U.S. Life Expectancy Continues To Fall - Where Are We Going Wrong?

According to a recent report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, American’s life expectancy is falling, not rising.

Not good. Our life expectancy should be increasing, shouldn’t it? After all, we spend more money than any other nation in the world on “health care”. We have more hospitals, more doctors, more nurses, more drugs, and more surgeries than any other nation in the world; so how are we LOSING LIFE? And why are we ranked 37th out of 39 developed nations by the World Health Organization in terms of healthiest nations?

Because we are also the most irresponsible, lazy, and marketed to nation in the world. We are raised with the immediate gratification, “pop a pill”, victim mentality. Victims of our genes, victims of germs, victims of bad luck. How is that working for us? How is the brainwashing by Big Pharma, Fast Food companies, and Big Government affecting us? It’s killing us. Not just in terms of health, but in every societal and economic sense.

Our society and economy are affected because we are continuously marketed to and exploited by Big Business and a government that doesn’t care about our health or our quality of life, only our money. This money focus trickles down to the minds of the public and leads to a mentality of “more”; which leads to a loss of priorities and ultimately, a breakdown of the family unit. Instead of being home having a family dinner, parents are working late to “keep up with the Joneses” and letting strangers raise their children.

What does this financial stress do to families and marriages? It destroys them. Don’t look now, but two parent households are a minority in this nation. Do you think that impacts the self-esteem of our children? Do you think their self-esteem affects our society? Before you answer that question, take a look at the number of children on anti-depressant drugs, at the number of school shootings, and at suicide rates from birth to age 25.

The only solution to this societal, economic, and health decay is accountability. Accountability to yourself for your health, for your happiness, and for your focus. And accountability to your children to be a role model as to how to live a healthy life. We have to stand in opposition to the mainstream and consciously CHOOSE health and consciously CHOOSE life.

What does that look like? Continuously, on a day to day, minute to minute basis choosing healthy nutrition, healthy exercise habits, and healthy relationships and attitudes. It means educating yourself and discovering true health care practitioners like Chiropractors that have your best interests in mind. It means being proactive instead of reactive. It means spending a few dollars today to prevent becoming bankrupt by chronic disease tomorrow.

If you don’t educate yourself and take interest in what’s best for you and your family, who will do that for you?

Blaming Bad Genes For Breast Cancer Is A Medical Myth

Article Of The Week:
Blaming Bad Genes For Breast Cancer Is A Medical Myth, Read Here


Doctor's Soapbox:
The studies continue to pile up! This one is from the journal Breast Cancer Research and the lead researcher found that "regardless of whether or not women have a family history of breast cancer, staying physically active, eating well, and avoiding excessive alcohol consumption reduce their risk of developing breast cancer to the same degree."

What does that mean? That means that if you have a "family history" of breast cancer, so what. You probably have a "family history" of poor lifestyle choices like sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, smoker, drinker, and/or high stress job, home, family life. In other words, it's not genetic, it's familial. You learned how to live from your mother who learned from her mother. If you all learned the same poor lifestyle and live the same poor lifestyle, you'll all more than likely develop the same chronic disease; in this case, breast cancer. Yes, genetics play a role, but it is a role that is far overblown by the media and industries that stand to make millions of dollars off of you living the victim mentality (Pharmaceutical companies, medical-industrial complex).

So take control of your life and your health. Live an anti-cancer lifestyle. Eat well, move well, think well, get adjusted.

Chiropractic Cuts Blood Pressure

Chiropractic Cuts Blood Pressure

Study Finds Special 'Atlas Adjustment' Lowers Blood Pressure

By Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

March 16, 2007 -- A special chiropractic adjustment can significantly lower high blood pressure, a placebo-controlled study suggests.

"This procedure has the effect of not one, but two blood-pressure medications given in combination," study leader George Bakris, MD, tells WebMD. "And it seems to be adverse-event free. We saw no side effects and no problems," adds Bakris, director of the University of Chicago hypertension center.

Eight weeks after undergoing the procedure, 25 patients with early-stage high blood pressure had significantly lower blood pressure than 25 similar patients who underwent a sham chiropractic adjustment. Because patients can't feel the technique, they were unable to tell which group they were in.

X-rays showed that the procedure realigned the Atlas vertebra -- the doughnut-like bone at the very top of the spine -- with the spine in the treated patients, but not in the sham-treated patients.

Compared to the sham-treated patients, those who got the real procedure saw an average 14 mm Hg greater drop in systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure count), and an average 8 mm Hg greater drop in diastolic blood pressure (the bottom blood pressure number).

None of the patients took blood pressure medicine during the eight-week study.

"When the statistician brought me the data, I actually didn't believe it. It was way too good to be true," Bakris says. "The statistician said, 'I don't even believe it.' But we checked for everything, and there it was."

Bakris and colleagues report their findings in the advance online issue of the Journal of Human Hypertension.

Atlas Adjustment and Hypertension

The procedure calls for adjustment of the C-1 vertebra. It's called the Atlas vertebra because it holds up the head, just as the titan Atlas holds up the world in Greek mythology.

Marshall Dickholtz Sr., DC, of the Chiropractic Health Center, in Chicago, is the 84-year-old chiropractor who performed all the procedures in the study. He calls the Atlas vertebra "the fuse box to the body."

"At the base of the brain are two centers that control all the muscles of the body. If you pinch the base of the brain -- if the Atlas gets locked in a position as little as a half a millimeter out of line -- it doesn't cause any pain but it upsets these centers," Dickholtz tells WebMD.

The subtle adjustment is practiced by the very small subgroup of chiropractors certified in National Upper Cervical Chiropractic (NUCCA) techniques. The procedure employs precise measurements to determine a patient's Atlas vertebra alignment. If realignment is deemed necessary, the chiropractor uses his or her hands to gently manipulate the vertebra.

"We are not doctors. We are spinal engineers," Dickholtz says. "We use mathematics, geometry, and physics to learn how to slide everything back into place."

Atlas Adjustment and Hypertension continued...

What does this have to do with high blood pressure pressure?

Bakris notes that some researchers have suggested that injury to the Atlas vertebra can affect blood flow in the arteries at the base of the skull. Dickholtz thinks the misaligned Atlas triggers release of signals that make the arteries contract. Whether the procedure actually fixes such injuries is unknown, Bakris says.

Bakris began the study after a fellow doctor told him that something strange was happening in his family practice. The doctor had been sending some of his patients to a chiropractor. Some of these patients had high blood pressure.

Yet after seeing the chiropractor, the patients' blood pressure had normalized -- and a few of them were able to stop taking their blood pressure medications.

So Bakris, then at Rush University, designed the pilot study with 50 patients. He's now organizing a much bigger clinical trial.

"Is it going to be for everybody with high blood pressure? No," Bakris says. "We clearly need to identify those who can benefit. It is pretty clear that some kind of head or neck trauma early in life is related to this. This is really a work in progress. It is certainly in the early stages of research."

Dickholtz has been teaching, practicing, and studying the NUCCA technique for 50 years. He says high blood pressure is far from the only thing an Atlas misalignment causes.

"On the other hand, if people have high blood pressure, there is a tremendous possibility they need an Atlas adjustment," he says.

Mind-Body: Why the Disconnect?

Article Of The Week:

Mind Over Matter? The Psychology of Healing, Read Here

Doctor's Soapbox:

An often overlooked factor in health is the Mind-Body connection. For over 200 years, since Descartes promoted a separation of mind and body in medicine in the 1700s, mainstream medicine has neglected the mind in terms of its power to heal. Fortunately, science has recently taken steps to reconnect the mind with the body in the literature and in the healing arts. Unfortunately, this is not happening fast enough in mainstream medicine and a lot of patients are suffering and/or being exposed to far too many toxic treatments and prescriptions that would not be necessary if the mind was brought into the picture. The above article is perfect proof.

This article from the scientific journal Diabetologia studied diabetic patients (Type 1 and Type 2) that had foot ulcers. Foot ulcers are open sores which form when a minor skin injury fails to heal because of microvascular and metabolic dysfunction caused by diabetes. Up to fifteen per cent of people with diabetes, both Type 1 and Type 2, develop foot or leg ulcers with many suffering depression and poorer quality of life as a result. The researchers in this study found that "the way patients cope with the condition and their levels of depression, affect how the wound heals or worsens." Eureka!!!! Mindset matters! This goes right along with the findings of many other studies that have shown that the more depressed or negative a person thinks, the more often they are sick. Science continues to back this up folks, even if your medical doctors give no credence to it. Lucky for you, "alternative" practitioners like myself do recognize and acknowledge the monumental contribution a person's mindset makes to the healing process.

Let's take this a step further, if your mindset determines how quickly your body heals an ulcer, do you think it also factors into how quickly you age, and therefore, your lifespan? Absolutely! Negative thoughts increase the stress hormone cortisol in your body, just like physical or chemical stress. The body reacts to all stress the same, regardless of the mode of input. Increased cortisol leads to increased depression by depleting the brain's stores of serotonin. It also leads to atherosclerosis and increased LDL cholesterol. Does that sound like a recipe for heart disease to you? And what is the number 1 killer and robber of lifespan in America? Heart disease. Does mindset matter? You bet your life it does!

Mainstream Medicine Tries To Jump On Bandwagon

Article Of The Week:

Physician Competencies For Prescribing Lifestyle Medicine

Journal of the American Medical Association July 29th, 2010
Lianov, L., M. Johnson. JAMA. 2010; 304(2): 202-203.

Doctor's Soapbox:
Here is up to the minute proof that what I have been preaching week in and week out is the key to health. Even mainstream medicine is admitting it, and has been. Lifestyle is the key to health. The only difference now is not only are they giving it lip service, but they're trying to get medical doctors to start practicing it. There's only one problem, medical doctors do not have the education or knowledge to provide it. As the article says,

"Even though the most widely accepted, well-established chronic disease practice guidelines uniformly call for lifestyle change as the first line of therapy, physicians often do not follow these recommendations."

Why? If research has proven again and again that people with chronic diseases (cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, depression, etc.) get better faster and live longer, higher quality lives when instituting lifestyle change as the primary treatment, why aren't medical doctors screaming this from the rooftops? There are a couple reasons. First and foremost is money. Medical doctors have 2 tools, drugs and surgery. Those tools are very expensive and very profitable, teaching people to eat better, exercise more, and reduce stress is not as easy to give patients and requires a lot more thinking by the doctor (plus there are no kickbacks from Big Pharma). The second reason, which stems from the first, is that medical doctors don't have the knowledge base or paradigm to teach lifestyle. As the article states,

"Physicians also have cited inadequate confidence and lack of knowledge and skill as major barriers to counseling patients about lifestyle interventions."

So who does that leave to provide true health and healing? What profession provides lifestyle "medicine"? Chiropractic, specifically, chiropractors with the Certified Chiropractic Wellness Practitioner (C.C.W.P.) degree through the International Chiropractic Association.

While medicine tries to bail out their sinking ship by jumping on the wellness bandwagon and failing because they don't know how that bandwagon works, take care of yourself and your family by learning how to live a wellness lifestyle from an expert: John Bartemus, DC, CCWP.

Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 7/18/10

Did You Know???: the first Chiropractic adjustment was given to a deaf janitor named Harvey Lillard in hopes of returning his hearing? Guess what, it did! The janitor wasn't born deaf, he had become deaf after a fall and remained that way for years until D.D. Palmer (the founder of Chiropractic) gave him the very first Chiropractic adjustment. A remarkable story, and a reminder that Chiropractors are not "back pain" doctors, they are nervous system doctors. They find the spinal cause of nervous system interference, remove it, and allow the body to operate and heal at an optimum level. Chiropractors cannot cure deafness but your body can when operating on all cylinders. Is your body operating on all cylinders?

Book Of The Week: The Diseasing Of America's Children by: John Rosemond, MS and Bose Ravenel, MD

Recipe Of The Week: Walnut Broccoli with Carrots

1/2 cup walnut oil
1 medium onion, sliced in rings
2 large carrots, sliced diagonally 1/8 inch thick
2 large stalks broccoli, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/2 cup raw shelled walnuts

Heat oil in heavy skillet and saute onion until tender. Add carrots and broccoli and stir-fry until tender yet crispy. Add walnuts and cook 3-5 minutes longer. Serves 2.

Quote Of The Week: "Don't let someone else's opinion of you become your reality." Les Brown


Goal Of The Week: Go the entire week without watching the news. Realize how positive your world becomes.

Article Of The Week:
Meditation Helps Increase Attention Span, click here

Doctor's Soapbox:
What is the cause of an inability to concentrate or "shut your brain off"? Stress. When we are stressed out, we sacrifice our ability to concentrate, or pay attention, for the ability to increase alertness. This is important evolutionarily because when we were under the stress of a sabertooth tiger attack we didn't have to memorize a grocery list, we had to be alert and aware of any and all escape routes. Today, we aren't battling acute stressors that could take our lives as often as we did back then. Now we face chronic stressors that kill us slowly. While we're under this stress, the same physiology applies, we trade attention span for alertness. So if you find yourself unable to concentrate, or have been "diagnosed" with ADHD, try meditation to decrease stress levels and bring your body back to balance. You will find your ability to concentrate improves very quickly.


A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE REQUIRES TLC!


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Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 6/27/10

Did You Know???: Chiropractors work with extremities too, not just spinal joints? It's true, Chiropractic is beneficial for any joint in the body: shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, ankles, feet, and jaw. After all, your spinal joints aren't the only joints that become misaligned. Think of the trauma that your feet and ankles take throughout a lifetime of walking, running, and sports. All that pounding, one misstep and those joints easily misalign. Have you ever sprained your ankle? There you go. A sprained ankle definitely causes misalignment in the ankle. Then, depending on how severe a sprain it is, it indirectly causes misalignment in the hips and back too due to favoring it and limping, or being on crutches for any amount of time. A handful (or less) of adjustments by your Chiropractor and proper rehab of the ankle by your Chiropractor and you're back to normal and prevented the possibility of arthritis in that joint down the road.

Book Of The Week: Statin Drugs And The Misguided War On Cholesterol by: Duane Graveline, MD

Recipe Of The Week: Baked Walnut-Cinnamon Apples

4 apples
1 cup raisins
1/4 cup walnuts
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp natural vanilla extract
1/2 cup water

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Core and pierce apples with a fork in several places around the center to prevent them from bursting. Mix raisins, nuts, cinnamon and vanilla in a small bowl. Fill center of each apple with this mixture. Place in a glass baking dish and pour water into pan. Cover with foil and bake for about thirty minutes or until tender. Serves four.

Quote Of The Week: "You don't have to be a person of influence to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are not even aware of the things they've taught me."
-Scott Adams

Goal Of The Week: Take one day this week and eat only raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. Feel the difference that eating only live food makes.

Article Of The Week:
US Government Panel Now Pushing "Vaccines For Everyone!", No Exceptions.

www.naturalnews.com/029081_vaccinations_public_health.html

Doctor's Soapbox:
They just won't quit. The CDC is hellbent on cowering to the desires of Big Pharma and polluting the health of everyone in the nation for nothing other than financial gain. Despite the continual scientific proof that those who get vaccinated are at greater risk of getting the flu (www.naturalnews.com/027102_vaccines_H1N1_flu_shot.html), and that governmental agencies (FDA, CDC, WHO) make these recommendations because they are getting paid off by Big Pharma (www.naturalnews.com/028936_WHO_vaccines.html), not because it's the right thing to do, they continue to persevere and try to push through their greedy plan.

Even worse is the fact that they can't even keep their facts straight. For example, everyone is familiar with the fact that hospitals inject newborns with multiple vaccines the second they are born. They do this because they say it is "safe" and will provide "immunity" for the children. Oh really? Well look what the CDC says in the above article:

"(CDC) recommends yearly flu vaccination for everyone except for children under the age of six months, whose immune systems have not yet developed enough for vaccination to be safe."

So why are we injecting them with not one, but multiple vaccinations the second they are born in the hospital? If their "immune systems have not yet developed enough for vaccination to be safe" when given just one vaccine, how is being injected with the Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine (3 at once) safe? Seems to me like they're a little conflicted. In cases like this, money and greed always win. Don't fall victim to blindly following the advice of these government gangsters. Educate yourself, and speak up to educate others. Otherwise you give up your health freedom and quality of life to those trying to pad their wallets.


A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE REQUIRES TLC!


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Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 6/20/10

Did You Know???: one of the benefits of Chiropractic is anti-aging? A study at the University of Lund in Sweden showed that long term (2+ years) Chiropractic maintenance care boosted antioxidant levels in the blood, whereas short term care and no care at all didn't. Why is this important? Aging has been shown scientifically to be caused by oxidative damage, i.e. Free Radicals. Chiropractic maintenance care was shown to boost blood Thiol levels. Thiols are potent antioxidants, i.e. they decrease/neutralize Free Radicals. Therefore, you age at a slower rate. Thiols also slow telomere shortening of DNA which has been shown to be another cause of aging. What a 1-2 punch! Chiropractic boosts Thiol levels which decreases Free Radical damage and increases DNA repair! Don't just sit there and grow old, get to your Chiropractor and preserve your youth and vitality!

Book Of The Week: Jumpstart Your Marketing Brain by Doug Hall

Recipe Of The Week: Altadena Baked Chicken

1 large chicken, skinned and halved
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp paprika
4 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp walnut oil
1tsp dried tarragon

Place chicken halves in 9x13 inch baking dish. Combine remaining ingredients to make marinade and brush over chicken. Bake at 375 degrees for 45-50 minutes. Turn chicken occasionally while cooking and brush with marinade. Serves 4.

Quote Of The Week: "Learn the art of patience. Apply a little discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement, and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success." -Brian Adams

Goal Of The Week: Go 3 days without eating any pasta, cereal, or bread of any kind and be conscious of how you feel and your energy levels throughout the day.

Article Of The Week:
Experts Explore Emerging Evidence Linking Diabetes And Cancer

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100616090023.htm

Doctor's Soapbox:
This is not a surprising discovery to anyone who is an expert in physiology. Diabetes and cancer share many of the same risk factors. Also, the cause of Type 2 Diabetes (hyperinsulinemia) is a perfect environment for cancer to develop in. Add to that the fact that Type 2 Diabetes is a lifestyle induced disease, and the discovery that diabetes and cancer are linked is no eureka moment at all. Why? Because the same lifestyle that causes Type 2 Diabetes (high processed, unrefined, sugar/acidic food diet, sedentary lifestyle) creates a microenvironment in your body that cancer thrives in. Cancer loves sugar, loves an acidic pH, and loves an anaerobic environment (lack of oxygen due to lack of exercise). The real surprise (not to me but to most physicians I'm sure) is the advice of the writers of this article (American Diabetes Association and American Cancer Society). Instead of recommending drug therapy, they recommend (and I quote):

"Healthy diet, physical activity, and weight management reduce the risk and improve the outcomes of Type 2 Diabetes and some forms of cancer and should be promoted for all."


A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE REQUIRES TLC!


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Wellness Lifestyle Implementation Steps 6/13/10

HELLO TRANSCENDENT LIFESTYLE CENTER FAMILY!!!
Man it's hot!!! I hope everyone is hydrating enough, remember, you should drink half your weight in ounces of water everyday. And more on days like this! I have lots of announcements.
Coming up this week:
Tuesday night we have a Reiki Share at my office from 7-8pm. It will be taught by Stacy Quealey.
Thursday night from 7-8pm at my office Bernadette Sanders and I will be giving a talk entitled, "Exercise and Nutrition for Cancer and Chronic Illness". Please come and enrich your knowledge base.
Lastly, I founded a Meetup.com group called the
Charlotte Holistic Health Education Group. Please join and find out more about it at:
www.meetup.com/Charlotte-Holistic-Health-Education-Group/
Our first meetup will be Thursday, June 24th from 7-8pm at my office. Find out all the details at the above link. It's going to be a great health resource for everyone!

Did You Know???: Chiropractic care is a form of jumper cables for your immune system? The nervous system and immune system are intricately intertwined and cannot function without each other. The nerves that exit your spine in your midback between your shoulder blades play a key role in ensuring that you have a healthy immune response to any kind of adversity. If you have a misalignment or lack of movement in that part of your spine, your brain's ability to effectively communicate with and orchestrate your immune system is below optimal. A below optimal immune system is a chink in your armor. That's how sickness and disease creeps in. They're good at finding your weak spots. Don't make it easy for them. Maintain your health by maintaining proper spinal alignment and nervous system function. See your Chiropractor.

Book Of The Week: Influence by Robert Cialdini, PhD

Recipe Of The Week: Paleo Cookie Bars

1 cup smooth almond butter
2 whole eggs
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 cup almond flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup carob nips
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 13" x 9" pan with coconut oil.
Mix almond butter, eggs, honey, and coconut oil first.
Mix in flour, cocoa powder, fruit, and coconut.
Pour mixture into pan.
Bake for 9-11 minutes.
Add any ingredients as necessary if mixture appears runny.

Quote Of The Week:

"Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence consistently applying the basic fundamentals." -Jim Rohn

Goal Of The Week: Replace all of your plastic water bottles, tupperware, and kitchen storage containers; anything that holds food or liquid that you will consume, will glassware. Pyrex is an excellent and inexpensive brand that you can purchase at Walmart and Target. By achieving this goal, you will substantially decrease the amount of toxic chemicals (like Bisphenol-A) that leach out of the plastic into your food and liquid.

Article Of The Week:
Poor Health? Easier For Some To Blame Bad Genes Than Change Lifestyle

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100608101025.htm

Doctor's Soapbox:
Here is a study from the Annals of Behavioral Medicine that reinforces what I teach: poor lifestyle choices are the most important factor in the cause of disease. What this study looked at was whether or not people really understand this? What they found was interesting. The answer is yes, people do understand that their choices are the major determinate in their state of health or disease, but they don't want to admit it because that makes them accountable. The researchers found that the poorer the health of the individuals studied, the more likely they were to have a victim mentality, i.e. blame their genes for their poor health. This mentality creates a vicious cycle. Instead of admitting that their poor health/disease is the direct result of their own poor choices and changing their lifestyles (which requires work) to reach health, the people continue making poor choices. They remain lazy (remain the "victim") and continue to slide down the slippery slope of disease because that's easier (takes no work) than getting off the couch to exercise, plan and cook real meals, and get involved in their community.

If this is you, the secret is out, you're not fooling anybody, you're hurting yourself and your loved ones. So please, do yourself and your loved ones a favor. Admit the truth, and start to make the simple and necessary changes to point you back in the direction of health. If you need help, please call me, this is my passion and I'd love to work with you.


A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE REQUIRES TLC!


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