Dr. Mark and Dr. Chip's Healthy Blogs

  Hello Natural Health Family. I imagine everyone had a happy and healthy thanksgiving enjoying time with friends and family. As we keep heading into the holiday season we will continue to have the roller coaster ride that the holidays may bring. That is why it is important to have stability as the ride goes up and down.  So you may ask how does one have stability. Just like when you are on a roller coaster, you decided to ride the ride. You knew before you got on that it was safe to get on. The seats came with straps so you were safe and secure. Then as the ride started to climb up and up and up you started to feel the tenseness. Because it is a new experience. Maybe because you have never ridden a roller coaster or never have been up that high. You forget about how you are firmly secured in the seat with the straps. Then the ride goes and just as the roller coaster starts rumbling down in full force your adrenaline kicks in telling you that this is not safe. Again, at that...

  Hello Everyone in Natural Health Nation-                 I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving and weekend. The weather wasn’t too bad and I hope everyone made it to their destinations safely. The weather wasn’t too bad over the Thanksgiving holiday but now about anything goes as we head into December. Don’t forget to keep your humidifiers running in the house as the furnaces dry the air out. If your sinus passages get dry, they lend towards more infections so keeping the air humid is a simple way to prevent colds in such.                 The health shop this week goes along with the monthly topic of dealing with winter challenges and being prepared for winter weather. The information above on the humidifier is part of that. We will have the health shop live on Facebook and Instagram at 6:15 and then will post it to Brigh...

  STORY AT-A-GLANCE Increasing research shows that maintaining healthy levels of body fat and greater muscle mass has an effect on your brain health and may slow your rate of cognitive aging People with higher amounts of abdominal fat had worse fluid intelligence with age, while those with greater muscle mass were more protected against such declines Women who had greater muscle mass tended to have better scores in fluid intelligence during the study period Past research has linked midlife obesity with an increased risk of mild cognitive impairment, changes in short-term memory and executive functioning and dementia In addition to regular exercise to increase muscle mass, eating a ketogenic diet to maintain a healthy body weight and avoid obesity may support your brain health as you age Staying fit as you age is about far more than aesthetics. Increasing research shows that maintaining healthy levels of body fat and greater muscle mass has an effect on your brain health and even yo...

  Hello Everyone in Natural Health Nation-                 Well, the weekend was a little taste of winter but today is pretty nice. It looks like this week, including Thanksgiving Day, should be pretty nice and enjoyable. I hope that you can get together with you and yours and have an enjoyable time giving thanks for all the things we have and all the great people that we know. With these holidays that are here now and coming up in the future, time sure seems to go quickly. Were already noticing some patients with stress issues due to the holidays. I think we sometimes wind ourselves up into expecting too much during these holidays. Hopefully we can all chill out and just enjoy them, however they turn out to be. It’s always good to see our friends and family and catch up on all the news, especially if you haven’t seen them for quite a long time. Try not to eat a lot of sugary foods so that your immune syst...

  Hello Natural Health Family! We are diving into more of the holiday festivities.  This week obviously is Thanksgiving week. A time when we gather with family and friends whether for the first time this year or to enjoy more time with others. Although it is a time to give thanks, it can also be a reminder that we can do this more throughout the year. Thanksgiving and gratitude are important aspects of our health and well-being so let's talk about how they can impact our own lives.  When was the last time you received a gift. It might have been your birthday, Christmas, or just a special event. Whatever the case may be you probably felt a sense of gratitude for receiving the gift. When receiving a gift we change our state. Even if life seems to be going fast, feels overwhelming, or we were upset with something that happened, receiving a gift can change the way we feel about the day. It may not be so much the present itself, but more that someone else took the time to se...

  STORY AT-A-GLANCE Compared with sleeping seven to eight hours a night, those who slept for nine hours or more had a 23% greater risk of stroke Those who took long midday naps of more than 90 minutes also had a greater stroke risk — by 25% — than those who napped for 30 minutes or less The greatest risk occurred among those who both slept for nine hours or more at night and napped for more than 90 minutes; this combination increased stroke risk by 85% Sleeping for less than seven or more than eight hours per night is associated with an increased risk of high blood pressure, a leading risk factor for stroke While the pitfalls of too little sleep have been well documented, there are also risks of sleeping too much, which is generally defined as more than nine hours a night. Specifically, excessive sleep, along with long midday naps, may increase your risk of stroke, according to a Chinese study involving 31,750 people. 1 It's unclear exactly why excess sleep increases stroke risk, b...

  Hello Natural Health Family. I imagine everyone had some fun during the weekend and getting ready for more of the holiday season. As we head closer to winter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the other holidays we may feel more stress. However, when we can be aware of what is going on and are able to reframe this so-called stress then we can allow ourselves to enjoy the experience more fully. What is stress? Stress comes from the Latin word “strictia” which means tight, compressed, and drawn together. This helps us to comprehend that stress is a feeling of being contracted and tightened. This may come from many different factors. However, if we can look at it clearly we can see that everyone is affected by certain stress differently. So if it was the environment entirely that causes us stress then it would be the same for everyone. We can now acknowledge that it is actually the way we perceive our environment and our relationship with stress that can make an important difference. L...

  Hello Everyone in Natural Health Nation-                 Well for those folks who don’t like hot weather, this weekend was for you. It looks like we’ve passed the hot weather and headed towards winter. Hopefully the temperatures will come back a little bit because I’m not ready for dealing with cold weather this long until next spring-ha. I even noticed some snow flurries during the weekend and that makes it seem even colder. I’m trying to remind people that since it is colder and the furnaces are running more, to make sure and have their humidifiers running so that the air doesn’t get to dry and irritate the sinuses and lung tissues. If these tissues get inflamed, it sets you up for infections in the sinuses or lungs.                 This month in our health shop, we are talking about Preparing for Winter. This week we are talk...

  STORY AT-A-GLANCE Eating ultraprocessed foods is a significant cause of premature death, according to researchers with the University of São Paulo in Brazil The study found about 57,000 premature deaths were due to the consumption of ultraprocessed foods in Brazil among 30- to 69-year-olds This amounted to 10.5% of all-cause premature deaths and 21.8% of premature deaths from noncommunicable diseases In Brazilian adults, ultraprocessed foods make up 13% to 21% of total energy intake; among Americans, ultraprocessed foods make up about 57% of daily calories, on average, leading the researchers to suggest premature deaths linked to the foods are likely even greater in the U.S. If the contribution of ultraprocessed foods to total caloric intake in Brazil were reduced by 10% to 50%, anywhere from 5,900 to 29,300 deaths could be prevented, annually Previous meta-analyses found that the more ultraprocessed foods consumed, the greater the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart...