To Your HealthTYH Archives

August 27, 2002 [Volume 3, Issue 17]

 

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In this issue of To Your Health:

Wincing while You Work

After a long day of repetitive work, you may experience pain in your neck and shoulder muscles. This pain can result from muscle and tissue overuse, or from psychological factors, such as low social support, job dissatisfaction, and low individual job control.

In a study published in the journal Spine, researchers evaluated risk factors for neck or shoulder pain and tenderness in over 3,000 workers at 19 production plants. Workers performing nonrepetitive tasks were used as a comparison group.

Almost twice as many workers performing repetitive work (7%) had neck or shoulder pain with muscle tenderness, compared to the comparison group (less than 4%). Pain was strongly linked to a decreased quality of life. Factors associated with neck or shoulder pain were previous injury, high repetitiveness, high force, female gender, and high job demands.

If your job involves repetitive or heavy work, you are especially susceptible to developing work-related neck or shoulder pain. Be sure to follow proper procedures to avoid injury, and talk to your chiropractor about what he or she can do to minimize the pain -- and the risk of developing it.

Reference: Andersen JH, Kaergaard A, Frost P, et al. Physical, psychosocial, and individual risk factors for neck/shoulder pain with pressure tenderness in the muscles among workers performing monotonous, repetitive work. Spine 2002:27(6), pp. 660-667.

To learn more about neck pain, go to https://www.chiroweb.com/tyh/neckpain.html.

Tea: It Does a Body Good

It's no secret that tea is good for you: Drinking tea is known to help prevent heart disease and cancer. Tea also contains high amounts of caffeine, flavonoids, phytoestrogens, and fluoride -- all compounds suspected of exerting influence on bone mineral density (BMD). Low bone density can increase a person's risk for broken bones.

The authors of a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine wanted to evaluate the effects of tea on bone strength. They questioned over 1,000 Taiwanese individuals about how much tea they drank and how long they had been regular tea drinkers. Bone scans were used to measure BMD in the spine, hip, and total skeleton of the individuals, who were all age 30 or older.

Drinking tea regularly for 6-10 years was associated with higher BMD in the spine, and drinking tea for over 10 years was associated with a higher BMD at all measurement sites. The amount of tea consumed per day or week was not significantly linked to bone density -- only the duration. Half of all the people studied were habitual tea drinkers.

Tea comes in different forms: green (unfermented), oolong (partially fermented), or black (fermented) tea; all three types were similarly related to BMD in this study. Consider drinking any form of tea instead of other less-healthy beverages like soft drinks and coffee.

Reference: Wu CH, Yang YC, Yao WJ, et al. Epidemiological evidence of increased bone mineral density in habitual tea drinkers. Archives of Internal Medicine 2002:162(9), pp. 1001-1006.

For more information on good nutrition, go to https://www.chiroweb.com/find/archives/nutrition.

No Argument -- Always Buckle Up

Seat belts are designed to restrain adults safely in car accidents, yet children must use these same belts as soon as they are too old to ride in a car seat. Seat belts may concentrate substantial forces on children's abdomens and spines because of their shorter stature, creating "lap-belt syndrome." Some parents, concerned about this syndrome, don't buckle up their children; others don't out of sheer neglect.

To determine if children are safer wearing or not wearing seat belts, the authors of a study in the British Medical Journal looked at data on 470 children, ages 4-14 years, and nearly three times as many adults involved in car accidents in Canada. Only fatalities and injuries rated at least "moderately severe" were considered.

A frightening 40% of the children involved in car accidents were not wearing seat belts. Even when their parents were belted, 22% of the children were still not buckled up. Children riding in the front seat were almost 10 times more likely to be injured or killed if not wearing seat belts; in the back seat, their odds for injury were more than doubled if not buckled up. Adults also fared better wearing seat belts. They were more than twice as likely to be injured without a belt on, no matter where they were sitting in the vehicle.

There is no debate: Adults and children should always wear seat belts. Despite the possibility of seat belts injuring a vehicle's occupant, the risk for injury and death is always higher if not wearing one. Be sure you and your kids are buckled up before you start to drive, and keep children in car seats until they are old enough to safely ride without them. For more information about child passenger safety, visit http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/childps.

Reference: Halman SI, Chipman M, Parkin PC, et al. Are seat belt restraints as effective in school age children as in adults? A prospective crash study. British Medical Journal 2002:324, pp. 1123-1126.

For more studies on pediatric health, check out https://www.chiroweb.com/find/archives/pediatrics.

All for One and One for All

Almost 50 million Americans suffer from high blood pressure (BP), and cardiovascular disease has been the primary cause of death in the U.S. for over 80 years. Studies show that reducing BP reduces risk for heart disease and death, even when lowered by only a small amount. Medications have been shown to lower risk for cardiovascular disease, but because they may have dangerous side effects, aerobic exercise alone can be prescribed to lower BP.

To find out if exercise can reduce BP in all groups of people, the authors of a recent review in the Annals of Internal Medicine examined the results of more than 50 previous studies. They combined the results of these studies (involving a total of about 2,500 individuals) to determine the effectiveness of exercise to reduce BP in various groups, and to determine if specific types of exercise are more effective than others.

Any form of aerobic exercise significantly reduced BP in every type of previously sedentary person, regardless of race, gender, weight, and presence of hypertension (high BP). Frequency and intensity of exercise also did not appear to significantly affect BP.

Even a small decrease in average BP can dramatically lower your risk for cardiovascular disease and death. Whether or not you currently have high blood pressure, maintain a consistent regimen of aerobic exercise to ward off disease, premature death, and obesity.

Reference: Whelton SP, Chin A, Xin X, et al. Effect of aerobic exercise on blood pressure: A meta-analysis of randomized, controlled trials. Annals of Internal Medicine 2002:136(7), pp. 493-503.

To read more about sports and fitness, go to https://www.chiroweb.com/find/archives/sports.

 

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