June 20, 2001[Volume 2, Issue 13]

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In this issue of To Your Health:

• Abusing Antibiotics
• Walking Reduces Women's Risk of Heart Disease
• Lifting Strategies for the Golden Years
• Maintain Strong Bones with Vegetable Protein

Acute sinitus is an inflammation of the membranes lining the sinuses. It affects perhaps 20 million adults and children a year and is among the most common childhood ailments for which antibiotics are routinely prescribed. Serious complications such as meningitis can occur, but are rare.

Despite guidelines that recommend their use when symptoms linger, antibiotics have little or no effect against most acute sinus infections in children. The most recent study to make this claim, published in Pediatrics, comes amid growing concern that the overuse of antibiotics is creating drug-resistant germs.

One hundred and sixty-one children, eight years old on average, were given one of two common penicillin-type amoxicillin drugs or dummy pills for two weeks. By the start of the third week, about 80 percent of the children in all three groups showed similar improvement.

Antimicrobial treatment offered no benefit in overall symptom resolution, duration of symptoms, recovery to usual functional status, days missed from school or childcare, or relapse and recurrence of sinus symptoms. The authors suggest that parents practice awareness, and doctors wait until symptoms have lasted at least three weeks before prescribing antibiotics.

Talk to your doctor of chiropractic about nonpharmaceutical alternatives for managing acute sinusitis and other childhood illnesses. For more information on childhood conditions, go to https://www.chiroweb.com/tyh/childhood.html.

Reference: Garbutt JM, Goldstein M, Gellman E, et al. A randomized, placebo-controlled trial of antimicrobial treatment for children with clinically diagnosed acute sinitus. Pediatrics 2001:107(4), pp. 619-625.

Walking Reduces Women's Risk of Heart Disease

Can a leisurely nine-minute stroll once a day reduce a woman's risk of coronary heart disease? A five-year study of some 40,000 women found that a little exercise, such as walking one hour a week, halved the risk of heart disease compared to women with no reported physical activity. Women with other risk factors, such as smoking, high cholesterol levels and obesity, greatly benefited.

According to the report posted in the Journal of the American Medical Association, this study should encourage women who have no leisure-time physical activity, as the benefits are great and the effort is minimal. It was the amount of time spent walking, not the pace, that counted, the study found; women who strolled benefited as much as those who walked more rigorously. A brisk walk is more effective, but any kind of walking appears to be beneficial.

So keep that body in shape! You'll look better, you'll feel better, and you'll be protecting your heart against disease. Ask your doctor of chiropractic for more information.

Reference: Lee IM, Rexrode KM, Cook NR, et al. Physical activity and coronary heart disease in women. The Journal of the American Medical Association 2001:285(11), pp. 1447-1453.

For additional information on women's health, go to https://www.chiroweb.com/tyh/women.html.

Lifting Strategies for the Golden Years

Elderly people are prone to injury during lifting because of the effects of decreased flexibility and strength with aging. As a result, vertebral compression is common amongst the elderly, and may result from a fall or during lifting. The relation between lifting strategy and strength and postural stability in the elderly is unknown. This study, published in Spine, attempts to help elders choose safe lifting techniques.

Knee and hip muscle strength appeared to be a controlling factor in whether subjects chose a back or a leg dominant strategy. Stronger subjects, those with stronger knee and hip muscles, used a leg dominant strategy. Subjects with proportionally weaker hip muscles compared with knee muscles preferred a leg dominant style of lifting, or squat-lift. The hip muscles rotated around the pelvis, providing a stable base for the muscles to lift the trunk. In a leg-dominated strategy, the pelvis is in a rotated position at the time of liftoff. The subjects with hip muscle weakness could take advantage of the pelvic position and extend the trunk before using their knee muscles to lift their body weight. Weaker subjects appeared to prefer a back dominant strategy.

The choice of a back dominant lifting style is intuitive when the knee muscles are especially weak. Beyond emphasizing strength and endurance exercise in elderly patients, weak elders should be taught to use a leg dominant lifting strategy, or if they are not physically able, to use a combined back/leg strategy.

Your doctor of chiropractic can provide you with more information on proper lifting techniques and tips on managing and coping with weakened bones and muscles. To learn more about senior health issues, visit https://www.chiroweb.com/tyh/senior.html.

Reference: Puniello MS, McGibbon CA, Krebs DE. Lifting strategy and stability in strength-impaired elders. Spine 2001:26(7), pp. 731-737.

Maintain Strong Bones with Vegetable Protein

Elderly women who get too much protein from animal products like meat and cheese risk fractures and bone loss. Improving bone health can be as easy as using vegetables as a great source of protein. In a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, women who received a higher ratio of their protein from meat or dairy products rather then vegetables, had three times the rate of bone loss.

Researchers gave more than 1,000 women a questionnaire, which covered 64 different kinds of foods. They then broke the results down to show how much of each group the women ate and looked at how much protein the women got from animal products and how much from vegetables. They were then categorized by intake level of animal protein.

Vegetables have some acid, but they also have a substance called base (a biocarbonate), which neutralizes acid. Our bodies don't like too much acid, like the levels found in meat/dairy protein, so our kidneys help us adjust by excreting acid in urine. Because we get older, our kidneys become less and less capable of excreting the acid. As a result, bones, which are partly made up of base, step in to try to neutralize the acid. Over decades, this process causes the bone to dissolve, causing it to lose bone mass and calcium, which increases the risk of fractures.

The point is not to stop eating meat and cheese, but to eat more fruits and vegetables instead. Talk to your doctor of chiropractic about the basics of a healthy, balanced diet. For online information on nutrition, go to https://www.chiroweb.com/tyh/nutrients.html.

Reference: Sellmeyer DE, Stone KL, Sebastian A, et al. A high ratio of dietary animal to vegetable protein increases the rate of bone loss and the risk of fracture in postmenopausal women. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2001:73, pp. 118-122.

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