Recent Posts



Click here to follow this blog on your google home page
Click here to subscribe to updates on MySpace.com



Saturday, June 21, 2008

Chiropractic: Safe Sex More Dangerous than Neck Cracking?

Support Our Efforts on HowCast.com

HowCast.com is a great site like YouTube that focuses specifically on "how to" videos. Obviously, this is a great venue for Lose Fat, Not Faith and Lizzie Marie Cuisine to reach out to consumers. Will you help support us by viewing these videos, rating them, and sharing them with others? I'll continue to post more ...

How the Fish Saves Fat Loss

It looks like science is finding a way to back up the claims that as we lose weight, it becomes more difficult for us to continue losing weight and ultimately keep it off. Leptin is a hormone that regulates energy intake and expenditure and has a tremendous impact on metabolism. In a recent study it was found that low leptin levels undermine weight loss — the levels fall as you drop weight and therefore your metabolism slows and it becomes more difficult to maintain the rate of weight loss. Not to worry however ... something I've recommended for years, fish oil supplements, have been shown to help elevate leptin levels.

Safe Sex More Dangerous than Cracking Necks?

The news in Canada is a major lawsuit against chiropractors there. A woman received a neck manipulation (a similar one to what I receive three times a week) that allegedly ruptured an artery, led to multiple strokes, and left her paralyzed. The headlines have been proclaiming that cracking necks destroys lives. Another website describes how neck manipulation is Chiropractic's Dirty Secret. This one estimates that there are 147 strokes caused by this manipulation every year.

Am I going to tell my chirpractor to stop manipulating my neck? NO!

Why not? Because there are more factors and variables than meets the eye. You see, I've received numerous personal benefits from my chiropractic manipulations. Despite the fact that the Journal of Chiropractic Medicine is being added to the highly reputable PubMed repository of online journals, some people claim that their studies are "biased" because they're done by chiropractors. Hmmm ... the odd thing here is that no one seemed to complain when the dairy industry conducted their own studies touting the weight loss benefits of dairy, or the fact that most research we receive on pharmaceuticals are funded by ... gasp ... the pharmaceutical industry.

The Centers for Disease Control released their report on causes of death in 2005. That year, an estimated 2,653 died from complications due to medical and/or surgical care ... that's nearly 1 in 100,000 who didn't just suffer, but actually died due to medicine going wrong. Compare that to 147 incidents of suspected stroke ...

The General Osteopathic Council of Britain addresses the issue of upper neck manipulation. The begin by saying if a person is not qualified, DON'T DO IT. They continue by stating that "Neck manipulations, whether osteopathic or chiropractic, are exceptionally safe when done by trained and experienced professionals. For example, a woman in the UK has more chance of dropping dead from using the contraceptive pill than suffering a stroke (or worse) from a neck manipulation."

A stroke is damage to the brain due to the interruption of the blood supply either by a small clot or a narrowed/overstretched blood vessel. The causes of stroke are highly unpredictable and often occur through sudden extreme "end of range" positions. Chiropractic aside, these include:
  • Tilting your head back to have your hair washed at a salon
  • Coughing
  • Sneezing
  • Turning your head to look out of the rear window of your vehicle
  • And so on...


So it's not tough for me to decide that I will continue to receive the benefits from visiting my chiropractor despite the continued attempts of traditional (read: American Medical Association, a for-profit organization, sanctioned) medicine to claim it's quackery. After all, the odds of a British woman dying from oral contraceptive are 1 in 1,000,000 ... my odds of suffering a stroke from a neck manipulation are 1 in 1.46 million. It looks like safe sex is more dangerous than cracking your neck.

Weight Loss Surgery Reduces Cancer Risk?

Here's another example of why it's so confusing to live healthy, because the marketing messages keep getting confused as health alerts. Recently, the media has gone crazy over the fact that weight loss surgery has been shown to reduce cancer risk. Sounds like a great reason to look into it, right? The first, and obvious, thing to note is that rate loss surgery still has a rather large mortality (death) rate associated with it, and weight loss even WITHOUT surgery can also lower risk from certain diseases. But the more interesting part was mentioned in this Wall Street Journal blog post that asked, Does Weight Loss Surgery Lower Cancer Risk?. The answer was that ... well, most patients are SCREENED for cancer risk and not operated on if they are at risk. Hmmm ... it's sort of like my local pool admitting only people with dark tans and low risk of skin cancer, then claiming that sunshine exposure isn't bad for the skin after all.

America No Longer Most Obese

Americans no longer have to bear the burden of being the most overweight and obese nation on the planet. Apparently, the honor has been passed over to Australia, with over 9 million overweight and obese individuals. This comes on the heels of previous cries that obesity figures had been exaggerated.

More Breakfast, Less Weight?

We've often heard that breakfast is the most imporant meal of the day. I've always advised clients to take breakfast seriously, because it literally is the first opportunity to "break the fast" of the previous night's rest. I've seen this many times: low-carb dieters get excited at losing a ton of weight "out the gate" but they can rarely sustain it. A recent study found that when someone follows a quality, balanced program — and focuses on breakfast — they lose more weight (specifically from fat) in the long run. Read more on why breakfast may be the key to weight loss.

Stop Blaming Genes for Shrinking Jeans

Look, I've been saying this over and over. The "I'm genetically programmed to be fat" excuse just doesn't hold water. I don't care if it makes it harder for you than that annoying freak of nature who does nothing but eat fast food and ice cream, never exercises, and still walks around shirtless with a six-pack showing. We'll check in on his health a few decades later because second to smoking, poor diet and lack of exercise will claim hundreds of thousands of lives regardless of whether they have washboard abs. Moreso than simply genetics, lifestyle can lead to insulin resistance. I'm guessing the converse is true as well ...

The Bribes Doctors Take

Wouldn't it be nice if we actually knew what Doctors were being paid for pushing drugs down our throats? Fortunately, many physicians ARE concerned first and foremost with our health and wellbeing, and may actually consider the healthy, drug free approach before jumping to the conclusion that you must be medicated. For others, however, those steak dinners may make prescriptions a little more irrestiable ... Majority of Americans Support Legislative Action to Disclose Pharmaceutical Company Gifts to Physicians. (Like the case CNN.com reported about a physician being paid between $1,500 to $2,500 per patient placed into a special trial ... interesting, I wonder how much they offered to compensate the patients?)

Enjoying my Healthy Lifestyle

Wow, this isn't REALLY a headline but I thought I'd throw in that I'm having a blast. I'm on my second week of a challenge and have stuck to my guns. I've had NO processed carbs AT ALL except for my allotted "splurge meals" (two per week). That means anything carbohydrate for me is fruit, vegetable, or whole carbohydrates like corn, barley, oats, etc. I'm not even eating whole grain bread. The result? Down over 10 pounds and several points body fat, most of the fat is leaving while the lean mass stays. I'm doing three resistance training sessions and three cardio sessions per week.

If you receive my weekly newsletter, can you take a moment to respond to a special poll? If not, won't you sign up?

That was a lot of updates for today ... so until next time,

Jeremy Likness

Labels: , , , ,

posted by Jeremy Likness | 5:14 PM | 0 comments



Creative Commons License
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License. Re-use is permitted if properly attributed to the author and blog URL (must be an active and direct link to the blog — no redirect URLs permitted), and content is unmodified from it's original form. Derivative works require permission from author.
Copyright © 2006 — 2008 Jeremy Likness. 

© 2008 Jeremy Likness | Designed by DesignsByDarren
Ported to Nucleus CMS: Suvoroff