Leaning Toward Health

Finishing up my office work for this year, I wrote the following note to a patient.

"As I said to you yesterday, my advice is that you become joyfully very-involved in the monitoring and improving of your health. I am concerned that anything less than this, given your current state of being, would put you at further risk. And, of course, it is more fun  and functional to be involved in your life and health."

I realize that this advice really applies to each of us. Who do you know who is joyfully very-involved in the monitoring and improving of his or her health? Regardless of our current state of being, we would be wise to be leaning toward health. Illness and pain will find enough of us on their own.

As I have been recommending to you for some time, please start this New Year with a resolution to create a health notebook for yourself and your children. Imagine what you will be communicating to yourself, your family, and your doctors when you arrive at each doctor's visit with your notebook and the sense that you are engaged in your health.

It's 4 PM on Wednesday, December 30th. I'm at the office finishing up. Joanne is off running some errands. And, once again, I am starving. I had a decent breakfast. Started with coffee (exception 1), coconut milk (exception 2) in my coffee, and half a big cherimoya. I stirfried onion and napa cabbage in coconut oil (ex...ecption 2, like I said) and threw in some freshly steamed brown rice (exception 3). Decent, right? Huge, by some standards. Joanne and I (mostly Joanne this time) made giganto salads for lunch (pic) with more brown rice on top. By 1:30 PM I had consumed the entire salad. And now my stomach is growling. Within 10 feet of me are high-quality and delicious protein bars and powdered meal replacement shakes. But, I'm a hardcore locavore on day 364 of Eat Local One Year. I wanted to tell you this so that you would know, that there have been many times and days in 2009 when I have not planned well and found myself hungry and with not a scrap of local food in sight. No complaint here. Just a great year-long, life-awakening choice! :)

I just communicated with Chef Tim at the Sidecar Restaurant in Ventura. He is a committed participant of Locavore Lite 2010 and a proud supporter of the project!

Tim has been using lots of great local food for a long time. Please check him out at: http://www.thesidecarrestaurant.com/ , and let him know how much you appreciate his support of local food and Locavore Lite 2010 !

Kris

Day 362

Just a quick note before I head off to bed. We have 3 days left of this beautiful and informative year-long Eat Local One Year project (http://eatlocaloneyear.com ). I will let you search out and read of the rigors that we have lived, but suffice it to say that we have shopped for or grown, planned for and prepared over 900 all-local food meals in 2009. Almost every day we thought about and worked with where our food came from.

In 2008 we called out for, looked for 98 others in Ventura County to join us on this journey. We found 19, and the 21 of us set forth together on January 1, 2009.

The difficulty of the project is clearly indicated by the number of those willing to give it a try. Nine of us will complete the project at 12:00 AM on January 1, 2010.

I am so grateful to have been inspired by Barbara Kingsolver to create this project, for the opportunity to have participated in this project, and to the friends that took the challenge with us!

We will continue in 2010 and beyond to eat more locally than previously in our lives. But not as edgy as in 2009.

On January 1, 2010 we launch Locavore Lite 2010. Please join us. We are looking for 5,000 people to join us in Ventura County, and thousands more world-wide.

Kris

New Year's Restitution

I don't know about you, but I am going to need both resolution and restitution in the New Year!

I will need resolution to make change toward better care of myself and the world in which we live. And restitution for the harm that I have unintentionally done to myself for not caring for myself adequately, i.e., not enough sleep, stretching or walking.

My hope is that you have plans, or at least thoughts about expanding the care of yourself, and maybe even our planet.

In 2010, be sure to have your blood tested for the level of Vitamin D; very important to your health.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org 

Wouldn't take too much to increase the amount of stretching that you do each day. From none to 5 minutes would be easy. :)

You could also join Locavore Lite 2010 at:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Locavore-Lite-2010/180619179086?ref=ts
Super easy project to eat a little local food and help make our lives and planet healthier! I would like to see tens of thousands of people participate around the world and thousands here in Ventura County. Will you help me spread the word?

In health,
Dr. Young

What a Salad!!!

Butter lettuce, red cabbage, green cabbage, carrot, white onion, red bell pepper, avocado, basil, parsley, brown rice, lemon juice, salt, not a drop of oil, - the best!!!

Joanne, my wife, and I made this salad this morning to take to our office for our lunch. The picture you see is my salad; Joanne has her own.

And every bit of it local!

And there I sit, full and satisfied!

In health, Dr. Young

Cancer Cure

One of the things that is helping our healthcare system go bankrupt is that we keep spending billions of dollars trying to find the magic bullet for cancer prevention and cure. There is no magic bullet. We need to intelligently and loving support our bodies to reduce the incidence of cancer. We already know that what people eat, how much they exercise, and how they feel about themselves and the world in which they live, are some of the most powerful factors influencing cancer. I think we need to face these and invest in helping ourselves make changes in these areas.

What is a Doctor?

Our culture has a tendency to imagine a “good” doctor as somewhat conservative and restrained.

I, personally, am a very conservative doctor, insomuch as my practice is focused on anatomy, systems biology, physiology, and the scientifically validated means of achieving health; like healthy lifestyle. Expressing love for my patients is also an important aspect of my conservative practice.

There are those who would say that I have deviated at times from practicing in a restrained manner. And there is surely some truth to that. Just last week, in fact, I took a little walk on the wild side. I flew to Washington, DC and spent time outside the White House with a placard stating my desire to be President Barack Obama’s chiropractor.

Check out this 41-second video of me at the White House: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NMt_ZnU_70 . I am serious about my desire. Spread the word if you would like to help me.

Surely you can appreciate that it can feel a little risky putting oneself in the public eye in when doing something somewhat unusual.

As chance would have it, I have a current example to share with you of a brilliant and highly-trained medical doctor and researcher, Dr. Kenneth Fine, who is a great doctor, with out being restrained. Here is what might be seen as the conservative Dr. Fine - https://www.enterolab.com/StaticPages/Frame_OurTeam.htm and https://www.enterolab.com/StaticPages/Frame_Cirrculum.htm . And here is the somewhat unrestrained Dr. Fine, aka Kenny Davin Fine - http://www.kennydavinfine.net As far as I am concerned, Kenny, I mean Dr. Fine, rocks!!!

I am grateful to Kenny for being himself. I don’t know if it has been scary for him, but when I get a chance, I will ask.

I have received an invitation to a medical lecture and a rock concert in Dallas next month. Dr. Fine will be lecturing and Kenny and his band will be rockin’. Now I am trying to decide if I would be a fool to fly to Dallas for two great events, or if I would be a fool not to go. What’s your advice?

And finally, what is a doctor?

National Healthcare Reform

If you didn't see my letter to the editor of the Ventura County Star in May of this year, on national healthcare reform, go to: http://blogs.venturacountystar.com/letters/archives/2009/05/healthcare-refo.html

It is not just our President's top national priority, it is critical to the health of our citizens and our country!

Do You Have a Short Leg?

For many decades, many doctors of chiropractic (DCs) have “measured” the leg lengths of their patients. It is important to understand that “measuring” in almost all of these cases actually meant a visual inspection (looking at) of the heels of a patient lying prone (face down). If one heel appeared to extend farther than the other, then the patient was said to have a “short leg”.

In most cases, a DC, finding a “short leg”, would adjust the spine of the patient, immediately recheck the leg length and find that the legs were even. How could that be?

The distinction that is not often made in chiropractic or orthopedic practice is between an anatomical short leg (ASL) and a physiological short leg (PSL).

An ASL can occur from polio. It can occur from trauma that results in leg fracture and shorting of bone. An anatomical leg length discrepancy is a true difference in length and can be measured using x-ray.

A PSL is not truly short, but rather one side is drawn up in relation to the other by muscular contraction or shortening of connective tissues. When a patient with a “short leg” is adjusted, thereby evening the leg length, what the DC has done is to balance the muscles that support the legs, or to release connective tissue restrictions. A PSL is extremely common.

When a PSL is resolved by chiropractic treatment, the resolution is almost always temporary. There are many factors that result in muscle imbalance and connective tissue asymmetry in the lower extremities, and these must be dealt with to attempt to maintain an even physiologic leg length.

It is valuable to understand that a PSL is just a sign of muscle and/or connective tissue imbalance. It is not the problem.

Rather than checking for a PSL, a thoughtful DC could check for muscle and connective tissue imbalance; the real causes of the PSL. That same thoughtful DC could treat the patient for the imbalance, and then instruct the patient about the causes and self-care measures for resolving the imbalance.

Resveratrol Day 15 w/ Change

Hello Friends!

No clear signs of affect from taking the resveratrol. Time for a change. Today I began doubling the dose. I am now taking 500 mg per day. We shall see; or not see.

Nothing like being alive, seeking answers, doing experiments!!!

Resveratrol Day 2

I took my second dose of resveratrol today at 12:30 AM. At this time I am not aware of any affects.

It is worth noting what this experiment will tell us, and what it won't. If I end up feeling nothing after 30 days on resveratrol, we will only know that I did not feel anything after 30 days on this dose. That, of course, will not mean that it had no effect; just that I was unable to feel the effect. If I have a sense of altered sensation or function during the 30 days, what will be known is that I have had a sense of altered sensation or function; nothing more.

If I happen to feel more energy, or other valuable functional improvement, you can bet that I will go off the resveratrol for a month, and then try another month on it again. If the improved function reappears, it will be more suggestive that the resveratrol is having an effect.

Isn't it fun to be a scientist?

Resveratrol w/o the Wine

My 60 year-old friend, Bill, told me last Sunday that he had been taking resveratrol for 3 weeks and was feeling a lot more energy; feeling younger. He offered to buy me a one month sample of the product that he was taking so that I could try it out.

Here is what the Linus Pauling Institute of Oregon State University says about resveratrol.
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/phytochemicals/resveratrol/

Here is what I started taking at 11:40 AM today; one per day:
http://www.biotivia.com/bioforteresveratrol.html
I will be taking one each day and will try to blog about it each day for 30 days. We'll see how that works. :)

I believe Bill told me that he is taking what he gave me, every other day, and on the days in between, he is taking twice as much resveratrol.

I have no question about the safety of my taking this level of resveratrol, and I appreciate the opportunity to do yet another small experiment with my life and health. If we don’t experiment, we may not learn much, we may get into a rut, and we may not live as vital and engaged a life.

I will try to blog this each day for the next 30 days.

Thank you Bill!

Dr. Young

OBAMA HEARTS CHIROPRACTIC

The couple in the picture with the Obamas is Dr. Steve and Jill Kraus. Dr. Krause is a doctor of chiropractic, and is an Iowa Delegate to the American Chiropractic Association. Obama visited Dr. Krause twice at his clinic in Carroll, Iowa during the campaign.

OK, I won't keep you waiting. Here is a bit of what our President wrote to the American Chiropractic Association when he was a candidate for the presidency:

"We need to knock down unreasonable barriers of access and discriminatory insurance coverage so Americans in need of quality chiropractic care can access it without difficulty. We need to expand the range of chiropractic services covered by Medicare, facilitate integration of doctors of chiropractic into the health care systems of the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense, and allow commission of doctors of chiropractic as officers in the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service. And again, under my health care plan, many, if not all, chiropractic services would be included in the benefit package offered in the public plan."

And here is the link to the complete letter.

To support the call for chiropractic care in our national health care reform, please register - now - with http://ChiroVoice.org

Osteoporosis Cure

Well, I don't know about a cure, but I know a few things about osteoporosis and bone health.

One thing I know is that the human body needs adequate vitamin D to maintain healthy bone. Vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin. Most people don't get enough vitamin D from their food to have healthy blood levels. Most Americans don't spend enough time in the sun to get what they need.

Yesterday was just another great day at the office. A new 91 year-old female patient told me that she had been diagnosed with osteoporosis and had been put on medication to treat it. After a few more questions, and it was clear that this patient's medical doctor had not looked into the causes of this patient's poor bone health. The patient's vitamin D blood levels had not been checked. There are many other things to check, but vitamin D is a good start.

It is not wise to assume, even in a 91 year-old patient, that she has osteoporosis just because she is elderly. It is wise to make sure that the patient's body has what it needs to make bone, before simply prescribing a drug to slow the progression.

In case after case, the lesson is the same; try to understand what is going on with the person's health before resorting to a drug.

If your doctor doesn't bring up the idea of trying to understand your condition, I recommend that you bring it up. It is your body, and it is your health.

Health Care Reform Now

Hello!

First, I would like to acknowledge how powerful it is to be able to share information on a blog! I will do my best to provide you with news to use and things to consider.

Immediately below I have posted a letter that I submitted yesterday to the Ventura County Star and the Ojai Valley News.

Letter -

Have you EVER heard ANYBODY say that health insurance and health care are affordable in America? Me neither.

Our health care system is broken, has been so for a long time, and is bankrupting our Country.

We have tried the free-market approach, but greed, waste, and the absence of wellness and preventive care, have made it an expensive and abysmal failure. Since 2000, health insurance premiums have almost doubled and health care premiums have grown three times faster than wages.

It is not time for more of the same. It IS time for change. It is time to provide an affordable public option for health care.

Insurance companies, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, and providers, all big-money and big-lobbying players, just met with the President and offered to try to cut the 6% annual inflation of health care costs by 1.5 % per year. Such a deal. This offer is business as usual; more of the same.

Join “Health Care for America Now” to make certain that everyone in this Country has accessible, quality health care they can afford, and to guarantee coverage and real choice: keep your private insurance plan or join a new public health insurance plan so you are no longer at the mercy of the private insurance industry.

Contact: Health Care for America Now, 1825 K Street NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20006
(202) 454-6200 info@healthcareforamericanow.org http://healthcareforamericanow.org/

Stand up this year, stand up now, for your family’s health and for our Country.