DAILY HEALTH UPDATE: Thursday, January 16, 2014 Dr. Jeff Allyn, Berkley Chiropractic Clinic

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”~ George Bernard Shaw

Mental Attitude: New Strategy to Combat Anxiety! If singing, speaking in public, or solving problems under pressure causes you anxiety, trying to calm down may be the wrong strategy. Instead, researchers at the Harvard Business School think you should tell yourself to be excited about the situation. According to Dr. Alison Wood Brooks, "Since both anxiety and excitement are emotional states characterized by high arousal, it may be easier to view anxiety as excitement rather than trying to calm down to combat performance anxiety." Test subjects who reframed their anxiety as excitement gave more persuasive talks, sang with better pitch, and performed better on a series of difficult math problems.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, November 2013

Health Alert: When Body Weight Increases, So Do Healthcare Costs. A recent paper reveals that the more a person weighs, the more they can expect to pay for healthcare. Using data collected from over 17,000 individuals, researchers found that the average total healthcare cost for an obese person (Body Mass Index or BMI > 45) is about $4,800 per year. The average participant with a BMI of 19 (considered healthy) pays about half of that total at $2,368 per year.   Duke Medicine, December 2013

Diet: New Way to Detect Vitamin Deficiencies in Babies! Presently, the primary method for analyzing vitamin deficiencies in babies has been to draw blood. Soon, pediatric phlebotomy for this purpose may be a thing of the past. Scientists at Michigan Technological University are working on a painless alternative that is both faster and cheaper. An absorbent strip is placed against the baby's eyelid to collect fluid. Then, the strip is placed in a handheld device that can measure levels of vitamin A, C, D, E, K, and all the B vitamins. According to Maryam Khaksari, one of the graduate students working on the project, "Ideally, infants would never experience nutritional deficiencies, but there are regions of the world where up to 40 percent of children are malnourished. By the time symptoms of deficiencies are recognizable, damage has already occurred that can impact child development… Our easy, painless, and inexpensive method will be able to identify deficiencies much early than symptoms diagnosis, before lasting damage occurs."  Michigan Technological University, December 2013

Exercise: Reduce Cardiovascular Risk by Walking 2,000 More Steps Each Day. A new report has revealed that individuals with impaired glucose tolerance may reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease by 8% if they walk 2,000 steps a day. This can be accomplished with just twenty minutes of moderate exercise. The Lancet, December 2013

Chiropractic: Origins. “The word ‘Chiropractic’ comes from the Greek words cheir (meaning ‘hand’) and praktos (meaning ‘done’), i.e. Done by Hand . The name was chosen by the developer of chiropractic, Daniel David Palmer.” American Chiropractic Association

Wellness/Prevention: Preventive Dental Care Not Received by Many Americans. A phone survey of over 650,000 adults finds that 23-43% of Americans either lack access to or fail to utilize preventive dental care services. Individuals who do not receive preventative dental care are at greater risk for both tooth decay and gum disease.  Frontiers in Public Health, December 2013

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(This information is solely advisory, and should not be substituted for medical or chiropractic   advice. Any and all health care concerns, decisions, and actions must be done through the advice   and counsel of a health care professional who is familiar with your updated medical history.)