Dr. Mark and Dr. Chip's Healthy Blogs

Medical Opposites             There is an interesting trend that I have noticed from our many years of clinical practice which I call medical opposites. What I mean by this term is that the mainstream medical advice we hear seems to be the opposite of what the human body actually needs nutritionally or diet wise. There are many of these and I will try to explain them as sensibly as possible. Let’s start with a simple one.             For decades now, the mainstream medical wisdom has told us not to eat salt because it supposedly causes high blood pressure. I would agree that the use, or overuse, of refined salt can cause problems. Our bodies need sea salt or mineral salt to work correctly and that distinction is never made. Sea salt is necessary for our kidneys to work correctly, for good adrenal function to handle stress, for lymphatic fluid drainage and cerebral spinal fluid flow, to keep the proper acid/base balance in the body, and many other functions. Many of us older peo

Nervous System 101 Something that’s great for your nervous system? Plenty of exercise and water! The nervous system in your body is made up of two parts: the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system. The brain and the spinal cord make up the central nervous system. The spinal cord transmits sensory messages to the brain and motor messages from the brain. Sensory nerves carry messages from receptors to the brain. If you touch a hot stove, pain receptors tell your brain to move your hand. Motor nerves send signals from the brain to the muscles in the body. These nerves help us to do things, like walk, kick a ball or pick up an object. The peripheral nervous system transports the messages between the central nervous system and the body. It consists of cranial and spinal nerves that carry messages to and from every cell in your body. The Autonomic Nervous System Part of the peripheral nervous system is called the autonomic nervous system. The actions of the

Did you know you have a ‘second brain’ in your gut? It surprises many to learn that they have an enteric nervous system. Have you heard of it? It controls and regulates the esophagus, stomach, small intestine and colon and has five times the number of neurons as your spinal cord. You’ve probably heard the admonition “trust your gut.” Turns out it’s wise advice. If you’ve ever felt butterflies in your stomach, felt a hunch or sensed that the crab cakes were a bit “funky,” you may have heard from your “second brain.” In your gut. Have you ever vomited? Then you’ve experienced the wisdom of your enteric nervous system firsthand. You may not have felt well, but the intelligence of your nervous system caused those funky crab cakes to become projectiles, producing the contractions necessary to force them back up your esophagus. A healthy response even though you didn’t feel well. The enteric nervous system is thought to play a major role in our emotional well–being, too. It

Natural Health and Autoimmune Disease             At Natural Health, we’re always looking for the cause of a disease process. Autoimmune disease seems to be a mystery in the medical world and the treatment for it are drugs that suppress the immune system and drugs that reduce inflammation. These may be good treatments for pain relief, but they do nothing for the cause of the problem. And actually taking these drugs makes the problem worse as the body is never able to heal itself plus their side effects.             The underlying cause of autoimmune disease is a chronic degeneration of whatever organ or system is being affected. The dead tissue from this organ or system gets into the lymphatic system and the body starts to develop antibodies to fight what it thinks is an invasion of foreign protein, somewhat like the cause of food allergies with leaky gut syndrome. Once these antibodies have been formed, they start attacking the tissue of the person’s own organ or system. Unles

The Critical Cervical Curve From the back, your spine should be in alignment. A sideways curve is called scoliosis and can produce nerve interference, affecting organs and tissues controlled and regulated by the nerves emerging from the spinal column in that area. But from the side we want to see four curves. Because the nerves passing through the neck influence the entire body, the spinal curve in the neck is especially important. Besides having uncompromised nerve flow to and from the body, the normal, graceful forward curve is essential so you can turn to the right and left to look over your shoulder. If you know someone who is far too dependent upon their rear view mirrors (or their car’s back up camera), or who tends to turn their upper body to look at you, encourage them to give us a call. A thorough examination can determine if they’ve lost their cervical curve and whether they’re a good candidate for chiropractic care.

Fat Is Your Friend One of the biggest health care hoaxes perpetrated during the last decade or so is the notion that “fat is bad.” If you want to enjoy your highest health potential, you need to know the truth about this common (and incorrect) belief about fat. Fat is not your enemy. Fat is essential if you want your body to look and feel younger and equip your nervous system to function at its best. Healthy fats supply good cholesterol, which is critical for the production of hormones that enhance youthful qualities. If you’ve chosen to adopt a low-fat diet, you’re depriving your body of the nutrients it needs to slow aging and to function optimally. Granted, low-fat alternatives abound on grocery store shelves. To get away with low-fat (low-taste) products, manufacturers rely on amping up the sugar to deliver the taste people want. The result? Weight gain. Bottom line? Fat doesn’t automatically make you fat. At least, “good” fat doesn’t.

What Causes Muscle Spasms?                         There are several main causes of muscle spasm that we check for at Natural Health. And of course were talking about any type of muscle spasm, Charlie horse, shin splint, or just plain old muscle cramp. There are many causes of these overactive muscles and some of them are there for a specific purpose.             Let’s start with muscle spasms due to nerve pinching from a subluxated spinal segment. On the surface it may seem like this is an aberrant phenomenon but is actually there to help stabilize the spinal area so that the nerve is not further damaged. These are normally in the spinal areas but could be affecting any of the muscles in the extremities as well. For instance a rotator cuff irritation may be coming from a spinal nerve irritation in the mid-part of the back which controls the muscles of the scapula which make up the rotator cuff. It’s important to remove this nerve interference so not only the muscle works corre