Weekly Health Update
Week of Monday, October 3rd, 2011
Courtesy of Gary Brodeur, D.C.
(401) 463-9520

"A leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus."
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mental Attitude: Attention & Self-Control.

You're trying to decide what to eat for dinner. Should it be the chicken and broccoli or the super-sized fast-food burger? Making that choice is a complex neurological exercise that can be influenced by a simple shifting of attention toward the healthy side of life. When you decide what to eat, not only does your brain need to figure out how it feels about a food's taste versus its health benefits versus its size or even its packaging, but it needs to decide the importance of each of those attributes relative to the others... and it needs to do all of this more-or-less instantaneously. When thinking about healthiness, people were less likely to eat unhealthy foods, whether or not they deemed them to be tasty, and more likely to eat healthy-untasty foods. Being asked to think about healthiness led subjects to say "no" to foods more often than they did when asked to make decisions naturally. Journal of Neuroscience, July 2011

Health Alert: Pharmaceutical Ads Do Not Follow FDA Guidelines.
A survey of 192 pharmaceutical ads in biomedical journals found that only 18% were compliant with FDA guidelines; 57.8 % failed to quantify serious risks, including death; 48.2% lacked verifiable references; and 28.9% failed to present adequate efficacy quantification. Public Library of Science, Aug 2011

Diet: Increase In Food Allergies.
8% of children have food allergies, with almost 40% reporting severe reactions, an increase of 18% from 10 years ago. Peanut allergies among children have tripled, going from 1 in 250 in 1997 to 1 in 70 in 2008.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011

Exercise: Good Reasons.
Exercise assists in efforts to stop smoking, helps you to relax, can help improve short-term memory in older individuals, and helps relieve many of the common discomforts of pregnancy (backache, heartburn, constipation, etc.).
Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health, 1996

Chiropractic: Backpack Pains?
Backpacks that are too heavy or used improperly can pull on ligaments and muscles, causing aches and pains in the neck and back, resulting in acute or chronic back pain. Things to look for in a backpack: Wide, padded, and adjustable shoulder straps; two straps; padded back; lightweight with a lot of compartments. University of Medicine New Jersey, Sept 2011

Wellness/Prevention: Wash Your Hands!
Healthcare workers wash their hands about a third to a half of the time they come into contact with patients and germs. This study used 2 signs: 1. "hand hygiene prevents you from catching diseases." 2. "hand hygiene prevents patients from catching diseases." The patient sign increased soap use by 33%, and workers were 10% more likely to wash their hands. The sign about personal risks did no good. Psychological Science, Sept 2011

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