Feb

Body On Fire

The immune system is supposed to be our greatest defense in defending against pathogens and rebuilding damaged tissue. Without it, your cold would win and your sore back would never heal. Chronic inflammation, brought on by an immune system in overdrive, could lead to illnesses including cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

Inflammation-signaling cells or C-reactive proteins (CRP), is a molecule released by the liver as part of the immune response. These levels should go back to normal levels after defending the body, but instead hang out in the blood. What keeps the battle going? Recurring irritants, such as cigarette smoke, for one. Or, as we now know, carrying too much extra weight, or simply getting older.

The efficiency with which your liver detoxes your blood and circulation are two huge contributing factors to your CRP levels.

“It’s very subtle,” says Professor Joel Mason, director of the Vitamins and Carcinogenesis Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts. “It’s inflammation on a biochemical level.”

During a full-blown infection, for example, you might see your CRP level shoot up from 0mg/L (of blood) to 1,000mg/L. Chronic inflammation, on the other hand, might register a benign-looking 3 mg/L. But even at such a slow burn, this silent war takes a toll on the body. A CRP level of 3mg/L is enough to triple your risk of heart disease. In fact, chronic inflammation is connected to many of the illnesses we see more often as we age.

“It’s very subtle,” says Professor Joel Mason, director of the Vitamins and Carcinogenesis Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts. “It’s inflammation on a biochemical level.”

“Inflammation is thought to be an important basis not just for cancer, but for insulin resistance and diabetes and atherosclerotic disease and any number of other conditions,” Mason says. “There is a lot of research going on into what role inflammation plays in a lot of the chronic degenerative diseases that our society falls prey to.”

Inflammation and Obesity

And guess what inflammation is connected to? Enlarged fat cells bring on inflammation for a number of reasons. They release fatty acids into the blood, which seem to spur an inflammatory response. People who carry a lot of weight also tend to have high numbers of macrophages in their fat. Macrophages are immune system weapons that normally gobble up pathogens or dead cells.

Researchers believe the body sends the macrophages to clean up dead fat cells, the numbers of which increase dramatically with obesity. Once there, the macrophages infiltrate the fat and start sending out pro-inflammatory signals. In laboratory studies, obese mice that had excess macrophages started making a lot more insulin, and eventually developed insulin resistance.

“With obesity, there is a release of fatty acids and other factors that fuel inflammation and insulin resistance,” says Atkins Professor in Metabolism and Nutrition Andrew Greenberg, director of the HNRCA’s Obesity and Metabolism Laboratory.

For a long time, scientists thought that the extra fat we carry on our bodies was fairly inert stuff—just more baggage to slow us down. But more recent studies, including groundbreaking research by Greenberg, have shown that fat is actually a hormonal powerhouse. As people gain weight, their fat cells grow larger.

When that happens, the cells churn out several inflammation-inducing proteins, known as cytokines. And they do it at a surprising rate. One of these cytokines is Interleukin-6. You usually find IL-6 when the body’s immune system is doing its day job, fighting an infection or trying to heal a burn, for example.

So what can you do?

Take a test. It is called a C-reactive Themesprotein test, and it measures the degree of HIDDEN inflammation in your body.
Change your diet. Eating anti-inflammatory foods (berries, fish, leafy greens, almonds) can provide your cardiovascular system with the efficiency it needs to cleanse the blood of these cytokines that keep the inflammation levels present.
Take a supplement. I recommend Now Foods Liver Detoxifier and Regenerator. I like vegetarian gel caps because they are made of plant cell walls, so they break down easier in your stomach allowing for a more efficient absorption. They also contain Tumeric and Milk Thistle Extract, which has been shown in clinical and non-clinical studies to support the liver, as measured by standard liver enzyme laboratory tests. In addition, it contains N-Acetyl Cysteine and Methionine, two amino acids known to enhance the production of glutathione in the liver. Glutathione, a major cellular antioxidant, plays an essential role in liver detoxification mechanisms. Also included in this Liver Formula are other herbs (Schisandra, Bupleurum, and Scute) that have been shown in non-clinical studies to support healthy liver function.

Feb

The Heart Loves Yoga

Yoga for Atrial Fibrillation

The first ever yoga study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found yoga to be a safe, effective and relatively cheap therapy for improving the lives of heart patients.

The study conducted by The University of Kansas Hospital found that,

“…rigorous practice of yoga can help reduce episodes of irregular heartbeat and improve the symptoms of anxiety and depression often associated with atrial fibrillation. On average, yoga was found to cut patients’ episodes of atrial fibrillation in half and significantly improve quality of life.”

The study involved 49 patients with atrial fibrillation who had no physical limitations. The first three months being the control phase, the participants could do their regular exercise routine, you know probably the usual we all do daily: rock climbing, base jumping, spelunking etc. The next three months each participant took part in a yoga class three times a week involving breathing exercises, yoga postures, meditation and relaxation. They were all yoga newbies who were also given an educational DVD and encouraged to practice at home on a daily basis.

The result?

“Data showed the yoga intervention significantly reduced the number of episodes of irregular heart beat among atrial fibrillation patients during the study phase compared to the control phase where subjects were participating in the physical activity of their choice. Yoga also reduced depression and anxiety scores and improved quality of life scores in the areas of physical functioning, general health, vitality, social functioning, and mental health.”

Reducing depression and anxiety while improving quality of life? Those are the best side effects I’ve ever heard of.

“These findings are important because many of the current conventional treatment strategies for atrial fibrillation include invasive procedures or medications with undesirable side effects. Success with these therapies varies widely, and they are often only modestly effective in controlling heart rhythm,” Lakkireddy said.

“It appears yoga has a significant impact on helping to regulate patients’ heart beat and improves their overall quality of life. Any intervention that helps in reducing or controlling the arrhythmia burden in atrial fibrillation can have a huge impact on public health.”

Feb

The Mystery of Foot Pain

What do the Lakers star Kobe Bryant, the quarterback Eli Manning, the Olympic marathon runner Ryan Hall and the presidential candidate Mitt Romney all have in common? Foot pain. Believe it or not, Plantar Fasciitis is one of the most common sports injuries, and it’s also one of the least understood.

While Plantar Fasciitis is a very common injury, the consensus on the cause and treatment remains clinically a mystery. Little is understood, medically, about overuse sports injuries in general and that’s why, as a result, they remain difficult to treat.

Most medical professionals agree that Plantar Fasciitis is, very basically, an irritation of the soft tissue that runs along the bottom of the foot, attaching the heel bone to the toes and forming your foot’s arch. When that tissue is irritated, typically through everyday activity in incorrect shoes or not correcting gait or pronation/supination issues with orthotics, you develop pain deep within the heel. The pain is usually most pronounced first thing in the morning, since the fascia tightens while you sleep.

Check out the pronation/supination scale to your right. Do you typically pronate or supinate while standing or walking? You may be in store for Plantar Fasciitis down the road….

Now comes the problem that medical professionals encounter; You see, when surgeons biopsy the tissue, they do not find a build up of inflammation. It turns out, long term sustained injuries often result in weakened tissue from small micro tears over and over again as you pound the pavement or do any type of repetitive motion.

Sometimes this repetitive tissue damage overwhelms the body’s natural ability to heal itself. Instead the micro-tears do not get repaired, the tissue becomes tighter at either end of the area of injury and the spot where the micro-tears started becomes weaker and weaker. This produces a degenerative affect.

In my opinion, this is the result of restricted blood flow. Circulating your blood is important not just for your heart, but also to cleanse the blood of toxins and repair damage to areas of injury. In the case of Plantar Fasciitis, the injury lies in your feet, which happens to be lower than your heart. The better your circulation, the easier it is to push the blood back up to the heart removing the inflammation, restoring the tissue and rebuilding it stronger.

Treatments include:

Physical Therapy Exercises
Passive Yoga
Cortisone Injections
Ice Treatment

Many treatments are applied to Plantar Fasciitis, including physical therapy. I employ both a PT protocol and I supplement with gentle passive yoga to increase blood flow to and from the injured site. Many studies have shown that without activity, the injury heals slower. By incorporating both exercises and passive stretching, you allow for a proactive form of healing, not just a temporary band aid. Healing and then teaching a preventative routine for the future is the way to keep your injury at bay.

Another common remedy by doctors is a Cortisone shot. A Cortisone injection is a shot of steroid in the affected area to reduce inflammation and soreness. In a study published in the British Journal of Medicine last year, cortico-steroids proved effective in treatment to the injured Plantar Fasciitis. But if Plantar Fasciitis is a degenerative diseased tissue issue, such as tennis elbow, steroids like Cortisone demonstrated that they actually slow tissue healing.

Perhaps steroids make you feel better in the short run, but weaken the overall health of the tissue in the long run. This is not a real remedy, especially if you are an athlete that wants to get back to your sport. Going back into training after weakening a crucial soft tissue can put you at a high risk for a more serious re-injury.

Ice can also be used to calm down the affected area. Though an injury that lasts more than 2weeks is not considered an inflammation (normally your body’s inflammatory response reacts within that time frame, so if it takes longer to recover, it becomes a degenerative issue.

The best options are a combination of physical therapy, gentle passive circulatory exercises and using ice to calm down soreness.

Feb

Lady Gaga’s Hip

Yes, even superstars get injured.

Doctors discovered that she suffered a labral tear in her right hip. Actually this is not an uncommon injury in athletes. Read on for preventative exercises and a lesson in hip anatomy!

What’s A Labral Tear

Symptoms include hip pain or a “catching” sensation in your hip joint. Initial treatment may include pain relievers and physical therapy (see below for exercises). Using arthroscopic techniques, surgeons can remove loose fragments from within the joint and trim or repair the hip labral tear. Surgery should only be for a worse case scenario injury as complications like scar tissue, range of motion and infection can result.

Hip Anatomy

The labrum is a strong fibrocartilage which forms a gasket around the socket of the head of the femur. It secures the femur to the pelvis. Here’s a breakdown of the anatomy:

The hip is a ball-and-socket joint. The socket is formed by the acetabulum, which is part of the large pelvis bone. The ball is the femoral head, which is the upper end of the femur (thighbone).
A slippery tissue called articular cartilage covers the surface of the ball and the socket. It creates a smooth, frictionless surface that helps the bones glide easily across each other.
The acetabulum is ringed by strong fibrocartilage called the labrum. The labrum forms a gasket around the socket.
The joint is surrounded by bands of tissue called ligaments. They form a capsule that holds the joint together. The undersurface of the capsule is lined by a thin membrane called the synovium. It produces synovial fluid that lubricates the hip joint.

The Exercises

Part of Lady Gaga’s issue lies in her workout routine. Obviously during performance, she is used broad range of motion, dynamic movements. To prepare for these quick broad movements, an athlete must strengthen the muscles that support the joint–specifically your pelvic girdle. These muscles prevent your pelvis from rotating forward or back, maintaining a neutral position. When your pelvis has laxity (or flexibility) this often means you may be prone to pain in your hips, back, and legs due to the incorrect position. Do these exercises to prepare for dynamic movement and stabilize the pelvis. I recommend 2x per day, 10 reps each.

Feb

The Stretch Factor

Flexibility is as important to your health as cardio exercise. There are many doctors who believe that stretching does not decrease your risk of injury, but this is one doctor who does. Lengthening and toning your muscles aids in the ability to respond to rapid muscular changes–so when you slip on the ice, your body is able to catch itself and not tear a muscle. Prepping your muscles doesn’t always prevent injury–you may have a genetic proclivity for injury–but it should change the way your body adjusts to these rapid changes. Try these stretches for flexibility 60seconds each, 1x/day post exercise to increase your stretch factor.

Flexibility is recognized as an important component of physical fitness. Like other components of fitness, flexibility is more important for some sports than others. For example, long distance runners tend to be relatively inflexible because the activity of running does not require large deviations in motion. However, sprinters, and especially hurdlers, require excessive hip motion for sprinting and hurdle clearance. Not only are flexibility requirements sports-specific, but they can also be joint- specific. In general, athletes must have sufficient musculoskeletal flexibility to meet the demands of the sport, otherwise top performance will not be achieved and injury risk will increase.

An individual’s flexibility is a genetic attribute with potential for improvement with training and exercise.

There are many approaches to stretching, but typically it involves some type of active and non-active (static) motion. Static stretches are thought to be safer because they involve a slow passive stretch to the targeted muscle, such as a straight leg raise for the hamstrings. The muscle is held in a stretched position for 10–60 seconds and is repeated two-to-six times. Active stretches are movements intended to be repeated and release the targeted muscle group without a hold period, such as standing with the knees straight, feet spread apart, and alternately touching the right foot with the left hand and the left foot with the right hand. Five to ten repetitions for up to 60 seconds are typical. Injury risk may increase with active stretching if the movements are too fast.

Active stretches are also an integral component of yoga. Many athletes may improve their flexibility by incorporating yoga movements into their training program. Regardless of the type of stretch to make improvements, it is essential that it sufficiently stresses the target muscle or joints. However, it is also important to avoid causing an injury by over stressing the target area.

The general recommendation is to stretch to the point of mild discomfort, but not to the point of pain. One of the first noticeable improvements to a flexibility program is an increased tolerance of a stretch, where the perceived discomfort decreases. Improving flexibility will allow for an increase in joint range of motion.

For long-term improvements in flexibility, stretching should be performed at least every other day, for a minimum of six-weeks. If the stretching regime is not maintained, the gains in flexibility will soon start to reverse.

Feb

Bone Mineral Density and The Athlete

Start thinking about Bone Mineral Density. It’s an important factor in injury prevention, now and in your future health–and it’s cumulative. That means if you’re an athlete and aren’t getting the proper nutrition, rest and relaxation your body needs now, you’re setting your body up for failure later.

Bone Mineral Density is a cumulative history of energy availability, hormonal fluctuations, genetics, good nutrition, behaviors and environmental factors. As you get older, bone mineral density falls as our muscular infrastructure changes. When you do damage to your body, by starving/binging yourself, exercising too hard, not getting enough sleep and allowing stress to become a regular component in your life, you seriously alter your future body. Osteoporosis is not always caused by accelerated bone mineral loss in adulthood. It may also be caused by not accumulating optimal BMD during your lifetime. Here are 5 fail proof ways to ensure you are healthy in your future self.

1. Eat for energy every 3 hours. If you are expending more because you are training for that marathon, don’t reduce your caloric intake too heavily; If you don’t get the energy you need–in the form of protein, carbs and healthy fats–you are stressing out your body. Focus on increasing these foods:

Healthy Proteins: Steel cut oats, wild game, whole grain rice, spirulina, wild caught cold water fish, organic free range eggs, soybeans, lentils, sprouts, broccoli, spinach, almonds, walnuts
Healthy Carbohydrates: Wheat Bread, quinoa, berries, kiwi, ginger, figs, cherries, pomegranate, sprouts, spinach, yellow vegetables, purple potatoes, beets, sweet potatoes, broccoli, asparagus, leafy greens, kale, cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, sweet peppers, avocado, coconut.
Healthy Fats: Extra virgin olive oil, pumpkin seeds, olives, extra virgin coconut oil, avocado, wild cod water fish, flax meal, almonds, walnuts, leafy greens.

2. Sleep! Sleep regulates breathing patterns, hormonal fluctuations and how you absorb, store and utilize nutrients.

Get 8 hours of restful sleep.
Prep for sleep each night; Clean sheets, no light (no cell phone, laptop, alarm clock light), herbal tea to open your respiratory tract and calm you.
Exercise that day at least 20min.

3. Reduce mental stress. Mental stress is probably the most ignored factors in the inflammatory response. Inflammation causes bone mineral loss, so it’s really important to address emotional stress on a regular basis.

Talk to friends on a daily basis. Tell them what’s up in your life.
Be honest with people you care about
Meditate for 10min each day. Sit or lie flat in a quiet place. Relax your muscles starting with your toes and work your way up until your relax your facial muscles. Breathe deeply, inhaling and exhaling for a count of 2, then 3, then 4 seconds. Clear your mind; think only of your breath in and out.
Get up and take a walk or move around when you are feeling overwhelmed. Don’t take your cell with you.

Jan

Wake Up Call: The Importance of Sleep

Rebuilding Mode

Sleep is an essential functional part of being and staying healthy. For athletes, it is a strong factor in performance. Most of the repair and strengthening in your body occurs during stage 4 of the sleep cycle–your deepest sleep. But if you don’t go through all the cycles appropriately, you won’t get to the 4th stage, inhibiting many vital functions needed to repair, restore and strengthen your body.

Stage 1: In the first stage, your muscles relax as you fall asleep.

Stage 2: Five to ten minutes after falling asleep, you enter a deeper slumber and your brain starts to produce chemicals that release hormones.

Stage 3 & 4: These are the deepest and most reparative stages. The body releases growth hormone, which helps repair bone and muscle.

REM Stage: The 5th stage of sleep is vital for pain tolerance and motor skills. It strengthens cognitive and nervous system function.

_______________________________________________________________________

According to the National Sleep Foundation, 75% of Americans have problems sleeping and are not getting the recommended 7-9 hours per night our bodies need to recuperate from the daily grind.

Here’s how sleep affects our system:

Cellular Repair
Repair for the daily wear and tear on the body is correlated with how much deep sleep you get. If you don’t have a regulated night cycle, you won’t get to the deepest stage of sleep that is required for release of growth hormone. These hormones shift the body’s process to anabolic–where it is able to initiate muscular repair, break down fat and stimulate cell division to replace old or malfunctioning cells.

Digestion and Weight Regulation
It is a digestion regulator, releasing hormones that break down fat to supply energy for tissue repair. Adequate sleep is required for weight management. Sleep deprivation causes hormones like leptin–a hormone that regulates a feeling of fullness–to decrease. You end up feeling hungrier without being satisfied by what you eat, causing you to eat more and gain weight.

Muscle Relaxation
During the night muscles can take a break and relax. Respiratory muscles also relax, resulting in the breathing rate slowing down. During REM sleep, muscles become so relaxed that they actually become temporarily paralyzed, called muscle atonia. When muscles are relaxed, there are less metabolites formed, allowing for additional cellular repair and replenishing.

Immunity
It keeps the immune system in check by releasing hormones that act as messengers, telling the immune system to produce antibodies, kill potentially cancerous cells and decrease inflammation.

Cognitive Function
It also enhances cognitive function by consolidating memory. Storing short term memory to long term memory occurs during sleep through the strengthening of neuronal connections.

Jan

Focus: ACL Injury Prevention

An estimated 70% of ACL injuries do not involve contact, and may be from a simple misstep. How can you help avoid these injuries and stay off the sidelines?

Athletes who have suffered an ACL injury are at increased risk of developing arthritis later on in life, even if they have surgery for the injury. It’s a good idea then, to take some preventative actions to protect your knee from injury.

The muscle that controls knee function is the Vastus Medialis. As the patellar moves across the knee with lateral motion, the Vastus Medialis stabilizes the joint.

Preventative training focuses on plyometrics, balance, and strengthening/stability exercises. Integrate these exercises into your workout to keep the knee healthy!

Plyometrics:

Balance:

Strengthening/Stability:

Dec

5 Golden Gifts of Rehab

1. Gaiam Yoga Block $10.95

2. Soybu Compression Pants $70

3. KT Athletic Tape $19.99

4. Yoga Tune Up Trigger Point Massage Ball $9.95

5. Garden of Life Vitamin Code Multi-Vitamin $24.99

Dec

The Athlete and The Anti-Inflammatory

Bullet Points:

Ibuprofen use prior to or during exercise, hampers the ability of muscles to rebuild themselves after exercise

Frequent use of ibuprofen, causes higher overall levels of bodily inflammation

In America, the average athlete has been trained to think that an ibuprofen will heal any injury. In fact, 70 percent of athletes report that they take ibuprofen before every workout or competition, viewing the drug as a preemptive strike against muscle soreness.

Now there is some evidence that taking an anti-inflammatory prior to exercise may be causing more inflammatory damage–particularly to the digestive system–creating an overall systemic inflammation, inhibiting muscle repair and growth.

In the study by Dr. Kim Van Wijck, published this month in the Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands found elevated levels of inflammation in their participants who combined ibuprofen and exercise several hours after the exercise compared with only mild inflammation for the participants who had not taken ibuprofen.

The implications of this are not fully understood yet but if athletes use ibuprofen prior to exercise for a year or more, they could be doing significant damage to their intestinal wall. “Intestinal integrity might be compromised.” In that case, small amounts of bacteria and digestive enzymes could leak regularly into the bloodstream. When intestinal integrity is compromised this could affect the ability of tired muscles to heal and regenerate.

Bottom line: We still don’t know the effects of ibuprofen use coupled with exercise but we know that it is not a harmless combination, so always proceed with caution. Ibuprofen post exercise only when necessary.

167 days ago Short URL Comments

Ibuprofen/Ibuprofen/Rehabilitation

athletes and ibuprofen/core fit chicago/corefit chicago/corefitchicago/ibuprofen and exercise/ibuprofen prior to exercise/inflammation/injury prevention/intestinal damage/Kim Van Wijck/Maastricht University/Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise/shayna robinson

CoreFit

Filed under Injury Prevention …