Nutrition and Chiropractic

Chiropractors advise their patients to include nutrition as part of an overall wellness package.

When patients eat primarily fruits, vegetables and grain products in their diet, they are making a healthy decision. The over consumption of foods high in fat, cholesterol, refined and processed sugars, salt and alcohol increases the probability of suffering from cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and some forms of cancer.

Proper nutrition, accompanied by exercise, posture, rest and periodic spinal adjustments, is a key to preventive health care. A balanced diet with plenty of water, vegetables, fruits and grains helps to prevent illnesses, including diabetes, gingivitis, liver cirrhosis, heart disease and some cancers.

Nutrition is the science of food and other substances as well as the action, interaction and balance of different nutrients in the body. Your body's essential nutrients include carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals and water.

Good nutrition helps you to digest, absorb, metabolize and excrete properly. It helps balance within the body's functions that leads to homeostasis. It may prevent illnesses such as diabetes, gingivitis, liver cirrhosis, cardiovascular disease and some cancers.

On the other hand, bad nutrition from eating too many sugar, fat, protein and dairy products compared to complex carbohydrates leads to having less energy. It imbalances the body's functions that may lead to diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancers such as breast, ovarian and prostrate.

Water: The building block of life

To sustain proper health, drink eight glasses of water daily. Wake up to a glass of water, instead of a cup of coffee. Your body needs to be replenished after a night's sleep. When exercising, drink water before you feel thirsty. Recognize the signs of dehydration: headaches, fatigue and dryness of the eyes. Especially during airline travel, drink plenty of water and fruit juices and avoid alcohol and caffeinated drinks because they boost your body's dehydration rate.

Suppliments & Vitamins

Supplements became very popular in the 90's, everyone it seems is taking some herb or vitamin today. In fact it has become big business, grossing in the billions annually. Even the medical fields and pharmaceutical companies are getting involved. These are the same folks that in the past scoffed at the idea of supplemental vitamins as being "unproven or even unnecessary". The same companies that produce your prescription medications with there built in side effects, may be providing you with your vitamins!

With all the media coverage, magazine articles and hear-say lately, you can feel lost in a virtual maze of do's and don'ts about the benefits and effects of vitamins and minerals. All you have to do is go into the local drug store and you'll find isles of choices, some stores now have "Nutrition centers" which can be even more overwhelming.

So who should you turn to? Most of you would turn to your local general doctor, the same person you turn to when you have a cold or flu. But there is a surprising truth, most medical doctors have little or no training in the nutrition field and many rely on the pharmaceutical salesperson to advise them on what you should be doing nutritionally. Surprisingly many medical schools are now just starting to offer nutrition classes as part of their curriculum.

Ok, so where can you turn to for educated answers regarding nutrition and supplements? Your Chiropractor! Rest assured that your Dr. of chiropractic has had extensive training in nutritional sciences because the chiropractic profession looks at the whole person not just the symptom. This may be a revelation to some of you, but it stems back to the basic chiropractic belief, that we as a society should look to wellness care (the idea of correcting potential problems before they occur) as a main stay of health care. This is why chiropractic educators have placed nutrition high on the list requirements to graduate.

The nutritional standards set fourth by the U.S. government are designed for a healthy young male (gives new meaning to gender discrimination). But what if your sick, elderly or a child. For example a 50 year old women could be hurting her body if she kept to those standards only because she may have needs that are incredibly dissimilar from her 20 year old son.

Protein, carbohydrates and fats are the categories considered a proper balance in the eye of the standard, however, today it does not apply. Why? Because we get your protein from hot dogs, our carbohydrates from candy bars and our fat from French fries or cup cakes. Another thing to consider is the huge amounts of preservatives and food colors that we digest each and every day, should these be considered food groups? Where is the government standard on how much DISOTASSIUM PHOSPHATE, MONO-DIGLYCERIDES OR SULFUR DIOXIDE we should consume each day, or that matter, the whole year?

Unfortunately today, even if you are making a solid effort to eat fresh foods or whole foods which are known to be the healthiest plan, you still may be out of luck. Think about it, unless you grow or raise the food yourself or spend ridiculous prices for organically produced foods, you are still eating pesticides and steroids. You are still eating fruits and vegetables that are allowed to ripen on transport trucks sitting in carbon-monoxide filled highways. You are eating vegetables that are exposed to florescent lighting that burns away the vitamin content.

Without a doubt, you should always start by speaking to your health care professional about your special conditions. Your chiropractor can be a great starting point because he/she will look at your life from a wellness/healthy standpoint. Also your chiropractor will not prescribe your health needs away with unnecessary drugs and pharmaceuticals but will instead empower your body to be well naturally.

The next step is to review what you are eating now, we encourage you to write down all the foods, including pop and alcohol, you take into your body for a full week. It will probably amaze you. Then ask yourself are you eating enough fruit and vegetables,  most will find that they are already below the poorly designed government standards. Not only that, as our lives become more fast paced we start nutritionally killing ourselves by lowering our daily intake of the essentials needed to stay healthy.

Where is all this leading? Supplementation: adding nutrients to our nutritionally poor diet.

A great way to start is to take a solid blend of vitamins and minerals so your body is supplied with what it needs to function optimally and bottom line, you feel better. You'll be giving your body what it needs to fight disease better, digest food better and think clearly, just to name a few. There is a big difference between being "NOT SICK" and feeling GREAT.

So turn to your Dr. of chiropractic for your nutritional advise, they are experts in advising you in matters of proper diet and calorie intake as well as what supplements are right for your special needs.