Let’s say you make a choice to start taking control of your health. You want to leave as little to chance as possible. You acknowledge that you could get something out of doing some exercise. You’re willing to admit that you could eat a healthier variety of foods, including fresh fruit and vegetables. You are going to begin doing the things that years of scientific research have shown to be related to long-term health and well-being.

Your partner in this journey to good health is your chiropractor. Visiting your NJ Chiropractor is a key component of a complete return-to-optimal-health package. With regular chiropractic care, your body is primed to make the most out of the positive actions you’re taking, particularly regarding exercise and nutrition. Without chiropractic care, exercise and nutrition will only take you so far. To get all the way to good health, all of your body systems need to be online and available. That’s what chiropractic care makes possible.

Exercise, healthy nutrition, proper rest, and regular chiropractic care can pay off, not only double, but often in many multiples. However, before we begin reaping these benefits we have to know where to look and how to make use of this property we all get for free.

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Contract. Relax. This is the basic mechanism of muscular action. Problems develop when there’s too much of one or the other. In most cases, too much contraction is the culprit.

Persistent muscular contraction in the lower back or neck, for example, leads to a cascade of troublesome effects. Toxic metabolic end-products – including lactic acid – accumulate. These small molecules irritate local nerve endings and cause ongoing pain. Muscle spasm results which narrows local blood vessels. Too little blood reaching the area deprives tissues of oxygen and other important nutrients. Cellular damage results with further build-up of noxious metabolites.

Chiropractic treatment encourages a return to normal sinusoidal balance by restoring normal spinal alignment. Spasmodic muscles are enabled to relax. Blood vessels can now supply appropriate amounts of oxygen and nutrients. Metabolic waste is removed. Vitality is restored and pain resolves. Spinal muscles and spinal joints return to operating in a natural ebb-and-flow rhythm.

Honoring the deep nature of how our bodies work goes far toward alleviating many disease states. Getting back into the natural rhythms of being human certainly helps many conditions involving back pain, neck pain, and headaches. Chiropractic care is an important part of helping reestablish the normal ebb and flow. Contact NJ chiropractor, Dr Peter Ferraro,  to further discuss how chiropractic care may help reestablish your ebb and flow.

To be healthy it’s important to cover all the bases. We want to exercise and we want to eat right, not just one or the other. We want to get enough rest and we want to have a positive mental attitude, not just one or the other.

Regular visits to your Bergen County chiropractor is also part of this equation. To reap the full benefits of all the other good things we’re doing, it’s important to make sure that our nerve systems are doing their part, too. The nerve system is the body’s master system, coordinating the activities of all the other systems. The nerve system tells our digestive system what to do with the good food we’re eating. The nerve system tells the muscles, tendons, bones, and ligaments how to benefit from the exercises we’re doing.

With regular chiropractic care, the nerve system is able to make sure that all our other body systems are doing their jobs, at the right time, in the right amount, and in the right place. Regular chiropractic care helps keep us vibrant, healthy, and well.

NJ Chiropractor Dr. Ferraro

Dr. Ferraro, D.C. specializes in the multidisciplinary non-surgical treatment of spinal conditions. His practices throughout New Jersey provide patients in Bergen and Monmouth County with comprehensive care for back, neck, leg, arm, and nerve conditions.
Dr. Ferraro, D.C. has over 14 years of experience in the chiropractic field and has become nationally recognized for his extensive work using non-surgical decompression technology along with being certified in Manipulation Under Anesthesia (MUA).

By Julie Steenhuysen; Reuters.com

Here is a great article on Reuters about the importance of using spinal fluid to diagnose Alzheimer’s.  Your spine is your lifeline and holds the key to your overall health and wellness.  Make sure to take proper care of your spine to maintain optimum health.

-Dr. Peter Ferraro

NJ Chiropractor

And they may also help identify early signs of the disease in healthy people, the team reported in the Archives of Neurology.

“The unexpected presence of the Alzheimer’s disease signature in more than one-third of cognitively normal subjects suggests that Alzheimer’s disease pathology is active and detectable earlier than has heretofore been envisioned,” Geert De Meyer of Ghent University in Belgium and colleagues wrote.

They said measuring traces of beta amyloid and tau — two proteins associated with the telltale plaques and tangles that form in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s — accurately detected Alzheimer’s in 90 percent of patients with the disease.

They were also able to detect 100 percent of people with memory impairments who would progress to Alzheimer’s disease within five years. And they detected Alzheimer’s proteins in 36 percent of people with normal brain function.

The study is the latest to show that measuring disease-related proteins in spinal fluid is useful in diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease.

Currently, only an autopsy can confirm that a person has Alzheimer’s, a fatal and incurable deterioration of the brain that affects more than 26 million people globally.

Doctors diagnose Alzheimer’s by excluding other causes of memory loss, such as stroke, tumors and heavy drinking. They can also administer simple paper-and-pencil tests.

But biomarkers — proteins and imaging techniques — are helping to identify the disease much earlier.

Last month, experts at the National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer’s Association proposed new guidelines for diagnosing Alzheimer’s even before patients have symptoms. [ID:nN13273900] These proposed rules included measurements of cerebral-spinal fluid.

In the study, De Meyer and colleagues analyzed spinal fluid from 114 adults with normal brain function, 200 who had mild cognitive impairment — a precursor to dementia — and 102 who had Alzheimer’s. They identified one protein signature that was associated with Alzheimer’s, and another that indicated healthy brain function.

When they looked to see how accurate these signatures were at spotting the disease, they found 90 percent of those with Alzheimer’s had the disease pattern in their spinal fluid. The pattern was present in 72 percent of those with mild cognitive impairment and 36 percent of those who were normal.

Some people do all the right things and still develop serious health problems. Others flaunt their bad habits and are able to live long lives, dying peacefully in their sleep at the age of 95. For example, high blood pressure (hypertension, HTN) is a common chronic disease in the United States. With HTN a person’s heart has to work much harder, all the time, to pump the blood needed by the rest of the body. HTN is associated with heart attacks and stroke, and hypertensive heart disease is a leading cause of death. 1

HTN is often described as a lifestyle disease. 2,3 Those who are overweight and/or obese (this characterizes two-thirds of American adults) are at increased risk for HTN, as are persons with diabetes. People who don’t exercise regularly are more likely to develop high blood pressure, as are those who smoke cigarettes. In fact, overweight/obesity, lack of exercise, and tobacco use are the top three causes of HTN.

Obviously, achieving an average weight, exercising regularly, and stopping smoking (or never starting) are three main lifestyle actions related to decreasing one’s risk of developing HTN. But some people who are slim, have exercised all their lives, and do not smoke may still develop high blood pressure. In such a case, HTN is termed “essential hypertension”. The person has a very healthy lifestyle, there are no risk factors for HTN, and still they become hypertensive. That is the luck of the draw, otherwise known as a genetic predisposition to this disease.

In a contrasting example, a few people may smoke two packs of cigarettes a day since age 15, drink a quart of gin every few days, and never get really sick. They don’t develop lung cancer or liver cancer and have no problems with HTN or heart disease, and live lives that fly in the face of all received wisdom in the field of public health. They continue to thrive well into their 80s and beyond and love to tell their well-meaning friends and relatives, “I’ve never been sick a day in my life” while lighting up another cigarette. Such persons are described by epidemiologists as outliers, those whose health parameters represent an outlying 2.5% or less of the standard values. Their luck of the draw lies in possessing an indestructible constitution.

Of course the exceptions only prove the rule. Their existence does not suggest that rules for good health should not be observed. Regular vigorous exercise and a healthful diet containing plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables are important for all of us, young and old. Chiropractic care is an important component of the lifestyle mix. Chiropractic care helps people, young and old, achieve the best health possible. This natural form of health care helps take the “luck” out of the equation. We can make our own luck and chiropractic helps us do that in the arena of health and well-being.

Chiropractic check-ups help ensure your body is functioning at peak levels. If some optimizing is needed, your chiropractor will recommend treatment that will get you back to being fit. They’ll also be able to answer your questions about diet and exercise, helping you plan choices and activities that will keep you and your family healthy and well.

About Dr. Ferraro

Dr. Ferraro, D.C. specializes in the multidisciplinary non-surgical treatment of spinal conditions. His practices throughout New Jersey provide patients in Bergen and Monmouth County with comprehensive care for back, neck, leg, arm, and nerve conditions.

Dr. Ferraro, D.C. has over 14 years of experience in the chiropractic field and has become nationally recognized for his extensive work using non-surgical decompression technology along with being certified in Manipulation Under Anesthesia (MUA).

NJ Chiropractors

Sources:

1Zhang WW, et al: Hypertension and TIA. Int J Stroke 4(3):206-214, 2009

2Schmid AA, et al: Current blood pressure self-management: a qualitative study. Rehabil Nurs 34(6):223-229, 2009

3Pascual JM, et al: Body weight variation and control of cardiovascular risk factors in essential hypertension. Blood Press 18(5):247-254

You’ve probably been hearing since you were a little child that you should drink 8 glasses of water a day.  How many times were we told to ‘stay hydrated’ on hot days?

Dehydration is a major problem in the US, where we have one of the largest supplies of clean drinking water available.  Take a look at some of these statistics and then read a little bit about dehydration and back pain below, you might find yourself very surprised.

1.    75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. (Likely applies to half the world population)

2.    In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is mistaken for hunger.

3.    Even MILD dehydration will slow down one’s metabolism as 3%.

4.    One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University of Washington study.

5.    Lack of water, the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.

6.    Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.

7.    A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.

Water is important in nearly all of life’s chemical processes, and the production, growth and life of skin cells depends on it. Water within the cells helps make your skin look smooth, firm and tight. It is important for the functioning of our bodies’ internal organs, as well.

Back Pain and Dehydration

Most people associate back pain with structural and/or muscular dysfunctions or imbalances of the spine and back.  Did you know that back and spine pain can also be caused or made worse by chronic dehydration?

Your spinal column has Intervertebral discs which function as shock absorbers in between the vertebrae.  The inner disc is made of nucleus pulposus, a jelly like substance. It functions to distribute hydraulic pressure in all directions within each disc under compressive loads. The nucleus pulposus consists of chondrocytes, collagen fibrils, and proteoglycan aggrecans that have hyaluronic long chains which attract water.

Gravity takes a toll on our spines all day long and the pressure slowly causes the nucleus pulposus to be squeezed out of the discs.  Our discs will successfully rehydrate themselves during the night, and also during the day when possible, as long as there are adequate water levels within the body.

When there is not enough water available to fully hydrate the nucleus pulposus, the whole disc becomes compromised. When the inner portion of the disc is dehydrated, it cannot support its share of the load, so more and more of your weight is borne by the outer portion of the disc, which simply was not designed for that purpose. This can cause pain, swelling, and even ruptures or herniations of the outer shell.

If you are experiencing chronic back pain, ask yourself; ‘Am I getting enough water on a daily basis?’.  Chronic dehydration over time can lead to severe back pain.  A simple and effective way of reducing back pain is to ensure you stay properly hydrated each and every day by drinking half your body weight in ounces of water!

Learn more about how Spinal Decompression can help reduce back pain without surgery.