Pain Relief Center - Weekly News You Can Use - June 24th, 2008 1901 S. Hwy 183, Leander, TX 78641 512-260-4020 Office News The New Wii-Fit Rehabilitation Station is a big hit at the office. This has been a great way to rehabilitate our patients while having fun. We also have devoloped specific protocols for Neck Rehab using special headpieces and motion sensors to navigate the video games with the movement of the head. The Pain Relief Center is using this state of the art technology to put the fun into working out! Stop in so we can give you a complimentary Wii-Fit evaluation and demonstration. Here is a good article about how the Wii can help kids and parents get off the couch and burn more calories. Wii Video gaming with Wii burns significant number of calories, supports weight loss (NaturalNews) A recent study has found that new gaming technology that requires user movement burns a significant number of calories in gaming enthusiasts. The study, conducted by researchers at the Liverpool John Moores University, concluded that regular users of the Nintendo Wii gaming system have a higher heart rate during interaction, increased physical activity and burn 40 percent more calories per week than do gamers using conventional pad-controlled systems. The study, which found that the average UK gamer spends 12.2 hours per week playing video games, compared the energy expenditure in seven boys and five girls between the ages of 13 and 15 while playing on both traditional game-pad interfaced gaming consoles and the Nintendo Wii, a gaming system in which the user directs the game by moving a “remote” around in the air. Although researchers found that the male group had, on average, higher rates of energy expenditure, they noted that both males and females had a 156 percent increase in energy expenditure over resting values during a fifteen minute Wii session. Over the same time period, users interacting with the traditional pad-controlled system only experienced a 60 percent increase in energy expenditure. “Through our testing it is clear that the motion sensor controlled console can make an impact on a child’s heart rate, energy expenditure and the amount of calories burned,” said lead researcher, Professor Tim Cable. “Parents should encourage other physical activities and outdoor pursuits in order for their children to lead well-balanced lives,” added Cable. Author - Beau Hodai Personally I am not a huge fan of video games for kids especially those that are indecent and violent. I only advocate the use of games that are physically active such as many of the Nintendo Wii sports games or Wii Fit. These can be good, clean family fun. Dr. Group This Week's Special 20% off all Nutritional Supplements. This includes our best sellers - Pain-X, Tri-Magnesium, Stress-X, Arthro-Genex, and Nutra-Cool pain cream. Did you know? SUV's are NOT Safer for Childen! Recent findings reveal that Children riding in SUV's involved in accidents are three times as likely as children riding in cars to sustain serious injuries due to the increased risk of SUV rollover. Based on a study of 3,922 children published in the Journal "Pediatrics." For more information visit www.chop.edu/carseat On the Web - More evidence for Natural Medicine One in Nine Emergency Room Visits Caused by Pharmaceuticals Tuesday, June 24, 2008 by: Heidi Stevenson (NaturalNews) A Vancouver, Canada study has documented that 12% of emergency room (ER) visits were the direct result of problems with a pharmaceutical drug. The length of stay for those admitted to the hospital was significantly longer. When a study is well-designed, it's quite remarkable how often the result documents the high risks associated with conventional medical care. Once again, it's clear that pharmaceutical drugs carry great risks. However, as discussed at the end of this article, this study documents only a very small proportion of harm done by pharmaceutical drugs. Study Design The study, reported by the Canadian Medical Association Journal, was carefully designed by a panel of eleven pharmacists and doctors. The hospital was Vancouver General Hospital, which is large (955 beds) and offers a wide range of services, including emergency care. About 69,000 patients are treated every year. The study team practiced the data collection process on real patients during a four week trial period. Three pharmacy research assistants who had been through pharmacy residency collected the data. The attending physician was asked his or her opinion of the reason for admission. If there was a discrepancy between the physician's and pharmacist's opinions, a panel consisting of one emergency doctor and one pharmacist adjudicated. To be included in the study, both panel members had to agree, with a high degree of certainty, that the cause was pharmaceutical. Patients were randomly selected through use of a computer random number generating program. Any patient who had been transferred from another hospital or was returning for a scheduled visit was not included. During the course of the study, 14,911 emergency patients were seen by the hospital. Of those, 1,194 were randomly selected and considered for the study. The number of study patients was 1,017. Of these, 122 -- 12% -- were seen for prescription drug-related problems. Of those, the study determined that 83 -- 68% -- were preventable. Characteristics of patients who were in ER for pharmaceutical problems: * Average age was 51.9. * 62 (50.8%) were female. * Number of comorbidities (other conditions) was 2.5 . * Only 8 (6.8%) of the 117 used any complementary or alternative medications. The authors never stated whether they were the cause of any of the ER visits. However, of the people in ER for non-drug related reasons, 11.1% had used complementary/alternatives. That is, the alternative medicine users were 61.2% less likely to require ER services for complications with pharmaceuticals. (This point was not made by the authors, but the data clearly supports the statement.) Study Results The most significant types of drugs that sent people to the ER are as follows: * Antimicrobial agents (mostly antibiotics), 11.2% * Opioids, 11.2% * Antipsychotics, 9.5% * Benzodiazepines, 6.1% The authors defined 68.0% of the pharmaceutical-caused ER visits as preventable. Severity of the incidents were classed as: * Mild, 19 cases (15.6%), not requiring treatment. * Moderate, 91 cases (74.6%), requiring treatment or hospital admission, or resulting in non-permanent injury. *Severe, 12 cases (9.8%), life threatening or resulted in permanent disability. Causes of drug-induced ER visits were defined as follows: * Adverse drug reactions, 393% * Non-adherence to instructions, 27.9% * Wrong or suboptimal drug, 11.5% 36.9% of those who went to the ER because of pharmaceutical problems were hospitalized, while 21.0% who went for other reasons ended up hospitalized. The median length of stay for the drug-related cases was significantly longer: 8 days, 2 days longer than the non-drug cases. What This Study Shows Us It's certainly interesting that we can confidently state that pharmaceutical drugs account for 12% of emergency room visits. This, though, is probably a very small percentage of the true pharmaceutical holocaust. Most drug-induced illnesses are never officially acknowledged. When a person develops Cushing's syndrome, the fact that it was likely caused by prescribed steroids is not generally noted and would not have been picked up by this study. In fact, the host of serious illnesses caused by steroids would not have shown up. The multitude of people who have become diabetic or developed heart disease is not figured in here. Other drugs, such as beta blockers, cause a huge amount of illness, though the connection between the drug and the illness is rarely made. As demonstrated over and over on Natural News, the effects of pharmaceutical drugs are rarely benign. There is usually a price to be paid for using them. Occasionally, the price is a trip to the ER, or even death directly induced by the drug. In far more cases, though, the effects are seen months, often years, later, and the connection to the drug is never made. Reference: Canadian Medical Association Journal, "Incidence, severity and preventability of medication-related visits to the emergency department: a prospective study", 2008;178(12):1563-9 Recommended Web Sites Free Pictorial and Video Guide to Back Exercises. This website has a good number of easy to perform back exercises for flexibility and strengthening. Click on the link below to check out the pictures and video exercise demonstrations. http://www.back.com/articles-exercises.html Wine Not? A note from Dr. Group - The other day I was eating fresh blueberries and I thought to myself, "Blueberries are so similar in texture and flavor to grapes, I wonder if anyone has made wine out of them?" I searched the web and sure enough there are fine wines made with Blueberries. Here is one of the websites that sells a variety of blueberry wines. I am going to try one of these and I will let you know what I think. Dr. Jonathan N. Group, R.D., D.C. Cedar Park and Leander Texas Chiropractor. http://www.blueberrywine.com/WineStyles.htm#Blueberry http://www.keelandcurleywinery.com/wines/blueberry-semi-dry.htm Here is a winery in Orange Texas that has produced award winning Blueberry Wine - http://www.pineywoodswines.com/winelist.htm Herbal Insight Coffee Berries? Nature's Newly discovered Anti-Oxidant. By Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D. Coffee berries are just one of the latest entries into the commercial scramble for the antioxidant dollar. These berries (usually called "cherries") are the fruit of the coffee plant. They are bright red in color, and each contains a bit of pulp and two seeds - the "beans" that are shelled and roasted to make coffee. In the past, coffee berries were discarded after the seeds were removed, but now they are being processed into liquids and powders that are marketed as health products for their antioxidant content and added into coffee, energy bars, and other functional foods. One gram of powdered coffee berries is said to have more than eight times the antioxidant power of a gram of fresh blueberries. Every week seems to bring a new claim about the superior nutritional power of an exotic fruit or some other novel antioxidant source, which is often sold at a breathtaking price. But if your diet includes a colorful array of fresh fruits and vegetables, you should be getting plenty of antioxidants without having to spend more on the exotic, and often unjustifiably expensive "antioxidant of the month." advertisement Here are my top choices with proven health benefits: green vegetables such as spinach, collards, kale and broccoli contain lutein and zeaxanthin, carotenoid antioxidants that can protect aging eyes from developing cataracts and macular degeneration. Cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale and turnips contain antioxidants and other phytonutrients that reduce cancer risk. Sweet potatoes, carrots, mangoes, apricots and other yellow or orange fruits and vegetables are rich in beta carotene, an antioxidant that boosts the immune system. Tomatoes, watermelon, papaya, and pink grapefruit are among the red pigmented fruits and vegetables that contain lycopene, a powerful antioxidant helps fight heart disease and some types of cancer, particularly prostate cancer. The blue color in blueberries, purple grapes, red cabbage, beets, and plums comes from anthocyanins, phytochemicals that protect against carcinogens and may help prevent heart disease. And don't forget about green and white tea, dark chocolate and red wine, all very high in antioxidant activity. Andrew Weil, M.D. Chiropractic News Around the World Legislature should let chiropractors use their full training Posted by Clark Hughes | The Bay City Times June 24, 2008 07:28AM Categories: Our View Doctors of chiropractic can offer a full spectrum of medical care - diagnosing illnesses, ordering up diagnostic tests, prescribing courses of treatment that in their trained judgments are best for their patients. In 49 states, that is. In Michigan, strong forces have steadfastly aligned against chiropractic practitioners, using scare tactics and old, unsubstantiated arguments to keep them relegated to second-class doctor status. That would change under a pair of companion bills in the Michigan House and Senate that would expand the scope of chiropractic care to include such services as ordering diagnostic tests, treating symptoms on patients' extremities and prescribing medicine and medical devices. All were allowable practices prior to 1978, when the Michigan Public Health Code was altered to shove chiropractors into the medical closet. That change, buttressed by a subsequent Michigan Supreme Court ruling, limited chiropractors to treatment of spinal misalignments. They are not allowed to treat other limbs; nor can they order MRIs, CT scans or blood work to make differential diagnoses or chart a path of treatment for a patient. Chiropractors say that their inability to use that training has put some patients, who are exhibiting classic symptoms of illness or disease, in life-threatening situations. It also has driven many chiropractors out of state, where they can put their training to full use. The Michigan State Medical Society, the insurance industry and large employers oppose the increased scope legislation on two main arguments: That chiropractors are not qualified to properly diagnose and treat all patients; and that expanding diagnostic options for chiropractors will cause health-care costs to skyrocket. The first argument smacks of professional elitism, and a bit of economic self-preservation on the part of the medical establishment. The Medical Society argues the physicians spend more time in residency; the Michigan Association of Chiropractors counters that their doctors receive the same primary medical training as, and receive more hours of education and training on average, than medical doctors. Chiropractors say the cost-increase argument hasn't been borne out in other states that allow wide scopes of practice for chiropractors. Common sense suggests that as long as the same number of people have the same number of diagnosable maladies, the same number of office visits will occur, and the same amount of diagnostic tests will be ordered - whether those visits and tests are via chiropractor or medical doctor. Which makes it sound more like physicians are more worried about the competition. The scope expansion bill is supported by many lawmakers in our region, including Sen. Jim Barcia D-Bay City; Rep. Jeff Mayes, D-Bay City; Rep. Joel Sheltrown, D-West Branch, and John Moolenaar R-Midland. They recognize that thousands of their constituents put their health literally into the hands of chiropractic doctors they trust. Forty-nine states don't have a problem with that bond. Michigan shouldn't, either. http://blog.mlive.com/bcopinion/2008/06/legislature_should_let_chiropr.html Refer a Friend We appreciate all of the referrals that our patients have given us. It is a great honor to know that you trust us with the care of a friend or family member. Do you know someone that could use Chiropractic care but they just keep procrastinating about getting information? Maybe they have back pain, neck pain, or can't sleep comfortably? Maybe they just need some good advice on healthy living? In any case, simply click on the link below and finally give them an opportunity to get the help they need. To send a Friend a FREE Consultation by email simply reply to this newsletter or send an email directly to Dr. Group at thediscdoctor@gmail.com and we will forward a FREE consultation email to them. Remember, if you send a referral, our massage therapists will give you a complimentary 30 minute massage as a way of saying thanks. http://www.austindrx.com http://www.hillcountryspine.com To unsubscribe from this Weekly Newsletter, simply reply to this email with UNSUBSCRIBE in the SUBJECT area of the email and we will take you off our email list. WE WELCOME FEEDBACK - If you have any ideas or positive/negative feedback about our clinic or any of our staff members, feel free to call or email Dr. Group at thediscdoctor@gmail.com Jonathan N. Group Doctor of Chiropractic Registered Dietitian 512-260-4020