Dr. Mark and Dr. Chip's Healthy Blogs

  Analysis by  Dr. Joseph Mercol a  STORY AT-A-GLANCE While SARS-CoV-2 is a rampant virus that can cause severe problems in vulnerable individuals, the real pandemic — the underlying cause that makes people susceptible to complications from the infection in the first place — is poor metabolic health Aside from old age, obesity has been identified as one of the primary risk factors for being hospitalized with COVID-19 — doubling the risk of hospitalization in patients under the age of 60 in one study One hypothesis for why obesity is worsening COVID-19 has to do with the fact that obesity causes chronic inflammation. Having more proinflammatory cytokines in circulation increases your risk of experiencing a cytokine storm Insulin resistance is another top risk factor for COVID-19 that worsens outcomes and increases your risk of death There are five primary parameters of metabolic health: waist circumference, insulin sensitivity, blood pressure, and triglyceride and HDL leve...

Good day to all the Natural Health Family. We were blessed with great weather this weekend, hope everyone was able to get outside to enjoy it. With the great weather we also had to lose an hour of sleep this weekend. This brings me to the topic of this post, the importance of quality SLEEP.      Sleep is necessary for all of us. Many people continue to have a good amount of stress throughout the day and sleep is an important process of healing and regenerating. However, many people find it hard to go to sleep, stay asleep, or wake up feeling refreshed. This could be due to various factors. However, let’s focus on some key points such as eating, light, and movement/relaxation, that are important for good quality sleep.      Sometimes people don’t get quality sleep because of the foods they eat and/or the time in which they eat the food. If you eat poor quality food such as processed foods or foods that are high in sugar, you may be affecti...

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...

Bone on bone is a term that refers to a joint that has lost the cartilage normally found between the two bones of a joint. In the spine, this cartilage is a disc. A disc can thin, wedge, bulge or herniate. This is often associated with osteoarthritis, which can produce swelling, pain and difficulty moving. If the joint function is compromised for too long, the body compensates, changing the shape of the vertebra. First, by thickening and forming a lip along the edge. Eventually bone spurs can emerge, splinting adjacent bones. Like stalactites and stalagmites in a cave. Or how our body would mend a broken arm. Do you know someone with joint inflammation who should see us? Encourage them to look into a conservative approach to improve joint function before relying on risky pain medication or irreversible surgery. Urge them to give us a call.

·          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.

·          Are chiropractic adjustments safe?           Chiropractors go to professional college for up to 8 years to learn anatomy, physiology, and all the physical sciences to know how to adjust patients safely. There are also different forms of adjusting techniques that use heavier amounts of force down to techniques that use hardly any force at all. For instance, at Natural Health, we use the Activator adjusting instrument to adjust our patients which is a very low force metered adjusting technique with a stellar safety record. We also use a muscle relaxing technique to move the vertebra which uses no force. Both of these adjusting techniques are extremely safe.

Natural Health is a “Safe Haven” for Health Truth             What we mean by “safe haven” is that our patients and our patient’s families are welcome to ask us about any question related to health and we will find the true answer for them. Many folks are hesitant to talk about health issues with their usual MD because they know of the blowback they will get when discussing natural health issues. Mainstream medicine has its own philosophy on treating patients and much of their information comes from research done by drug companies and drug salesman that, of course, are biased and perhaps not in your best interest. We understand the need for these companies to make money but we don’t agree with the misinformation that causes patients harm to their health and possibly fatal consequences.             At Natural Health, we are interested in giving our patients truthful infor...

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.

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 th...

The Benefits of a Cyclical Ketogenic Diet The MMT diet is a cyclical  ketogenic diet , high in healthy fats and fiber, low in net carbs with a moderate amount of protein. Nutritional ketosis is the metabolic state associated with an increased production of ketones in your liver; i.e., the biological reflection of being able to burn fat, and is defined as having blood ketones in the range of 0.5 to 3.0 mmol/L. However, a key component that differentiates MMT from most other ketogenic eating plans is its emphasis on CYCLICAL ketosis. Once your body starts to burn fat for fuel, you need to switch to a cyclical ketogenic diet, as long-term continuous ketosis has some serious drawbacks that may actually undermine your health and longevity. The "metabolic magic" in the mitochondria actually occurs during the refeeding phase, not during the starvation phase. Alas, you cannot get to that magic unless you first go through the starvation phase. This is why we refer to the MMT p...

3 Ways to Get to Sleep Find you’re having trouble getting to sleep? Consider booking an appointment with our practice. You’ve darkened your bedroom. It’s quiet. You’ve set the temperature to a comfortable 68 degrees. You’ve avoided eating or exercising before bedtime. You get adjusted regularly to quiet down your nervous system. You’ve avoided the blue light emitted by your digital device. It’s time to fall asleep. Now what? If you’re someone who has difficulty getting to sleep each night, you’re not alone. Millions of people worldwide admit to some type of sleep problem. Sleep insufficiency can contribute to a variety of chronic diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, depression, and obesity, as well as cancer, increased mortality, and reduced quality of life and productivity. Once you’re lying down, think about anything but falling asleep. Here are some helpful suggestions: 1. Starting at your toes and slowly moving towards your head, focus on contracting and relaxing...

What can I do to stop snoring? As you may or may not know, snoring is a possible symptom of underlying issues. In the natural healing world, we feel that anything can cause anything so to stop snoring, you must figure out the cause of the symptom in that individual. Possible causes would include enlarged adenoids and tonsils caused by immune system problems or allergies, extreme fatigue from overwork and stress and possible hypothyroidism, and possible subluxation of the upper cervical spine impinging upon the nerves that allow the body control itself normally. The goal in the clinical setting would be to figure out which one or more causes are involved in that individual. The thyroid connection is often overlooked and we find it to be a very common problem, especially in women. Eating foods that are inflammatory to the body, like refined sugar and flour, can cause the tonsils and adenoids to inflame and lead to snoring as well. So there are many causes and to stop the symptom of s...