Commercial Drive - East Vancouver Chiropractor; Dr. Dominic Chan DC - "Obesity Can Promote Osteoarthritis"

Many people can get confused when the term "Arthritis" comes up. Arthritis is an inflammation of the joint that often is accompanied by swelling, redness, stiffness and pain.

The two main forms of Arthritis I'll see in my practice are Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoarthritis. Rheumatoid, is often associated with an autoimmune response in the body. It usually affects the extremities first, ie. the hands, is often bilateral and in progressive cases can result in deformity.

Osteoarthritis, on the other hand is often connected to "wear and tear" of the joints associated with activity, injury and trauma. I often see this in patients who were very active in their early years. Also, I often see this type of condition affecting one side or joint more than the other.

This recent article draws a direct correlation between obesity and the prevalence of Osteoarthritis. When you think of it, it isn't hard to see how carrying around excess weight would be detrimental to your joints. Especially, your knees, hips and ankles.

This study was done on about 336 participants who were recruited from an existing Osteoarthritis study. These participants were determined to have minimal or no loss of cartilage in their knees. They were followed up over the next 30 months and their results were monitored.

What researchers found was; at 30 months follow up, over 20% of the participants showed a slow loss of articular cartilage in the knees, whereas over 5% of the participants showed significant loss.

The researchers found that Obesity and being overweight was a strong risk factor for developing Osteoarthritis. In fact that they discovered that with every 1 unit increase in a patient's Body Mass Index (BMI) their chances for developing Osteoarthritis increased 11%.

The moral of this story is maintaining a healthy body weight by adopting a healthy lifestyle and exercise is not only benefiting your heart and preventing disease, but also good for your joints!!

If you live near the Commercial Drive neighborhood of East Vancouver, please contact your COMMERCIAL DRIVE - EAST VANCOUVER CHIROPRACTOR HERE!!!!

Commercial Drive - East Vancouver Chiropractor; Dr. Dominic Chan DC - "How Chiropractic Works - Down to the Basics"

A very common question I get from patients, particularly those who have never been to a Chiropractor before is, "How does Chiropractic Work?". I will try to explain this here in a very plain and understandable fashion. I'm not going to get into the intricacies of the nervous system and no where will you see me using the term;
"life force". I want readers to "get" this easily without having to struggle with the rationale.

Let's start with the basics. Our body's movements come about due to the beautiful interaction of our Nervous System (Brain/Spinal Cord/Associated nerves), Skeletal System (Bones) and Muscular system. Our brain sends signals via our nerves to the muscles. They Contract/Relax and thus we get 'movement'. The action of this Contracting/Relaxing actually changes the length of the muscles as they act on our Skeletal system. Because our muscles are attached to bones, as they shorten or lengthen, they create movement.
(Please see the picture above to get an idea of how contracting/relaxing muscles act on our bones and joints to create movement)

Now here in lies the problem. Due to a variety of factors such as; stress, posture, accidents, being out of shape, lifting the wrong way, etc, sometimes we can actually injure our muscles,ligaments or other soft tissue, like discs. This in turn may cause spasms in the muscles and cause them to feel very tight and/or painful. (Think here of how a cramp feels). Current understanding will connect the muscular spasms to inflammation and the inflammatory response. But I also tell my patients that another reason the muscles may be tight in spasm is for protection.

Think about it this way. If your muscles are tight, then movement is restricted. For you it probably feels very bad to be really stiff, but the way I look at it, it might serve a purpose. If there is irritation involving the joints and other soft tissue structures, wouldn't immobilizing the area so no further irritation/inflammation occur be a good thing?

But unfortunately, that's not all. These contractions/spasms of muscles also affect our skeletal system as well. If you remember that our muscles affect joints and bones. Then it's clear that problems with the muscles will also affect the bones and joints. This in turn puts irritation on our joints that is recognized by the nervous system as "something's wrong". Now do you know what your brain does when it senses that "something's wrong"? Well, it will often force you to take notice by making you feel things like Pain, discomfort, stiffness, numbness, burning etc.

Get the picture? Anyone that has ever hurt themselves before can attest to the fact that pain or discomfort is definitely something you will pay attention to.

Well here is where Chiropractic comes in. A Chiropractor is trained to assess and identify the reason, or cause of why a patient complains of symptoms. Very often, bodily aches and pain can be traced back to a structural problem in the spine or joints. Almost always this issue will be accompanied by muscle spasms.

(Side note: This is the reason why I have had patients tell me that they tried Massage therapy to get relief but they felt better for only a short time, and the pain returned. I tell them, often treating just the muscles is only part of the solution, they need to be addressing the problems and irritation of the joints to get better results)

In my practice, not only do I try to relieve the muscular tension and spasms, but at the same time, I try to relieve the irritation on the joints and nervous system. I try to restore proper alignment and function in the underlying joints so the body can start to "work" like it's supposed to. Often times, I've had patients tell me that they feel relief after their very first session. I caution them though because their body and muscles need time to heal.

I hope this sheds some light as to why Chiropractic works for many patients. I think this explanation is very 'bare boned'. Although there are a lot of details I didn't mention here, hopefully this post will help.

As always, feel free to leave a message, or contact YOUR COMMERCIAL DRIVE - EAST VANCOUVER CHIROPRACTOR HERE!!!!!

Commercial Drive - East Vancouver Chiropractor; Dr. Dominic Chan DC - "Mediterranean Diet Can Keep You Smarter!"

So for a while now, the media has been touching on the benefits of a "Mediterranean Diet". So what does that entail exactly. Well, this type of diet is one that is rich in Olive Oil, vegetables, whole grains, fish and fruit. It has already been shown that the Mediterranean diet can help lower risks for depression, heart disease, cancer and premature death.

This study wanted to explore some of the reasons why.

The latest study was led by Dr. Nikolaos Scarmeas, an associate professor of neurology at Columbia University Medical Center, New York City, and involved 712 men and women averaging 80 years of age. All of the participants had no history of stroke and received MRIs to look for brain infarcts -- tissues that have died because of reduced or cut-off blood supply.

The participants in this study were separated into three different groups; those who did not follow the diet closely, those who followed it to a moderate degree and finally, those who adhered to the diet closely.

Scarmeas found that nearly 240 of the participants showed signs of damage to the brain based on follow up MRI's. These were considered areas of infarcts or areas where the blood supply had been compromised, and thus damaged.

What the study found was that the group that followed the diet moderately had a 21% decreased chance of showing signs of brain damage compared to the lowest adherence group. Better still, was the group that followed the Mediterranean diet closely. Their chance of demonstrating signs of damage was 36% less than the lowest adherence group.

Scarmeas, explains that the as we age, the incidence of mental decline increases. He also explains that these small infarcts that lead to small areas of brain damage is an explanation why. Although the areas affected are small, the thing to note here is the cumulative effect of suffering many of these infarcts over time.

This study suggests that following a Mediterranean diet can help decrease the incidences of this type of damage, thus providing a protective factor to cognitive function as we age.

Remember if you're by the Commercial Drive neighborhood of East Vancouver, visit your COMMERCIAL DRIVE - EAST VANCOUVER CHIROPRACTOR HERE!!!

Commercial Drive - East Vancouver Chiropractor; Dr. Dominic Chan DC - "Self-Control is Contagious"

I'm sure many of you have heard the current epidemic of childhood obesity and lack of fitness. I have many parents in my practice and many of them ask me about fitness and exercise for their children. My response is always two parts; 1) Yes, exercise will be great for your kids and 2) It starts with you.

Although I have been saying this for years now, this study reinforces the notion that good (and bad) habits can be contagious. Especially when it comes to children, their parents will be the biggest role models in their lives.

This study looked at the influence of our friend's habits and actions on ourselves, however it would not be hard to see how the same effect might influence child-parent interactions.

The researchers in this study took some very novel approaches to test one's self-control. The various methods involved testing one's level of self-control after experiencing or watching situations where they saw good, and bad self-control. An example was; a study involved assigning 42 people to list the names of friends with good and bad self-control. As the participants took a test designed to measure self-control, a name was flashed very briefly on a computer screen. Those who saw the name of a friend with good self-control did better on the test than those who saw the name of a friend with poor self-control.

The moral of the story was two-fold; one, was that your own self control could be influenced by your social network. So if you wanted to improve and enhance healthy habits, it would suit you to associate with people who already have those habits. (Obviously, this could also work if you wanted to impart good habits on to others, like your children. You would have to assume the role of the model, so your children could learn good habits from you).

The second message from this study was; Accountability. Meaning that others aren't just watching your behaviours, but can be influenced by them. A perfect example would be a woman who is trying to lose weight but lives with a partner who indulges in junk-food all the time and is a couch potato. Guess what, even involuntarily, the partners actions and behaviours may be sabotaging her efforts to improve her health.

Something to think about.

If you're in the Commercial Drive area of East Vancouver, contact YOUR COMMERCIAL DRIVE - EAST VANCOUVER CHIROPRACTOR HERE!!!

Commercial Drive - East Vancouver Chiropractor; Dr. Dominic Chan DC - "Major Reason 'Get Fit' Resolutions Fail"

Well we are just starting the new month of February and if you are still adhering to your new years resolution to 'get fit', Congratulations!!

But as we all know, many new year's resolutions to lose weight, exercise more and eat healthy, fall to the way-side right about now. Many of my patients who are interested in starting an exercise program ask for advice on how to avoid the common pitfalls. There are many out there who need to exercise and adopt a healthier lifestyle. Statistics from the US reveals that about 67% of the population is either overweight or obese. But more alarming is the number and rate of children who are becoming overweight and/or obese.

Surprisingly, it's not that overweight people do not recognize the benefits of exercise. A survey of 1500 men and women conducted at the George Washington University Medical Center, found that overweight respondents were even bigger believers in the benefits of exercise than their 'normal weight' counterparts.

So 'what's the problem?' you may ask. New insights are suggesting, that the key may lie in your self-image and more specifically, your self-consciousness.

Researchers found that over-weight people found the prospects of exercising around people who were fit was very unappealing. The mere idea of huffing and puffing and sweating around healthier figures, literally turned them off exercise! This kind of self-consciousness understandably affects women more than men. Women were more likely to feel intimidated by the exercise equipment, feel more pressure to abide by fashion standards and feel pressure by other healthclub goers.

"Overweight people have received the message from their physicians and all the publicity about the importance of exercise," said study author Wayne Miller, a professor of exercise science at George Washington University Medical Center. "Most of the negativism or barriers that are associated with not participating in exercise are emotional, and there are differences between men and women."

Another reason many people fail to maintain an exercise or healthy lifestyle program is they often bite off more than they can chew. Many people try a workout that they just don't like, or they do too much.

In my practice I'm a big proponent of exercise for all my patients, BUT I always advise on taking it slow. Especially if the patient is new to exercise. Try small things first and go from there. Try taking the stairs, maybe more fruit here and there. You get the picture. Losing weight and getting healthy will take time, honestly. If you come to terms with that and set realistic, achievable goals, there's no reason why a slimmer, healthier you can't be realized!

If you're by the Commercial Drive neighbourhood in East Vancouver, contact me here at COMMERCIAL DRIVE - EAST VANCOUVER CHIROPRACTOR!!!

Commercial Drive - East Vancouver Chiropractor; Dr. Dominic Chan DC - "Yoga Can Help Low Back Pain"

Patients in my practice are encouraged from the very first visit to stretch and adopt healthy practices for their muscles and joints. From my experience, those who practice yoga not only benefit from increased flexibility and strength, but they become less susceptible to future injuries. Sometimes my patients are very interested in trying yoga but don't know where to start. Here are some tips I generally recommend to these patients;

1)Find a Good Teacher - This may seem obvious but unfortunately, I have heard horror stories of instructors, not being very attentive to their students and students going on to hurt themselves. Associated with this, is find an attentive instructor. Meaning, if you are a beginner and you are having difficulties, your instructor should be able to recognize this and allow you to go at your "own pace". Forcing a beginner to do the same things as a seasoned veteran is a recipe for disaster.

So I encourage my patients to get recommendations from friends and colleagues of good classes that they might enjoy.

(If you live by the Commercial Drive neighborhood in Vancouver, I would recommend; Unity yoga, just off 10th Ave and Commercial Drive. I would also recommend taking classes at EastSide Yoga, again on Commercial Drive. Ask for Natasha, she's very good!)

2)Start off slow - There are many styles of yoga out there. Some are very relaxing and focus on stretching. Others focus more on strength and conditioning and can actually be a demanding workout for some. So find one style that works for you. If you are a beginner and just want to become more limber, perhaps Hatha would be more appropriate for you.

3)Join a Class! - I make this recommendation because some people will try yoga at home following a dvd. Although this isn't bad, per se. I would definitely recommend a class first. Primarily because it helps most beginners to work with a teacher who can guide you and correct any mistakes. (I think it's better to know if you're making a mistake, correct it and perfect the technique rather than just wonder is you're doing it right)

Another added benefit is that when you join a class, you often become acquainted with other students. This can actually be extremely important to your success and your continued involvement.

Yoga has so many benefits for your body as well as your piece of mind. But with anything, you should know what you're getting yourself into. Try it out! See if you like it. Chances are very good that your body will thank you for it!

If you live by the Commercial Drive neighborhood in East Vancouver contact your COMMERCIAL DRIVE - EAST VANCOUVER CHIROPRACTOR HERE!!!

Commercial Drive - East Vancouver Chiropractor; Dr. Dominic Chan DC - "Prescription Painkiller Overdoses on the Rise According to Study"

In my practice I often come across patients who have used prescription painkillers to manage their pain. Very often,they go to see their family doctors or a doctor at a walk in clinic and they complain of severe back or neck pain. After a usually brief exam and history, they are sent home with a prescription for Tylenol 3, Oxycodone, Naproxen etc. Usually when I uncover this during a history in my office, the patient admits that they don't want to become "hooked" on the medication for the long term. They are looking for an alternative. A more natural method of pain relief and management, without the aid of prescription drugs. These people are concerned, and according to this study being published today in the the Annals of Internal Medicine, they should be.

This study reviewed the pharmacy files of nearly 10, 000 patients who were prescribed opioids such as; oxycodone and hydrocodone, for 3 months between 1997 and 2005. The results were alarming, but perhaps not surprising. The researchers found that 51% of the patients overdosed on these drugs and tragically, 6 of these overdoses were fatal.

The study found a clear correlation between the risk of overdosing and the dose prescribed. Those who were prescribed a higher dose were 9 times more likely to oversdose. "The rate of overdose was strongly related to dose," said senior study author Michael Von Korff, a senior investigator at the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle. "For patients currently receiving higher-dose regimens, their rate of overdose was almost 2 percent per year, which is a lot."

One reason for the greater reliance on opioids is a recognition among physicians that chronic pain is a serious problem, hindering people from working, sleeping and enjoying their lives, Von Korff said. These types of "chronic pain" included; back or neck pain, headaches, jaw pain, pain in the extremities, arthritis and menstrual pain or injuries.

Coincidentally, a Chiropractor can offer very reasonable and effective treatment options for all of the above noted conditions.

On a personal note, I am not a Chiropractor who will advise my patients to steer clear of all prescription medications. I do however believe that a patient needs to be educated and aware of the risks and benefits of medication, especially for pain. I believe that helping patients find strategies to manage their pain involving a healthy lifestyle with sustainable health practices is far superior than to just popping pills.

If you're in pain and want a natural way to find relief, visit your COMMERCIAL DRIVE - EAST VANCOUVER CHIROPRACTOR HERE!!!!