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Monday, 31 May 2010
My inspiration for this blog post comes from a recent visit I had this weekend at my sister in-law’s house. They are dealing with an issue that many North American families have to deal with….kids that spend way too much time using electronic devices. She was upset because on a sunny day, her son spent 6 straight hours playing X-box. In addition to that, he spent time on the computer on MSN, Youtube, Facebook, and numerous other websites. Don’t forget television as well. This trend is growing at a ridiculous rate and, as a physiotherapist, I get to see the physical effects firsthand.
Repetitive Strain Injury, or RSI, is a collective term for syndromes characterized by discomfort, impairment and loss of muscle strength and function. RSI often affects the neck, the back and particularly the arms and hands. It is found primarily in adults who perform repeated movements such as those involved in typing or playing musical instruments. It is commonly named according to the part of the body affected, e.g. tennis elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome, golfer’s elbow. We are starting to see RSI turn up in younger and younger patients which is rather alarming.
In addition to computers and gaming devices, there has been a substantial increase in the amount of time teenagers spend on their cellular phones sending text messages, thereby potentially affecting the prevalence of RSI in this group (2). The increased frequency of texting is leading to a condition popularly termed “Blackberry Thumb”, or “teen texting tendonitis”. This occurs because these devices rely almost solely on the use of your thumbs (not all of your fingers) for typing. Any device that relies on the thumbs for typing can cause this type of injury because the thumbs simply weren’t designed for such use (1,3). Repetitive mechanical loading of the thumb, combined with inactivity, and prolonged slouched postures resulting in increased neural tension contributes to increased risk of developing RSI.
Symptoms of “Blackberry thumb” include pain and numbness in the thumbs and joints of the hand (1). But there are also other bodily symptoms:
- Pain and numbness at the base of the thumb
- Tingling and numbness in hand, including joints
- Pain in elbow
- Shoulder, neck pain during computer use
- Tired, achy fingers and cramping
It is estimated that teenagers sending and receiving an average of 80 text messages each day may be vulnerable to repetitive stress injuries of the thumb (4). If you think this is a high number and unlikely, consider these statistics:
- About 75 percent of 12-17 year-olds in America now own a cell phone (4).
- Half of those teenagers send 50 or more text messages a day (4).
- One-third of teens send more than 100 text messages daily (4).
If you think my sister in-law’s son is a minority, then guess again. Here is another interesting statistic: Americans between ages 8 and 18 spend an average of 7.5 hours a day using an electronic device, be it a computer, cellular phone, or television (4). If this sounds like your child, or one you know, then consider these tips to avoid developing these repetitive strain conditions:
- Alternate the fingers and hand used for texting.
- Restrict the length of time using the electronic device.
- Pacing: take frequent breaks from the continuous activity, even if only for a short period of time.
- Alternate postures: do not hold slouched, head down or head forward postures for long periods. Periodically roll your neck and shoulders, twist your trunk gently, and stand up to break up the cycle.
- Increase level of physical activity.
- Most importantly…..put away the electronic devices and get outside! Don’t text or MSN friends; actually socialize and hang out with them. Kids are meant to participate in physical play, not electronic play.
Restricting time spent on electronic devices, and increasing physical activity will significantly reduce the risk of developing RSI conditions. If your child develops symptoms of RSI, please have them see an appropriate health practitioner to help deal with the issue. If left unchecked, these symptoms can progress and become quite severe and debilitating. If this issue is familiar to you, the team at One to One Wellness would like to help you.
REFERENCES:
- Karim S. From 'Playstation Thumb' to 'Cellphone Thumb' : the new epidemic in teenagers. S Afr Med J 2009; 99(3): 161-162.
- Gustafsson et al. Thumb postures and physical loads during mobile phone use – A comparison of young adults with and without musculoskeletal symptoms. Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology 2010; 20: 127–135.
- Mandal et al. Prolonged use of electronic games - a word of caution. Int. J. Care Injured 2005; 36, 218-219.
- Website: http://solomonsseal.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/healing-texting-thumb-and-repetitive-stress-injuries-rsi-with-solomon%E2%80%99s-seal/
Monday, 17 May 2010
I wanted to share with everyone what I have been doing as a nutritional lifestyle approach for the past few months. It’s called Intermittent Fasting (IF), and is exactly what it sounds like; not consuming any calories for periods of time in between meals. There are no rigid rules about how to approach this. You do what works for you. Some people will do one or two 24 hr fasts per week, others might do shorter duration but add another day, some people weekdays only, etc. There’s tremendous amount of information on the benefits of fasting including, but not limited to:
Decreased body fat & body weight
Decreased blood glucose levels
Decreased insulin levels & increased insulin sensitivity
Increased lipolysis & fat oxidation
Increased norepinephrine & epinephrine levels
Increased Glucagon levels
Increased growth hormone levels
Break free from “psychological hunger”
As I am sure all of you are aware, “proper” nutrition is probably one of the most confusing topics known to man. There are an infinite number of different diets, eating approaches, lifestyle changes, etc., leaving most people in the dark about what to do if they want to become lean. I think that many of these choices can work for different people for different reasons. It just depends on what resonates with an individual and allows him or her to adhere to the two main factors common to most eating approaches that work: caloric restriction and/ or reduced carbohydrate eating. Intermittent fasting is a concept that focuses on the former. I like to think of it as reducing total weekly, rather than daily, calories.
I first read about IF a few years ago but didn’t pay too much attention, and disregarded the concept without researching it. I’ve been eating fairly “clean” for years, but last year I adopted a Paleolithic eating approach, which is simply an eating approach based on what we know about evolutionary biology, and paleoanthropology There are many authors who write about this style of eating, but by far my favorite blog is Dr. Kurt Harris’ www.paleonu.com. Among many other principles, Paleo eating involves less frequent meals, based on the idea that a typical hunter-gather would spend most of the day looking for food and only eating a little bit before and more after finishing. Since human physiology hasn’t changed much since that period, it is hard to figure out why some people now believe “starvation mode” is happening if you do not eat every 2-3 hours. After being introduced to the concepts of IF through Paleo writings, I was eager to find someone who has really researched it, because if it’s not backed up by any evidence than it cannot be considered an appropriate course of action. Enter Brad Pilon. Brad did his Masters degree in nutrition and weight loss and, through reviewing all the relevant research, found that just about all we believe to be true about fasting is false. His findings are fully available in his great eBook Eat Stop Eat, which gets updated with new research each year as it is made available. Some of the more common fasting myth he debunks includes: Lowered Metabolism
Research has shown that people who fasted for three days had ZERO reduction in metabolism.1 How, then, is not eating for 3-6 hours going to accomplish this?
Loss of Lean (muscle) tissue
As long as one is properly strength training, there is no evidence of any loss of muscle tissue through any form of caloric restriction.2 However, if you are not exposing your muscles to an appropriate resistance on a regular basis, you can expect an accelerated loss in lean tissue.
Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar)
Research has shown that well-trained runners working at 75% of their VO2 max for 70 mins still didn’t cause them to become hypoglycemic. 3
Physical Performance
One study from 1987 showed that a three-and-a-half-day fast caused minimal detriments in physical performance measures such as isometric strength, anaerobic capacity or aerobic endurance. 4
Anecdotally, I have been performing my high intensity strength training workouts on about 12-18 hr fasts for a while now, and have shown no decline in performance, and feel that I recover much more readily than I used to. A few co-workers and clients have reported similar experiences.
These are just a few examples of a plethora of information out there on the benefits of fasting. Check out this link for a ton more. Do I think that IF is for everyone? Absolutely not. For me, I have become the leanest I have in years, without even thinking about it. The last time I had reached this point I was counting every calorie, and spending hours on Sunday preparing meals for the week. I feel fasting is an option that could work for a lot of people and has the freedom and flexibility that frequent meal eating does not allow.
References:
1. Webber J, Macdonald IA, The cardiovascular, metabolic and hormonal changes
accompanying acute starvation in men and women. British journal of nutrition 1994;
71:437-447.
2. Bryner RW. Effects of resistance training vs. Aerobic training combined with an 800
calorie liquid diet on lean body mass and resting metabolic rate. Journal of the
American College of Nutrition 1999; 18(1): 115-121
3. Dohm GL, Beeker RT, Israel RG, Tapscott EB (1986) Metabolic responses to exercise after fasting. Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol 61, Issue 4 1363-1368
4. Knapik JJ, Jones BH, Meredith C, Evans WJ. Influence of a 3.5 day fast on physical
performance. European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology
1987; 56(4):428-32
Monday, 10 May 2010
Are you digging your grave with your knife and fork? In developing countries, obesity and obesity-related disease is increasing at an alarming rate. In fact, the number one health related problem in Canada is obesity. We are eating more food that is deficient in nutrients and fibre than ever before.
We live in an era where the majority thinks diseases strike us because of misfortune, genetics, or unknown factors beyond our control. When serious disease “strikes,” we run to doctors and expect them to fix us with a pill. Most people have no idea that most diseases—including cancer, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes—are the result of nutritional carelessness and are avoidable.
Medical science claims they are discovering ways for us to live longer through the use of pharmaceutical drugs, advanced surgical procedures and early detection, yet you have to wonder why after all the billions of dollars spent, diseases such as cancer are more prevalent than ever before and affect all age groups. The truth is, a disease such as cancer is much more preventable than treatable, but it’s important to understand that the body’s disease fighting ability doesn’t just magically happen. The body requires antioxidants and phyto-nutrients that only come from a wholesome variety of plant-based foods.
Currently, the typical North American diet consists of 51% processed and refined foods, including breakfast cereals, bread, pasta, and packaged foods that contain little or none of these disease protective nutrients. 42% of our diet is made up of animal protein, including milk, cheese and ice-cream. These foods are also void of fibre and the nutrients necessary to detoxify the body and may even accelerate cellular aging. That leaves a mere 7% of our diet coming from fresh fruits and vegetables, most of which are potatoes in the form of French fries or potato chips. We need to be eating 30% to 70% of our daily calories from fruits and vegetables to encourage cell rejuvenation.
Phytochemicals found in foods such as broccoli are potent disease inhibitors. A recent study published in the Journal of National Cancer Institute reported that men who ate three or more servings a week of cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cabbage and kale had a 41 percent reduced risk of prostate cancer compared with men who ate less than one serving a week. At the rate we’re going, if diabetes, heart disease, or stroke doesn’t kill us, cancer will. It’s only a question of what gets us first.
Interestingly, there is one food that scientific research shows as having a strong positive association with increased longevity in humans. The answer is green vegetables, otherwise known as “salad.” Leafy greens such as romaine lettuce, kale, collards, Swiss chard, and spinach are the most nutrient dense of all foods.
It’s interesting to note that 100 calories of broccoli is about 10 ounces of food, and 100 calories of ground beef is less than one ounce of food. You can stuff yourself on green vegetables yet not consume excess calories. Animal products, on the other hand are calorie-dense and relatively low in disease fighting nutrients.
I’m not advocating that you eat like a rabbit or never eat meat, but I’m begging you to add more fruits, vegetables, and fibre to your diet. One way to do this is to have a big salad for lunch and another one for dinner. Eat your salad first and eat as much as you can. Beans and legumes are another powerhouse of nutrition. Aim for one cup each day. They have a high nutrient-per-calorie profile, and since they are high in protein and fibre, they make you feel full and help prevent food cravings. Finish dinner with watermelon, cantaloupe, or berries. They are abundant in antioxidants and cell-repairing nutrients. Choose fewer animal products, and more fruits and vegetables.
A personalized meal plan can be designed based on these recommendations. The more nutrient dense food you consume, the faster your health will improve. Fat will melt away, the need for medication will be reduced, and you will reverse the aging process!
Tuesday, 04 May 2010
Even after a few years of working as a physiotherapist and seeing numerous patients come in complaining of neck pain, I am still blown away at how complex neck pain can be yet sometimes the treatment can be so easy it will make your head spin. In fact, the main form of treatment prescribed in our clinic is just that – keep it moving! Let me give you some background:
The neck is made up of 9 joints, is surrounded by hundreds of nerve endings, is supported by at least 20 muscles, it encompasses three planes of movement, and holds up an average adult head of 5 kg.
The neck can be seen as an overwhelmingly complex area of the body when you take all things into consideration. Simply put, all areas require blood flow and nutrients. Blood, which is the “lifeline” of the living body, gets pumped more efficiently to all parts of the body through movement because muscles have a pumping action that increases the rate of flow. So think about it for a second: muscles contract and relax, that is their design. If they aren’t contracting to move you, they are just contracting in a static position, making the muscles tighter. Tightness prevents new blood from entering the cells, which will then make the joints stiffer because there is less lubrication between the bones without the pumping action of the blood. Also, the nerves that innervate those joints and muscles tighten and get hypoxic (decreased oxygen). Nerves are the only sensory structures in the body designed to relay messages to and from the brain and if they are not getting the oxygen required to work well, pain, or other related symptoms like achiness, burning, pins and needles, or numbness, will result.
So what is the treatment? You need to change positions of your head and shoulders frequently throughout the day. Don’t worry about needing the “perfect posture” all day long; there is no such thing. Although it’s great to keep your head in line with your shoulders as opposed to your chin forward and neck extended, keeping it in that position all the time creates the same result of tightness and tension mentioned above. My suggestion: make moving your head a habit, every 10-15 minutes, for as little as 15-30 seconds. Move your head to the right, left, up, down, sideways, and roll your shoulders in a pain-free range of motion. Then go back to what you were doing. Then 15 minutes later, move again. Try to make it a part of your day, for example after every email you send, during every commercial break, after you hang up the phone or if you are really keen, set a small timer and when it beeps, move! You may think you are “moving” all day long, but you can easily talk on the phone, look at your computer, go to the water fountain, make a photocopy, and never once move your neck in a different direction than straight ahead.
Try doing this for 2 days. You will soon notice how little you moved before and that changing your neck position can, with practice, become a part of your normal routine. And you will feel so much better!
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