» 2008» December

When I returned to town on Sunday night, I found on my doorstep an excellent article from Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune. It outlined a study from the University of Chicago Medical Center that found that “At least 2.2 million older adults in the U.S. take medicine in combinations that could trigger dangerous drug interactions, causing gastrointestinal bleeding, muscle breakdown, disruption in heart rhythm and other serious problems. Overall, 1 in 25 older adults risked serious drug interactions, the study found. For men ages 75 to 85, it was as high as 1 in 10.” Study author Dr. Stacy Tessler Lindau said risks might be even higher because the research focused only on major interactions among the 20 most common drugs and dietary supplements.

This study confirms what we talk about so often in our office: It is vitally important that you take as few medications as possible. And we’re not just talking about prescription medications, the study states that half of the negative interactions involved over-the-counter drugs such as aspirin. Your chances of adverse interactions increase exponentially with each drug you take, this is the reason that reactions to correctly prescribed medications is one of the top four causes of death in this country. (Lindau said the analysis did not find people taking drug combinations that should not occur under any circumstances. This indicates that the medication was correctly prescribed, yet serious interactions occurred anyway!)
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How can you decrease or eliminate medications? Most medications we take are for lifestyle conditions - conditions caused directly by our lifestyle. To get off of these drugs we must address the lifestyle that causes the conditions. Chiropractic directly plays a role in this. We all know that chiropractic care helps remove the need for pain medication - even if that isn’t our major goal, but did you know that studies show that it can help remove the need for other types of medications as well? For example a recent study done in conjunction with University of Chicago’s Blood Pressure Center showed upper cervical chiropractic adjustments effective in lowering blood pressure.

Our goal with all of our patients is for you to be on as few medications as possible. We want to show you how by making lifestyle change you can remove the need for many drugs, and we want to work with your medical doctor in helping you remove the danger of these medications from your life. (Remember, never stop taking a prescription medication with consulting with your medical doctor first.) Together we can work to put you on a path to health and wellness, drug free!

MSNBC - Early flu season cases are resisting Tamiflu

The drug companies and their researchers are seemingly baffled again early into the flu season! At least the public can finally start to see that taking medication or getting a shot doesn’t buy you immunity. The best bet is playing offense by doing the things that make us stronger naturally like getting adjusted regularly, getting off our butts and working out, staying positive, eating fresh fruits and vegetables, etc…..

Sign up for our dinner party in January to have fun and learn time proven strategies to boost immunity and slow the aging process, including why Dr. McKinley would NEVER take the flu shot!! Call our office for details.

For our first look at ways to save money by preventing America’s Most Expensive Health Conditions we are going to take a look at number 9 on the list - Back Problems. It is estimated that 32 billion dollars was spent on the care of back problems last year including 17 billion on outpatient and 8 billion on inpatient medical care.

Like many conditions there are a numerous ways to maintain the health of your body to prevent low back pain. One simple action, of which their are numerous programs and resources available, is exercise, specifically core stabilizing exercises. These exercises, which can be performed in the home, help to protect the lower back by preventing improper and promoting proper movements of the spine. The savings of this type of exercise are demonstrated in a study by the University of Florida with the Brooke Army Medical Center. It found that soldiers that utilizing a simple low back stabilization program had a 40% less rate of back pain over soldiers not using the program. This resulted in a savings of over 4 million dollars over the 4 year period of the study.

The best way to prevent lower back pain is to maintain the health of the joints and nerves of the spine with chiropractic adjustments. Most of the time back pain is the result of a chronic problem which builds over weeks, month, even years, until it reaches a threshold where pain finally occurs. The problem is there long before the pain starts. By intervening in the early stages of this process we can much more quickly, easily, and cheaply fix the problem, and then address the lifestyle issues that cause it, rather than waiting until it becomes much more serious.

Chiropractic care has been shown to be the treatment of choice for low back pain for both success rate and cost effectiveness. A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, looked at the effect of systematic access to chiropractic care on the overall and neuromusculoskeletal specific utilization of health care resources within a large managed-care system. This study found that individual members with chiropractic coverage had a 12% lower annual medical care cost than those without it. The researchers concluded that access to managed chiropractic care may reduce overall health care expenditures through several effects, including (1) positive risk selection; (2) substitution of chiropractic for traditional medical care, particularly for spine conditions; (3) more conservative, less invasive treatment profiles; and (4) lower health service costs associated with managed chiropractic care. Some additional findings included:

• Back pain patients with chiropractic coverage had fewer inpatient hospital stays than did those without chiropractic coverage (9.3 vs 15.6 stays per 1000 patients).
• Patients who had coverage for chiropractic care for back pain had fewer magnetic resonance imaging tests compared with those without chiropractic coverage (43.2 vs 68.9 magnetic resonance images per 1000 patients).
• The rate of lower back surgery among patients with chiropractic coverage was lower as well (3.3 vs 4.8 surgical procedures per 1000 patients).

The key to back pain, like most health conditions, is to take an active role in your health. Don’t wait until you are in pain or are sick, do something to help yourself now!

As the uncertainty of the economic crisis continues, many of us are being forced to cut our expenditures and look for places to save money. For many people one of the first things to go are healthy lifestyle options such as gym memberships, trainers, fresh (organic) fruits and vegetables, well checks at the doctor, etc. A recent article by Forbes outlines exactly why this is the wrong way to approach saving money. It details the 10 most expensive health conditions is the US. They are as follows:

1. Heart Disease - Estimated Spending $76 Billion
2. Trauma Conditions - $72 Billion
3. Cancer - $69 Billion
4. Mental Disorders - $55 Billion
5. Asthma and COPD - $53 Billion
6. Hypertension - $42 Billion
7. Diabetes - $34 Billion
8. Osteoarthritis - $34 Billion
9. Back Pain - $32 Billion
10. Childbirth - $32 Billion

What do 8 out of these 10 conditions have in common? They are all determined in a large part by your lifestyle! Outside of Trauma and Childbirth (I suppose you could include Childbirth as a lifestyle condition, but I’d say it’s a good one) you have control over your chances of suffering from one or more of these conditions.

What does this have to do with saving money? Over 50% of all bankruptcies in this country are due to medical expenses (and the majority of those are by people who have health insurance). By choosing to eliminate health promoting activities from your life in an effort to save money, you are actually costing yourself money in the long run by increasing the chance you will have one of these super expensive conditions. You can look at it like a retirement account, a little bit of investing in yourself now will pay big dividends in the future.

Over the next few weeks we’ll look at each of these conditions and talk about ways you can approach your lifestyle to prevent them.

Thanksgiving is over and the holidays are approaching, I hope all of you are starting to have those warm, snuggle up to the fireplace moments, with hot chocolate and warm apple cider to boot! I’m sure you are hustling about, whether it is down Elston to visit Target, Home Depot, or Best Buy for some last minute sales, or maybe the annual trip to State Street or the Magnicifent Mile. Family and friends are having holiday parties, snow is in the air, and the kids are trying to peek at their presents under the tree. I truly love the holidays, and I sincerely hope you are making it special as well.

I also wanted to take this moment, as your doctor, to make sure you are taking care of your body during these stressful times. As you have probably heard me talk about before, not all stress is bad, in fact holiday times bring about tons of good stress. Even though it is good, it still can take a toll on your body. Obviously, during this time of year it is difficult, if not impossible to keep our typical healthy routine on track, but that doesn’t mean we have to forget about our body until January 10^th, 2009. As you read this newsletter, I want you to try to think of just one or two things that you can do to maintain your health this year. Maybe you try to eat 10% better than you normally would, or try one movement oriented activity like ice skating or walking through the Lincoln Park Zoo to look at the Christmas lights. Grab a good book (we’ve recommended a couple) or call up and reconnect with an old friend on Christmas Eve. It doesn’t have to be hard, it’s all about trying. Remember out health is determine by our choices; I choose to be happy and healthy this holiday season. I know you’ll do the same!

Yours in Health

Dr. Heath McKinley