May 6, 2003 [Volume 4, Issue 10]
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In this issue of To Your Health:
Watch Their Backs
Children account for over 10,000 backpack-related visits annually to
emergency departments or physicians. Backpacks cause acute injuries, such
as bruises and sprains, and chronic problems, such 
as
persistent low back pain. The daily stress of carrying a backpack on one
shoulder may also alter a child's posture and gait. Despite all these
potential problems, many parents aren't addressing the issue of backpack
safety.
Researchers in a recent study gathered data on parental knowledge of their child's backpack weight by evaluating nearly 200 students, grades K-5, from three Texas schools. Only children with backpacks weighing at least 10% of their body weight were assessed.
Average pack weight was approximately 11 lbs., which represented about 15% of student body weight. Researchers found that fully one-third of students reported their parents had never once checked their backpack contents, and less than 5% of parents had ever actually weighed their child's backpack. In this report in the Archives of Disease and Childhood, the backpacks of students whose parents never checked the packs weighed significantly more than packs of students whose parents kept an eye on pack weight and contents.
As a parent, you are possibly the best source for backpack safety promotion for your child, and can do so simply by inspecting the backpack weight and contents. Physicians and parents should also ensure that student backpacks are the right size; carry no unnecessary or additional items; are worn on both shoulders; and weigh less than 10-15% of the student's body weight.
Reference: Forjuoh SN, Little D, et al. Parental knowledge of school backpack weight and contents. Archives of Disease and Childhood 2003:88, pp. 18-19.
Go to https://www.chiroweb.com/tyh/childhood.html to read more about childhood conditions.
Don't Get Weighed Down
More than 60% of Americans are now overweight or obese, with more women than men falling into this category. Being overweight increases a person's chances of developing numerous chronic conditions, including high blood pressure; heart disease; diabetes; stroke; and breast or colon cancer. Exercise and proper diet can both successfully help you combat weight gain.
A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association focused on only one of these weapons against weight gain: exercise. For a one-year period, 173 overweight or obese women, ages 50 to 75, completed either an exercise or a stretching program. Exercisers completed moderate-intensity exercises, like walking or stationary biking, for an average of three hours per week, while women in the other group stretched once per week but didn't add exercise to their program.
Women who exercised lost several pounds over the year, while women who stretched actually gained weight. Although weight loss in exercisers was modest, fat loss was significant: Those who worked out at least three hours and 15 minutes each week cut their abdominal body fat by 7% and their total body fat by 4.2%, while the stretching-only women saw no significant changes in body fat. Predictably, the more exercise a woman completed, the more weight and body fat she lost.
Don't get weighed down by what your scale says. Even if exercising only helps you shed a few pounds, it is probably vastly improving your health while creating a leaner, fitter you. On top of looking better, working out will improve your cardiorespiratory fitness levels, which can reduce your risk for cardiovascular disease. Also, incorporating a healthy diet into your exercise program will yield much greater weight and fat reductions.
Reference: Irwin ML, Yasui Y, et al. Effect of exercise on total and intra-abdominal body fat in postmenopausal women: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Association 2003:289(3), pp. 323-330.
For more studies on the benefits of exercise, head to https://www.chiroweb.com/find/archives/sports.
Gradual Change
If you've taken a geology course, you know that changes to the earth, such as the formation of mountains, take a very long time. Likewise, our bodies, while not as slow, sometimes take a considerable amount of time to regenerate certain tissues. Glucosamine, a dietary supplement, may help relieve arthritis symptoms and regenerate cartilage; this supplement appears to do its work gradually, however.
Knee osteoarthritis, caused by joint degeneration or "wear and tear" of cartilage, occurs primarily in people who have suffered severe cartilage injury; obesity and aging also add to degeneration. In this study, 50 volunteers with regular knee pain (most likely from cartilage damage or osteoarthritis) were divided into two groups to take either 2,000 milligrams per day of glucosamine or a daily placebo. Over 12 weeks, four clinical testing sessions recorded changes in knee pain and function.
On self-report evaluations over the 12-week period, 88% of those taking glucosamine reported some degree of pain improvement in their knees, compared to only 17% of those taking a placebo. Both groups had improved scores over time, indicating that even the placebo pills had some positive effect, yet quality of life scores were also significantly higher for the glucosamine group than those taking a placebo.
Glucosamine was slow-acting, though. At the dosage of glucosamine taken in this study, most improvements did not appear until after eight weeks of supplementation. The message here is to be patient if you're trying out glucosamine - it might not work at first, but eventually may come around. The authors of this study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine note that this may be the first study to evaluate the effects of glucosamine vs. placebo beyond eight weeks, so over time, supplementation may prove even more effective.
Reference: Braham R, Dawson B, Goodman C. The effect of glucosamine supplementation on people experiencing regular knee pain. British Journal of Sports Medicine 2003:37, pp. 45-49.
Look at https://www.chiroweb.com/find/archives/nutrition for more information on supplements.
A Bad Gut Feeling
Painkillers are popular. Nearly $2 billion are spent annually in the U.S. on prescription NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), not to mention nonprescription drugs in this class (which include aspirin and ibuprofen). These drugs, widely used for arthritis, take their toll: Every year, approximately 100,000 Americans are hospitalized and 16,500 die from NSAID-associated stomach-ulcer complications.
To reduce ulcer complications, specialized NSAIDs (called "COX-2-selective NSAIDs") such as Vioxx and Celebrex - which reportedly cause minimal stomach damage - are being prescribed for arthritis patients. To compare these "safer" treatments to other NSAIDs for arthritis, roughly 300 patients with arthritis and a predisposition to ulcer bleeding were divided to receive either regular NSAIDs or the special NSAIDs daily.
After six months, the probability of recurrent ulcer bleeding was nearly the same in both groups: about 6% in the regular-NSAID group and 5% in the special-NSAID group. Renal failure, hypertension and fluid build-up in the legs were observed in nearly the same number of patients in both groups, although the newer drugs appeared to offer some advantage.
The authors of this study in The New England Journal of Medicine note that patients receiving the new drugs showed an incidence of ulcer complications that continued to rise beyond the six-month study period. Arthritis patients at a high risk for recurrent ulcers don't appear to have a much safer treatment option in newer painkillers. Perhaps a holistic, drug-free approach to arthritis would be better. Talk to your chiropractor for more information.
Reference: Chan FKL, Hung LCT, et al. Celecoxib versus diclofenac and omeprazole in reducing the risk of recurrent ulcer bleeding in patients with arthritis. The New England Journal of Medicine 2002:347(26), pp. 2104-2110.
For more general health information, check out https://www.chiroweb.com/find/archives/general.
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