Dr. Mark and Dr. Chip's Healthy Blogs

  Hello Natural Health Family! It is a new week and time for another discussion. I imagine everyone was able to enjoy their weekends in some form or fashion. It is that time of the year again when weddings are in abundance. The past weekend I was able to be in a wedding and was able to enjoy festivities with friends and family. Let’s talk about the importance of having joy in our lives.  Have you ever thought about the last time that you had to prepare yourself to do something such as giving a speech to a crowd of people or telling someone something that you thought might not be received well? What did it make you feel like? Did you start to have sweaty palms or heavy breathing? Did your heart start to beat faster or you felt like running or not moving? This is because when we think about certain things our bodies react in response to the thoughts that we may be having at the time. This is due to a survival strategy that we adopted to keep us alive back in the day. It helped u...

  Hello Natural Health Family. It’s that time of the year again. The weather is cooling down and the colors are starting to change. We have been going through a lot of change in recent times and it doesn't seem to be stopping any time soon. Nonetheless, one thing that doesn’t change is the importance of our health and how that reflects how we can handle the changes of life. Let’s talk about a few different topics of what we can do for ourselves to adapt to the change.  When was the last time you walked outside just to walk outside? Not for exercise, not for moving your body, not for getting the blood pumping around your body, not for moving your joints to promote healthy oxygenation to all the cells of your body, not to clear your head of thoughts, not to get some fresh air, not to get some sunlight for healthy vitamin D synthesis, not to strengthen the muscles and ligaments of your body including your spine, but rather just to walk. You didn’t do it for something in particu...

Well the weekend started off dicey but it sure was a nice day yesterday. It makes you feel like there’s hope that spring may be around the corner. The groundhog is not supposed to see his shadow so hopefully that means that spring will come early-ha. The winter hasn’t been too bad but started so early, remember back there at Halloween? I think we’re all ready for some good weather and sunshine, I know I am!             As we started a new month, our theme has changed to Heart Health. We’ve gotten a great device here at Natural Health to look at heart health, the heart sound recorder. It gives us a way to look at the valves of the heart and since the heart is a mirror of the rest of the body, a way to look at the nutritional needs of the body. After the exam, we get an idea of what whole food nutritional support that person may need. We’re having some specials this month to get people to look at heart health so give us shout or...

            I hope that you had a great weekend despite the weather. I had to take a trip to Central Michigan and it was warmer there than it was here in Quincy. The first part of the trip was traveling in whiteout conditions and not being able to see the road until we got to Pittsfield and then not bad from there on. The weather can be a stress not only because of the cold temperatures and being stuck inside but when trying to travel and the conditions on the roads. The stress can lead to nutritional deficiencies as the body is using more of its stores to handle these stresses.             Our topic for tonight’s health shop is vitamins and minerals. We’ll be talking about where they come from and how the body can absorb them, two topics you never hear about on mainstream media advertising. For example, the Ensure product has artificial vitamins and minerals that come f...

Vigorous Exercise Leads to Lower  Mortality for Women Analysis by  Dr. Joseph Mercola STORY AT-A-GLANCE Heart disease and cancer are the two top reasons people die in the U.S.; data show women who can exercise vigorously have a reduced risk of mortality from heart disease, cancer and other causes Women who have high cardiovascular fitness also enjoy a reduced risk of dementia, which may be related to higher levels of a protein responsible for improving mitochondrial biogenesis Combining intermittent fasting with the ketogenic diet plan may boost the health benefits and improve mitochondrial health. This includes not eating within three hours of going to bed to reduce free radical damage Lack of exercise is globally responsible for nearly 5 million deaths each year; the more you move and exercise the lower the potential rate of death. Aim to sit as little as possible during the day Heart disease and cancer are the top two reasons people die in the U.S. The t...

5 Natural and Easy Cleaners You Can Make at Home Analysis by  Dr. Joseph Mercola Harsh house cleaning chemicals expose you to health hazards and pollute the environment, but you can easily and inexpensively make your own natural cleaners Lemons are effective as deodorizers as well as kitchen and bath cleaners Hydrogen peroxide has unique antibacterial properties that make it ideal for general cleaning around the house White vinegar can remove mildew and clean dingy bathroom grout when allowed to sit for 30 minutes In addition to many personal care uses, baking soda has myriad household cleaning uses and is inexpensive and safe Cleaning the house is no one's favorite job, and dangerous cleaning products worsen the task by posing risks to you and the environment. An extreme example occurred earlier this year at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Burlington, Massachusetts. Chlorine gas produced when the cleaners Super 8 and Scale Kleen were unintentionally mixed killed the ge...

            Hopefully you all survived Christmas and some of the foods that you got a hold of-ha. Many of the food diaries that I’ve seen lately have some not so good foods on them but I realize it’s the holidays and you have to try what other people bring. Just like an alcoholic, a sugarholic just needs to get back on the wagon if there has been a relapse. Sugar is just as addictive as alcohol and the problem with the holidays is that it is a societal way of getting hooked back onto eating sugar and processed foods. We all want to be healthier in 2020 so get back on the ketogenic type diet. If you have problems, just give us a call here at Natural Health and we will work you through it.             I’ll try to keep this weeks letter short as were all still working on holiday season timeline. The article that I’ve included looks at using simple household items for cleane...

            I hope that you really enjoyed the weekend. It sure was nice weather for the middle and end of December. Doesn’t look like much of a chance for a white Christmas but we have got to see snow several times already. It’ll be nice for those who are traveling to not have to worry about bad weather. I hope that you and yours can get together over the holidays, have lots of fun and good conversation, and try not to eat too much sugar and junk!             As the topic for this month is handling stress, I’ve included an article that looks at 3 major nutritional support supplements that help the body handle stress. Omega 3 oils, vitamin D, and magnesium are all great health promoting nutrients. We have much better ways of determining your need for this than Dr. Mercola and his surveys with our Nutrition Response Testing technique and the supplements we use are whole foo...

            I hope you’re having a great day, even though it’s Monday. Christmas is next week, is anyone panicking yet? Most people I talk to are already wrapping their gifts or buying gift cards so everything seems under control. There is always that stress though of remembering everyone and getting the right thing. The snow we have makes the season seem more like Christmas time but we all know that means winter and a dreary season for a while, unless you actually like snow-ha.             The theme that were working on this month is handling Stress and it becomes a problem this month with all the different deadlines- Christmas stuff, tax stuff, relatives visiting, traveling in bad weather, etc.. One of the big actions that we talk about in the office is remembering to breathe. It may sound silly but when people get so busy and stressed, they forget to breathe deeply an...

Hello Everyone in Natural Health Nation. I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend and are not too stuffed from all the overeating. It was a great time to catch up with relatives and friends and count your blessings. Hopefully everyone got along well and perhaps even let go of past problems and strife. Thanksgiving is a kind of warm-up holiday for the Christmas season and everything that goes along with that. I hope and pray that you all do not stress out during this season but if you do feel stressed, we have great nutritional support to help your body handle it. Drenamin is one of our top sellers to help the adrenal glands which are your stress handling gland. Also Kava Forte is a great herbal supplement to help relax with, kind of the opposite of coffee. Come by the office or give us a call at 217 – 228 – 2040. Since we’re into December now, our theme has changed to one of discussing Stress, Fatigue and Sleep. We deal with this a lot with our patients and have helped l...

Did you realize that tight muscles are one of the first signs of pinched nerves?  Muscles are controlled by nerves, so if your muscles are staying tight, more than likely, you have pinched nerves and need Chiropractic adjustments to remove this nerve impingement.  Getting a massage, going to the spa, relaxing with a book, etc. are great practices to help muscles relax but if they just re-tighten, the nerves that control them are being irritated.  Chiropractic adjusting helps by removing the cause of the impingement which then helps the muscle to be able to relax and work in coordination with the other muscles of the body for normal motion and movement.  When these muscle groups get out of coordination, joints suffer as they are not moving correctly.  A good example is the knee, where it is meant to move in one plane of motion but if the muscles that control its motion are tighter on one side than the other, a twist type motion occurs and irritates th...

·          What does an adjustment feel like?           How the adjustment feels depends on the type of adjusting method being used. With Activator adjusting, you just feel the click of the Activator working and the speed of the adjustment keeps you from really feeling anything other than better. More osseous types of adjusting will give you a feeling of a joint moving, like popping a knuckle. The ideal is to have as little discomfort as possible so the patient can relax and the spine will accept the adjustment as easily as possible.

·          Can I adjust myself?           You do see people, ever so often, twisting or popping their neck are turning in their chair to pop their lower back. This may lend towards a temporary relief of pain but without realigning all the spinal vertebra, the problems will return over and over. At Natural Health, we check the whole spine on every patient that comes in to make sure the spinal structures will heal in place as they should. “Cracking” the neck or back over and over lends towards ligament instability which the body responds to by putting calcium in these areas causing arthritis and degeneration. The overuse of over-the-counter, and prescription (like opioids), pain medication lends toward this problem as well as you have not fixed the cause of the problem, only covered it up.

·          Will adjustments make my spine too loose?           Putting the vertebra back in place and getting the ligaments to hold the vertebra in correct position actually helps the spine to tighten and strengthen. If a person has spinal subluxations, or misalignment , it means that the ligaments are already loose and are allowing the vertebra to move to far or misalign and get stuck out of place. This misalignment causes joint inflammation and disc height reduction which can then cause the resultant spinal nerve pinching or irritation. The chiropractic adjustment helps to restore normal nerve function by realigning the vertebra and getting the ligaments to strengthen. There may be a need for nutritional support as well is this may be the reason why the ligaments have weakened in the first place.

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...