92 Year Old Woman Finishes Marathon!

HONOLULU -- Gladys Burrill wasn't thinking about breaking a world record when she power-walked and jogged through the Honolulu Marathon at age 92.

But Burrill, a part-time Hawaii resident nicknamed the "Gladyator," learned soon after finishing the Dec. 12 race with a time of nine hours and 53 minutes that she likely qualified for the recognition. Her advice for others wanting to live a long and healthy lifestyle? "Just get out there and walk or run," she said Monday. "I like walking because you can stop and smell the roses, but it's a rarity that I stop."

Alternative Therapies for Back Pain

Musculoskeletal Pain: The most common and shortest-term back pain is often caused by the out-of-condition back doing normal things, or the conditioned back doing extraordinary things. If you've strained a muscle or aren't properly aligned, alternative therapies such as physical therapy (PT), Feldenkrais, pilates and yoga will gradually soothe you. Feldenkrais (which is minimal movement, analogous to minimal music) promotes proper use of the proper muscles. Massage may also be a good idea, but be careful; if you have a neurological problem, massage may make you worse.

Herniated Disk: The McKenzie technique of physical therapy works to draw the offending material from behind the vertebrae, where the nerves are, and out of harm's way over 75 percent of the time. Even large disk herniations that may suggest a need for surgery can respond to physical therapy within a few weeks. By properly arching the back, a partial vacuum develops in front of the herniation. The disk reacts by moving the herniated material toward the vacuum, lowering pressure on the nerve. While you're waiting for McKenzie physical therapy to work its magic, acupuncture can reduce the pain.

Piriformis Syndrome: This is a combination of muscles and nerves. The piriformis muscle in the buttock contracts and compresses the sciatic nerve, so the symptoms are neurological -- sciatica -- but the cause is in the muscle. After a steroid injection, yoga and physical therapy are quite effective in stretching the muscle and teaching you to relax it yourself. Acupuncture can sometimes expedite the healing process.

Sacroiliac Joint Derangement: The last lumbar vertebra fits into the sacrum, and the sacrum fits into the iliac bones, the two bones that wrap around the pelvis. When there is misalignment, there is lots of severe pain. Most establishment doctors aren't as good at diagnosing and treating this as osteopaths, chiropractors and PTs., so it might be a good idea to go to these professionals. Acupuncture, Feldenkrais and yoga can augment injections, pain patches and non-steroidals.

Spondylolisthesis: In Greek: 'listhesis' means slipping. In your back, one vertebra slides out of alignment. It usually slips forward, but sometimes back or to one side or the other. It's a radiological diagnosis, and state-of-the-art EMG techniques can determine if that's your problem. PT to strengthen abdominal muscles (front back and sides) and possibly an abdominal binder are good treatments, but some yoga also helps, as does Alexander Technique, which can work wonders with posture.

Spinal Stenosis: This is where the canal inside the spine gets too narrow, compressing nerves. You may need an MRI to be sure of the diagnosis. Posture is the best conservative solution -- Alexander Technique is probably the single best treatment, though PT is helpful too. Stenosis may worsen inexorably over time, and then it's one condition where surgery may be the best option.

Arthritis: The little joints in the spine -- the facets -- have the components that are structurally like knees and shoulders, which are other favorite sites for arthritis. And like knees and shoulders, facet joints are also vulnerable to intense pain. You can't stop arthritis, but you can slow it down. Conventional non-steroidals and more sophisticated anti-inflammatories are a great help, as is acupuncture. There are physical therapists who specialize in this condition. Yoga will improve your range of motion, and there are some good studies that suggest yoga is an effective anti-inflammatory.

by: Dr. Loren Fishman

Spring Clean Your Brain

There's something about the ritual of spring cleaning -- whether it's reorganizing your closets and drawers or giving your house a good sweep -- that is both comforting and reinvigorating. Likewise, giving your brain a spring makeover will not only help you think clearer, but it will keep you looking younger and more radiant. The reason is that aside from its other duties, our brain directly impacts our mood and physical appearance. Did you know, for example, that your face mirrors the chemical activity taking place in your brain? This activity produces micro-facial expressions -- those tiny, involuntary reflections of our thoughts that exude from within and give us that healthy glow. In other words, when your brain is at your best, you will look and feel your best.

Here are three ways to give your brain a makeover this spring:

1) Enjoy spring's bounty.

Take advantage of the fresh produce cropping up at your local supermarket this time of year. Studies show that people who consume a diet rich in fruits and vegetables are not only leaner but have sharper memories. Aim for a rainbow of colors in your meals so that your body and brain will reap the benefits of phytonutrients, nature's powerful beautifying agents. These compounds create the distinctive bright colors you see in apples, oranges and red or green peppers.

2) Go for the glow.

Now that the weather is warmer, go outside and get your heart pumping by engaging in some outdoor activity. Getting your blood flowing will put that rosy glow back in your cheeks, and moderate sunlight will give you that much-needed rush of vitamin D. This increased blood flow rejuvenates our skin, making it smoother and suppler. Physical activity that spikes our heart rate also bathes our brain in a cascade of growth factors that promote the rebirth of brain cells and stronger neural connections. Studies show that aerobic exercise actually increases the size of our brain, which improves our mental capacity. It is the most natural way to improve your mood and self-confidence after months of hibernating from the cold. In fact, regular exercise has been shown to be as effective as antidepressants for mild to moderate depression.

3) Get your beauty rest.

Once we turn the clocks forward, the days get longer, which often prevents us from getting enough sleep. We tend to stay up later in the evenings, and sunlight wakes us up earlier in the mornings. Light exposure, both natural and artificial, inhibits the release of the sleep hormone melatonin that is known for its powerful antioxidant and beautifying effects.

Work Hours and the Correlation to Heart Disease

Could the number of hours spent at work predict an individual's chance of developing coronary heart disease?

One group of European researchers thinks it's a possibility.

Based on the group's findings, presented in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, people who worked more than 11 hours per day had a 1.5-fold increased risk of developing coronary heart disease when compared to other subjects working seven to eight hours per day. Coronary heart disease, a condition that causes the blood vessels to the heart to narrow, is the leading cause of mortality in the United States. Other heart conditions such as angina and heart attacks contribute to the disease, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

www.discovery.com

Smoking Causes Gene Damage in Minutes

Those first few puffs on a cigarette can within minutes cause genetic damage linked to cancer, US scientists reported. In fact, researchers said the "effect is so fast that it's equivalent to injecting the substance directly into the bloodstream," in findings described as a "stark warning" to those who smoke.

The study is the first on humans to track how substances in tobacco cause DNA damage, and appears in the peer-reviewed journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, issued by the American Chemical Society.Using 12 volunteer smokers, scientists tracked pollutants called PAHs, or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, that are carried in tobacco smoke and can also be found in coal-burning plants and in charred barbecue food.They followed one particular type -- phenanthrene, which is found in cigarette smoke -- through the blood and saw it form a toxic substance that is known to "trash DNA, causing mutations that can cause cancer," the study said.

"The smokers developed maximum levels of the substance in a time frame that surprised even the researchers: just 15-30 minutes after the volunteers finished smoking," the study said. Lung cancer kills about 3,000 people around the world each day, and 90 percent of those deaths are attributable to cigarette smoking.

The research was funded by the National Cancer Institute.

The MTA & Your Health

Consider your shiny new $104 Metro Card your express pass to... poor health.

According to a new British study, public transit riders are six times more likely to suffer from acute respiratory infections. Only take the subway sometimes? Well occasional riders aren't safe either, in fact the study showed they are most at risk. Those who ride public transit everyday may build up an immunity to viruses, making the occasional straphanger the one to get sick more often.

The study followed 138 patients at a doctor's office, and compared their public transit habits with their frequency of getting sick. While the study was conducted at the University of Nottingham, far from our own MTA, it's a safe bet that it translates to every public transit system in the world... except Sweden, of course.

Daily News

Fewer Big Fish in the Sea

Fewer big, predatory fish are swimming in the world's oceans because of overfishing by humans, leaving smaller fish to thrive and double in force over the past 100 years, scientists said Friday.Big fish such as cod, tuna, and groupers have declined worldwide by two-thirds while the number of anchovies, sardines and capelin has surged in their absence, said University of British Columbia researchers. Meanwhile, people around the world are fishing harder and coming up with the same or fewer numbers in their catch, indicating that humans may have maxed out the ocean's capacity to provide us with food.

"By removing the large, predatory species from the ocean, small forage fish have been left to thrive." The researchers also found that more than half (54 percent) of the decline in the predatory fish population has taken place over the last 40 years.

"Humans have always fished. Even our ancestors have fished. We are just much much better at it now," said UBC scientist Reg Watson.

Our Growing Population

A growing, more affluent population competing for ever scarcer resources could make for an "unrecognizable" world by 2050, researchers warned at a major US science conference Sunday. The United Nations has predicted the global population will reach seven billion this year, and climb to nine billion by 2050, "with almost all of the growth occurring in poor countries, particularly Africa and South Asia," said John Bongaarts of the non-profit Population Council.

To feed all those mouths, "we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000," said Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). It takes around seven pounds (3.4 kilograms) of grain to produce a pound of meat, and around three to four pounds of grain to produce a pound of cheese or eggs, experts told AFP. "More people, more money, more consumption, but the same planet," Clay told AFP, urging scientists and governments to start making changes now to how food is produced.

Food/Sex/Music: All the Same to the Brain

Whether it's the Beatles or Beethoven, people like music for the same reason they like eating or having sex: It makes the brain release a chemical that gives pleasure, a new study says.

Previous work had already suggested a role for dopamine, a substance brain cells release to communicate with each other. But the new work, which scanned people's brains as they listened to music, shows it happening directly.

While dopamine normally helps us feel the pleasure of eating or having sex, it also helps produce euphoria from illegal drugs. It's active in particular circuits of the brain.

The tie to dopamine helps explain why music is so widely popular across cultures, Robert Zatorre and Valorie Salimpoor of McGill University in Montreal write in an article posted online Sunday by the journal Nature Neuroscience.

The study used only instrumental music, showing that voices aren't necessary to produce the dopamine response, Salimpoor said. It will take further work to study how voices might contribute to the pleasure effect, she said. Music isn't the only cultural experience that affects the brain's reward circuitry. Other researchers recently showed a link when people studied artwork.

Nature Neuroscience

What's in Your Drinking Water?

Hexavalent Chromium Found in Drinking Water of 31 US Cities

(Erin Brockovich made Hexavalent Chromium popular back in 2000-you remember the movie)

An environmental group that analyzed the drinking water in 35 cities across the United States, including Bethesda and Washington, found that most contained hexavalent chromium, a probable carcinogen.

The federal government restricts the amount of "total chromium" in drinking water and requires water utilities to test for it, but that includes both trivalent chromium, a mineral that humans need to metabolize glucose, and hexavalent chromium, the metal that has caused cancer in laboratory animals.

Last year, California took the first step in limiting the amount of hexavalent chromium in drinking water by proposing a "public health goal" for safe levels of 0.06 parts per billion. If California does set a limit, it would be the first in the nation.

Hexavalent chromium was a commonly used industrial chemical until the early 1990s. It is still used in some industries, such as in chrome plating and the manufacturing of plastics and dyes. The chemical can also leach into groundwater from natural ores.

More Info Found at Environmental Working Group

Do Barefoot Running Shoes Really Work?

By: Dr. Robert A. Kornfeld

Barefoot running shoes are designed to re-create a "natural," barefoot running dynamic on "unnatural" surfaces like concrete, asphalt, red top, black top, etc. How can we have a barefoot running shoe? Doesn't barefoot denote without shoes?

Choosing to run on non-yielding surfaces without the protection afforded by proper running shoes can be harmful to the foot and ankle and cause even more problems downstream from compensation patterns. So what really are these pedal marvels and why is everyone running to take their shoes off?

Barefoot running shoe manufacturers believe that the human foot, unimpeded by synthetic surfaces and restrictive running shoes, should function at its best. That is a correct assumption, save for the fact that the human foot was designed long before the paving of roads. In fact, uneven, grassy surfaces are the most natural surface for the human foot because it helps the body navigate and respond to uneven terrain, while at the same time absorbs shock, stabilizes weight and propels the body forward. In order for this to occur successfully, most of us are born with a flexible forefoot and a rigid or stable rearfoot. In other words, at heel strike -- when your heel hits the ground -- your leg from the hip down is aligned for optimal function and is stabilized during normal walking.

So who should be using barefoot running shoes? The answer is very few people should. Only those people with stable (not flexible) first metatarsals will do well with these shoes, as well as those with very powerful lower leg musculature (although even those with powerful lower leg function will ultimately go on to some type of pathology).

For the full article click here

Americans Falsely Believe Their Diet is Healthy

Nine in 10 Americans say their diet is healthy but only a quarter limit the amount of fat or sugar they eat, and two-thirds don't eat enough fruit and vegetables. "Americans tend to give themselves high marks for healthy eating, but when we asked how many sugary drinks, fatty foods, and fruits and veggies they consumed, we found that their definition of healthy eating was questionable," said Nancy Metcalf of Consumer Reports Health, which conducted a recent poll.

Of the 1,234 American adults polled, 89.7 percent said their diet was "somewhat" (52.6 percent), "very" (31.5 percent), or "extremely" healthy (5.6 percent). But 43 percent of the survey respondents said they drank at least one sugary soda or other sweetened drink every day, and just one in four said they limited sweets, sugars or fats in their diet, the poll conducted in early November found. Four in 10 Americans said they ate "pretty much everything" or "mostly everything" that they wanted. A third said they were at a healthy weight when they actually had a body mass index (BMI) of an overweight or obese person, while eight percent thought they were overweight or obese, but their BMIs suggested they were not. One in three adults is obese.

www.discovery.com