I have linked to Environmental Working Group, EWG, in the past in regards to their groundbreaking analysis and ranking of sunscreen's effectiveness and toxicity.

Now they are providing useful Thanksgiving cooking tips.

As Senior Vice President for Research at EWG, I want to make it easy for you to prepare your holiday feasts with your family's environmental health in mind. Just follow these simple tips as you shop, cook and eat together:

• Choose food low in added chemicals and pollutants
• Use non-toxic cookware
• Store and reheat leftovers safely

1. CHOOSE FOOD LOW IN ADDED CHEMICALS AND POLLUTANTS
   

   Food can contain ingredients we don't want to eat -- from pesticides to hormones to artificial additives to food packaging chemicals. Some simple tips to cut the chemicals:

   • Buy organic when you can. I make sure fresh fruits and vegetables are on the menu, and I go organic when I can. Organic produce is grown without synthetic pesticides (I prefer my dinner without, thanks!). Organic meat and dairy products also limit your family's exposure to growth hormones and antibiotics.
   • It's OK to choose non-organic from our "Clean 15" list of less-contaminated conventional fruits and vegetables, too. EWG's Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce ranks popular fruits and vegetables based on the amount of pesticide residues found on them. Check out our Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce (and get the iPhone App).
   • Cook with fresh foods, rather than packaged and canned, whenever you can. Food containers can leach packaging chemicals into food, including the synthetic estrogen bisphenol A that's used to make the linings of food cans. Go for fresh food or prepared foods stored in glass containers. Pick recipes that call for fresh, not canned, foods.
   
   

   When I'm planning a grocery trip, I like to check in with EWG's Healthy Home Tip: Go organic and eat fresh foods.

2. USE NON-TOXIC COOKWARE
   

   Using a great pan makes a huge difference when I cook. I skip the non-stick so that my kids (and our dog) don't have to breathe toxic fumes that can off-gas from non-stick pans over high heat.

   Non-stick cookware is in most American kitchens. Is it in yours?

   
   • For safer cooking, we suggest cast iron, stainless steel and oven-safe glass. Yes, there are many new products on the market, but most companies won't tell you exactly what's in them. Even if they're advertised as "green" or "not non-stick," manufacturers do not have to release their safety data to the public.

     If you're in the market for a new cast iron pan, purchase it through Amazon and a portion of your purchase total will go to EWG!

3. If you're 'stuck' with non-stick, cook safer with it. You can reduce the possibility of toxic fumes by cooking smart with any non-stick cookware you happen to own: Never heat an empty pan, don't put it in an oven hotter than 500 degrees F and use an exhaust fan over the stove.



Learn more about cooking safely in our Healthy Home Tip: Skip the non-stick.

4. STORE AND REHEAT LEFTOVERS SAFELY
   

   Leftovers can extend the joy of a holiday -- by giving you a break from the kitchen! But be sure to avoid plastic when storing and (especially) when heating them. Here's why -- and how:

   • Skip plastic food storage containers if you can. The chemical additives in plastic can migrate into food and liquids. Ceramic or glass food containers (such as Pyrex) are safer. Click here to get a 10-piece Pyrex set on Amazon (and a portion of your purchase will go towards helping EWG!).
   • Don't microwave food or drinks in plastic containers, even if they claim to be "microwave safe." Heat can release chemicals into your food and drink. Microwave ovens heat unevenly, creating hot spots where the plastic is more likely to break down.
   • If you do use a plastic container, handle it carefully. Use it for cool liquids only; wash plastics by hand or on the top rack of the dishwasher, farther from the heating element; use a paper towel instead of plastic wrap to cover food in the microwave. Also, avoid single-use plastic as much as possible -- reusing it isn't safe (it can harbor bacteria) and tossing it out fills up landfills (and pollutes the environment).
   
   

   Read more about heating and storing food safely in our Healthy Home Tip: Pick plastics carefully.

I hope these tips make having a green holiday easier. Happy Holidays!

A study published at American Cancer Research Convention last Thursday Nov. 3rd linked colon and breast cancers to the immobility of sitting.  In North America alone, an estimated 1/3 of colon cancers and 25% of breast cancers or up to 85,000 colon cancers and 60,000 breast cancers per year could be attributed to immobility of sitting. 30 min of exercise per day is no longer sufficient. Risk of cancer starts to rise as soon as one sits still for an hour. 

Breaking down the immobility of sitting is no longer a choice for better spinal health.

I recommend a Back Vitalizer is the perfect tool for breaking down the immobility of sitting, at work, at home and on the road. Why stop short with the suggested 1-2 minutes of activity break every hour, when one can maintain trunk activity through out the hours of sitting?

Beside, it is also a popular and thoughtful holiday gift for loved ones. Watch this ProActive Chiropractic video on the variety of options. 

CTV News

CARMICHAEL, Calif. - Nov. 3, 2011 - As the St. Louis Cardinals celebrate their 11th World Series title and the San Francisco Giants relive their 2010 championship, the Foundation for Chiropracitc Progress points to the role of chiropractic care in promoting faster recoveries, reduced risk of injury and enhanced on-field performance. Chiropractic team doctors Ralph Filson, D.C. of the Cardinals, and Michael Gazdar, D.C. of the San Francisco Giants, explain that regular chiropractic care provides baseball players with proper spinal function and balance to reduce the risk of spine-related injuries, enhance recovery time and improve overall performance.

Dr. Filson, who began providing care to the players in 1990 through its then manager, Joe Torre, Major League Baseball (MLB) legend, says, "Chiropractic care is always available to players of the Cardinals and the visiting team, it is utilized by many. With chiropractic care, players report that they feel better and have better endurance. Body mechanics are significantly improved, enabling better pitching, hitting and throwing."

In 2006, Dr. Filson was awarded a World Series ring for his role with the Cardinals, and was proud to play a similar role in the 2011 championship. He also treated David Eckstein, Most Valuable Player on the Cardinals 2006 World Series Team, citing the importance of chiropractic care in helping players to achieve optimal performance: "I am proud to have provided chiropractic care to the Cardinals for so many years, and gratified that chiropractic has contributed to the players' optimal performance during every game. We are all excited about bringing home the 2011 World Series title."

According to Dr. Gazdar, who began working with the San Francisco Giants in 2008, and was seen by millions celebrating at the pitcher's mound with the players following the game-ending play that resulted in the Giants World Series title, "Chiropractic care was a significant factor in the San Francisco Giants 2010 victory. One of the Giants' pitchers relied upon chiropractic adjustments for all of his pitching starts, and virtually every player benefited from chiropractic services."

Both doctors express their enthusiasm for the inclusion of chiropractic care for virtually every team participating in professional sports, including golf, football, hockey, basketball and baseball.

If you want an excellent chiropractor in San Francisco to take care of your sports injuries ProActive Chiropractic is the place for you. Dr. Cohen has extensive training in sports chiropractic and returning you to play quickly. Call 415-762-8141 or visit us at www.ProActiveSF.com to get back to work. Back to Play!

My practice gets you out of pain and back to what you love doing by considering the whole picture. In addition to the musculo-skeletal problems you expect your chiropractor to note, I look at how your diet or emotional stress may be interfering with your system hindering your ability to recover and heal efficiently.

ProActive Chiropractic, in San Francisco, will run a cutting-edge detox program in January 2012.  To make it reasonable in the midst of our economy's struggles and the financial stress of the holiday season, we are offering a special: register with a friend by Christmas and we'll waive the second registration fee! That's two for the price of one! Email or call us (415-762-8141) to get more information. 

Become your own Health Champion™ with assistance from Detox 360°™, an integrative new detox system. Look great, renew your health, and energize your life!

There are many different detoxes or cleanses out there now. I researched a ton of them, narrowed the field to the three that most closely match my practice's priorities and goals, and tried  out those three. I even tried them on my wife before I settled on Detox 360°™. The supplies provided by Detox 360°™ best fit my practice because the supplements are cleanest and most honest and the materials share my focus on educating patients to keep themselves out of the doctor's office. Over four sessions (Thursdays in January at 6pm), I will lead support sessions to help you through the detoxification and show you how to make long-term changes that will benefit you long after you've finished the cleanse.

Do You...

• Experience headaches or migraines?
• Feel fatigued or sluggish?
• Have aching joints or muscles?
• Feel your weight is getting out of control?
• Feel unfocused or foggy?
• Have digestive problems?

If so, the Detox 360°™ program can help renew your sense of well-being. Read about the program's unique, multi-pronged approach to learn how Detox 360°™ differs from other detox methods.

Why Should I Detoxify?

Never before in human history have we been exposed to so many environmental toxins! The air we breathe and the chemicals in our food, water, houses, and workplaces, as well as the various products we put on our bodies, all expose us to environmental toxins. Low-level bioaccumulation from multiple sources, building up year after year, increases our toxic load. This may result in symptoms such as fatigue, rashes, brain fog, etc., manageable at first, but then gradually may result in degenerative disorders, autoimmune, neurological dysfunction, and hormonal imbalances. Our bodies are equipped to neutralize these toxins and clear them out or store them.

Our detoxification organs—kidneys, liver, lymph, lungs, intestines, and skin—work hard each day to address such exposure. However, due to factors such as genetics, stress levels, dietary issues, lifestyle practices, nutritional balance, and exposure levels, our ability to neutralize and excrete these toxins may vary. Unless we take active steps to address toxic exposure, our health may be affected to varying degrees.

The best approach is to fight this problem on many fronts. A simple cleansing diet or supplements, although helpful, may not be enough to make a major difference. The Detox 360°™ program has been designed by healthcare and nutrition experts to provide a coordinated, multifaceted answer.

More Than a Cleansing Program

Detox 36°™ is a multifaceted foundational system, which incorporates many important clinical considerations in its planning and design. It addresses several key areas such as allergies, inflammation, toxicity, systemic and metabolic stress, mental-emotional stress, susceptibility factors, and much more. It is primarily a lifestyle-changing program, which helps anchor health-promoting habits and dietary adjustments that can become a new way of life, or may be used periodically to take advantage of its dramatic benefits. It can be used as a stand-alone program, or in conjunction with the therapeutic regimen recommended by your healthcare practitioner. The goal of Detox 360°™ is to provide a clinically tested system of dietary and lifestyle recommendations, with supportive formulas, which when used together, will have a significant impact on your health.

This 4-week program includes educational DVDs, a highly detailed manual with easy-to-use food guides and recipes, daily journals, detailed explanations of toxicity sources, detox mechanisms, detox-promoting lifestyle practices, targeted nutrition, as well as supportive therapeutics. You are taken through a simple, step-by-step approach with clear explanations of how to complete each week's regimen.

About the Detox 360°™ Process

In just a few weeks, you can begin to experience results and look forward to continued improvement. The Detox 360˚™ program includes:

1. Dietary support of the body's detox processes, emphasizing whole foods and eliminating known inflammatory and allergenic foods
2. Lifestyle practices, such as regular exercise, healthy sleep habits, etc. that support detoxification
3. Support of liver detox pathways
4. Stimulating kidneys, lymphs and liver through physician-formulated homeopathic drainage formulas

Testimonials

"My nutrition practitioner recommended a food elimination and detoxification program (Detox 360°™). After four weeks, I was out of pain for the first time in years."
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- Sheri S., Home Health Nurse

The content and images on this page are property of Detox 360°™

I absolutely love working with kids for one key reason... they get better really quickly. I love seeing results which is why Applied Kinesiology (AK), chiropractic, and nutrition is a perfect marriage for me.

A person will walk into our downtown office with pain and limitations in movement and by the time they leave they have significant improvement. This is even more apparent with kids because they don't have the scar tissue and because they haven't had the issues for months or years their bodies still remember what is normal.

A case study published in Journal of Chiropractic Medicine followed a ten year old child. "The child was a poor reader, suffered eye strain while reading, had poor memory for classroom material, and was unable to move easily from one line of text to another during reading. He was using 4 medications for the asthma but was still symptomatic during exercise."

"Chiropractic care, using applied kinesiology, guided evaluation, and treatment. Following spinal and cranial treatment, the patient showed improvement in his reading ability, head and neck pain, and respiratory distress. His ability to read improved (in 3 weeks, after 5 treatments), performing at his own grade level. He has remained symptom free for 2 years.'"

This is an interesting study but the results fortunatly are not uncommon in my practice. If your child is suffering from headaches, neck pain (both of which are far more common than the general public believes unfortunatly), asthma, low back pain, bed wetting, and/or learning disabilities bring them in. Our unique approach typically gets great results and if it doesn't seem like I can help I'll point you to someone who can.

Visit ProActiveSF.com to find out more.

I am studying for my advanced sports chiropractor certification(CCSP) and ran across this interesting information. I know many of my patients bike to my office downtown at Market and Battery and take long rides on the weekend. Too often we think short bike rides are less risk. These stats prove otherwise:

• More children ages 5 – 14 go to the ER with head injury related to biking than any other sport
• Each year over 500,000 people go to the ER for bicycle related injuries
• There are ~ 900 fatalities each year
• Statistics suggest between 70 – 80% of all crashes involve head injury
• 90% of fatalities involve collisions with motor vehicles
• 1/3 at intersections
• Males are 7X more likely to die
• Most likely to occur within five blocks of home
• Almost half occur in driveways and on sidewalks

  The Take Home: Wear a Helmet!

• Ensure proper fit
• Make sure it is worn correctly (I often see people with a helmet on and the clip not buckled-which is useless)
• 85% of head injuries could be prevented with a helmet
• Universal use of helmets could prevent one death every day and one brain injury every four minutes

Thanks to:

Golf swing injuries — tips to a quicker recovery

The perfect swing is elusive for most amateur players. They strive to develop the ideal combination of grip, arc, speed, hip rotation, weight transfer, and more.

Most injuries occur on the course while playing a round of golf. And they are aggravated by swing flaws that put unnecessary stress on the body.

According to Wendy Weisflog, DC, CCSP, owner of Arizona Sports & Rehabilitation Center in Scottsdale, Ariz., “the most common ailment our golfing clients experience is pain in the lower back. Close behind the lower back are elbow problems.”

Treatment of sports related injuries has become increasing sophisticated in recent years. Often there is no single solution for causes of pain.

Often a poor or imperfect swing puts inordinate strain on muscles and joints. Further, many golfers are recreational, with minimal conditioning and sometimes weeks between rounds. Both conditions contribute to the frequency for physical problems. The strain may not show up immediately, but result from repetition over time.

With more than 50 percent of recreational golfers experiencing a golf-related injury, it is important proper treatment occur early on, so permanent damage does not happen. However, a little prevention can reduce the likelihood of injury in the first place.

There are two major categories of injury. The first is termed acute and is the result of a specific event, such as striking a tree root or a deep divot during your swing, resulting in a jolt to the wrist or another joint.

The more common form of injury is chronic. Chronic injuries occur over time and often result from muscle, tendon and ligament fatigue. This kind of fatigue occurs when overall conditioning wanes or simply from tiring during a round. Due to the dynamic and repetitive nature of the swing, a part of the body can be pulled, strained or inflamed. Of course, these often painful conditions are aggravated by swing flaws that help overstress or force the body into awkward positions.

Once a condition becomes chronic, more time and effort is required to correct. Weisflog states, “Correcting a chronic injury requires careful diagnosis, so that the right combination of treatments can be used.” A comprehensive program may include chiropractic work, a variety of massage therapies, physiotherapy, strength training and, on occasion, acupuncture.

The first step is to deal with structural issues so that locked areas or misalignments are corrected. Then, work on the musculature is advised to reduce strains and inflammation. If not relaxed and healed, the muscles can pull the skeleton back out of alignment. As a final step, strength training is helpful to prevent future aggravation. As always, a good swing coach can help adjust swing movements that contribute to problems.

A carefully designed fitness program can go far in reducing the chance or recurrence of golf-related injury.

Source: Niche Focus Group

I see many golfers who want to improve their game or simply get out of pain so they can get back on the course. Call ProActive Chiropractic if you are ready to get back to play!

Don't just look at one study analyize a bulk of research and make a conclusion. That is what a  review of 21 controlled clinical trials published through August 2009 did and they determined :

Evidence suggests that chiropractic care, including spinal manipulation, improves migraine and cervicogenic headache.

Other intresting findings included the recommendation for deep neck flexor exercises for the managment of patients with cervicogenic headache (2x a day for 6 weeks).

Spinal manipulation or adjustements are recommended for episodic or chronic migraines with or without aura. The recommendation is based on the frequencey of 1-2x per week for 8 weeks but often we can see remarkable results in far fewer treatments.

Massage therapy weekly also seemed to decrease the headaches in conjuction with the adjustments. Chiropractic and massage are a great pair and help tone down the nervous system and relax the muscles together very effectively.

Read more about the study published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (JMPT) this summer.

There are many things we can do to help improve headaches including adjustments, dietary shifts, addressing the soft tissue elements, exercises and looking at the emotion triggers and giving you stress reduction techniques.

Call or schedule online today to find out how much better you can feel.