more overdose at a rate of one in 60!

Changes You Can Take to Limit Your Risk

With several million Americans now using opioid drugs for chronic pain relief, even small rate percentages of overdose could lead to thousands of annual overdoses nationwide. To limit your risk, consider the follow options:

• Consider conservative approaches for pain management, such as chiropractic, acupuncture, and other holistic forms of pain management as these solutions offer relief without the harmful side-effects associated with prescription drugs
• If you decide to take pain medications for pain management, discuss dosage levels and quantity of the prescribed medication with your doctor, to decrease the risk of accidental overdose
• Never leave pills in an area that is easily accessible to children and properly dispose of any and all medications that are no longer in use
• Lifestyle changes involving exercise, diet, nutrition, and wellness care can have profound effects on pain and pain management. Simply losing weight can decrease the burden on the joints of your body. For instance, when walking we bear three to five times our body weight on our joints such as the ankles, knees, and hips, so a 10 pound weight loss could potentially remove 30 to 50 pounds of stress on your joints!
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A Strong Message from an Unlikely Source

The President’s Cancer Panel, which was founded in 1971 by the National Cancer Act, has always been the epitome of mainstream thought when it comes to the healthcare of this nation, which is why the report released on May 6th was so remarkable in scope. The 200+ page report (found here) outlines many chemical carcinogens common to our environment—chemicals which have aided in the precipitous rise in cancer rates nationwide, contributing to the 41% of all Americans who will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives.

Playing “whistle-blower” to both industry and regulatory agencies, which have looked the other way on matters concerning the correlation between chemicals and cancer, the report states,

The reasoning given for this lax chemical testing was varied and included:

1. Inadequate funding and insufficient staffing
2. Fragmented and overlapping authorities coupled with uneven and decentralized enforcement
3. Excessive regulatory complexity
4. Weak laws and regulations
5. Undue industry influence

The Panel’s Findings

The Panel found evidence of toxic chemical exposure in the following:

• Conventionally grown produce sprayed with pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides
• Air pollution in the form of daily transportation, especially diesel fumes; dry cleaning, electricity production, and other industrial outgassing
• Cell phones, which puts the user at possible risk of cellular damage from electromagnetic radiation
• Tap water, which contains many chemicals (e.g. trihalomethanes, perchlorate, etc.), including pharmaceutical drugs, which can enter the water supply through excretion or improper disposal
• Medical imaging procedures, such as computed tomography (CT) or mamography, which can expose the patient to several times the yearly recommended dosage of radiation
• Natural environmental pollutants such as radon, occurring from the breakdown of uranium mineral, and accounting for 21,000 deaths annually

The Panel concluded that we carry within ourselves an increased burden of toxicity merely by approximation of these contaminants to our daily lives. The real call-to-action, however, is directed towards our children and women who may be pregnant or are nursing. In this report, the Panel made special consideration to pregnant women stating,

Infants are coming out of the womb “pre-polluted” with as many as 300 contaminants found in the average umbilical cord of a newborn.

Recommendations to Limit Your Exposure

Astoundingly, these recommendation I’m about to give are directly from the Panel’s report, recommendations that don’t stray far from holistic medical orthodoxy.

• Parents should choose foods, house and garden products, play spaces, toys, medicines, and medical tests that will minimize child exposure to toxics
• You should drink only filtered tap water or purchase reverse osmosis or remineralized distilled water
• Take your shoes off once at home to avoid tracking in outside contaminants
• Use stainless steel or glass instead of plastics for storing food and beverages and never microwave plastics or clean plastics in the dishwasher as these actions can increase the leeching of hazardous endocrine-disrupting chemicals (BPA and phthalates)
• Buy organic produce and if you eat meat choose a source such as “free-range” or “grass-fed” varieties, as these have lowered levels of toxins
• Turn off electrical devices and conserve energy where you can as this decreases our need to burn coal and other fossil fuels, thus lowering the output of air pollution
• Properly dispose of household chemicals (pharmaceuticals, paints, etc.) to minimize the risk of soil or water contamination
• Have your house tested for radon levels
• Use a headset whilst talking on your cell phone

For more information on what’s contained in the products you buy, and for possible safer alternatives to those products, consider the following sites:

• House Hold Products Database
• Cosmetics Database

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