Month: May 2014

Dr Beecher’s May 2014 Monthly Chiropractic Newsletter

To download Dr. Beecher’s Monthly Newsletter, please click here!

“We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it.” ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

  Are Your Teens Part of the E-Cig Craze?

NEW STUDY: E-Cigarettes May Lead to Conventional Smoking and Nicotine Addiction in Teenagers

Often touted as a way to quit smoking…

the opposite may also be true…

 

Also this month:

• Multiple studies show breastfed babies have higher IQs and perform better in school: There is a BIG reason why you should know.
• Want to quit smoking?: Reading this might help you quit within a month.
• What you need to know the next time you drop your food on the floor: Is the five second rule backed by science… or just another urban myth? The answer might shock you.

 

Houston – If you do not want your children to start smoking, the information you are about to read will be extremely important to you. A new study from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) found that e-cigarettes may actually increase the chance that teenagers start smoking conventional cigarettes, possibly leading to nicotine addiction.

This study completely contradicts the claims (and marketing promotion) that e-cigarettes are a good way to quit.

The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, found that adolescents who used e-cigarette devices were more likely to smoke cigarettes and less likely to quit smoking. The study of nearly 40,000 youth around the country also found that e-cigarette use among middle and high school students doubled between 2011 and 2012, from 3.1 percent to 6.5 percent.

Dr. Lauren Dutra of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education states, “E-cigarettes are likely to be gateway devices for nicotine addiction among youth, opening up a whole new market for tobacco.”

The study found that not only were e-cigarettes associated with a greater probability of progressing from just trying cigarettes to becoming a regular smoker, teens who smoked both e-cigarettes and conventional cigarettes smoked more conventional cigarettes per day than non-e-cigarette users.

A previous study of 75,000 South Korean adolescents published a year ago found similar results.

This comes on a surge in popularity of e-cigarettes, most likely due to heavy marketing that makes them look cool. This is reminiscent of old tobacco cigarette ads from decades ago that used celebrities, spokespeople, and even doctors to market their addictive and deadly product.

“It looks to me like the wild west marketing of e-cigarettes is not only encouraging youth to smoke them, but also it is promoting regular cigarette smoking among youth,” says senior author Dr. Stanton A. Glantz, UCSF Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.

What Are E-Cigarettes?

E-cigarettes, or electronic cigarettes or ENDS (electronic nicotine delivery systems), are devices whose function is to vaporize and deliver a chemical mixture typically composed of nicotine, propylene glycol, and other chemicals (although some products claim to contain no nicotine) to the user’s lungs. A number of ENDS are offered in flavors that can be particularly attractive to adolescents. Electronic cigarettes are the most common type of ENDS.

The manufacturers report that the cartridges typically contain between 6 and 24 mg of nicotine, but they can sometimes contain more than 100 mg.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO): “The dose of delivered nicotine is also unknown. It is suspected that the delivered dose varies notably by product, which contains nicotine in various quantities and concentrations.

            “Until such time when ENDS are deemed safe and effective and of acceptable quality by a competent national regulatory body, consumers should be strongly advised not to use any of these products, including electronic cigarettes.”

Here’s Something Important if You

Want to Help Someone Quit Smoking!

A study published in the American Journal of Health Promotion found that smokers who viewed ads featuring reasons to quit were substantially more likely to quit smoking after the four-week study period. However, ads with messages about how to quit smoking had no effect on an individual’s smoking behavior.

According to an author of the study, “Why-to-quit smoking messages are more powerful because those ads typically show graphic portrayals of the health consequences of smoking or feature personal testimonies to evoke emotion. Whereas, how-to-quit messages are designed to increase an individual’s belief that he or she can quit.”

Advertising Works

After four weeks, smokers who viewed ads with messages featuring reasons to quit smoking were 6 to 10 times more likely to have quit smoking compared with smokers who viewed no ads. Smokers who watched the how-to-quit smoking ads did not change their habits at all.

The success of the “why” ads is believed to be because those commercials were much more emotional in nature. They showed visible and graphic evidence of the devastating effects smoking can have on a person.

Who Else Wants to Look

20 Years Older than They Are?

Some expert marketers have said for a long time the way to get people to stop smoking is to show the cosmetic changes that result from the activity. For example, show beautiful people’s faces becoming ugly from smoking.

They say it’s because most people are much more prone to act for cosmetic reasons than they are for health reasons. Sadly, these top marketers are probably correct.

There is plenty of proof that smoking tobacco prematurely ages a smoker’s face. It causes deep lines and wrinkles that can make a person look DECADES older than they really are. The difference in aging and loss of youth and beauty is drastic.

Ironically, most smokers start smoking to “be cool” and fit in. However, smoking actually steals a person’s good looks like a thief in the night.

It seems quite obvious that good advertising cannot only influence people to start smoking… it can influence them to stop. Boring lectures about the health consequences will not change behavior, especially in teenagers. Good, emotional marketing will.

But, it’s an uphill battle. People will do almost anything to be “cool” and some marketers will do anything to sell a product.

Let’s hope the e-cigarette craze does not hook a new generation on conventional cigarettes.

 

            Don’t forget, if you ever have any questions or concerns about your health, talk to us. Contact us with your questions. We’re here to help and don’t enjoy anything more than participating in providing you natural pain relief.

Inspirational Story Of The Month

(Names And Details May Have Been Changed To Protect Privacy)

 

 

“Success is 99% Failure.”

This was one of his mottos. Find out who said this and how poor performance

in school turned him into one of the biggest success stories in the world.

 

The year was 1906. The day was November 17th. The place was Hamamatsu, Japan. On that day, a baby was born that would have a major impact on the vast majority of people in the United States, Japan, and countless countries around the world.

That was the day Soichiro Honda was born. Yes, the baby born on that day would start and build the Honda Motor Company into the giant it is today.

But, it was not always smooth sailing. In fact, little Soichiro Honda got off to a pretty rough start, especially in school…

Soichiro’s father was a blacksmith and ran a bicycle repair business on the side. He would buy broken down bicycles for a cheap price, fix them, and sell them for a small profit. It is reported that Soichiro was helping his father, “straight from the cradle.” Though Soichiro was intelligent, he wanted nothing to do with formal education… and his grades reflected it.

At his school, all students were given grade reports that their parents were to stamp with their family seal. Because he did not want his parents to see his grades, Soichiro re-created their family seal stamp out of an old tire. He stamped his report card and brought it back to school.

It worked, but Soichiro did not stop there. He started helping out his friends and making family seal stamps for them as well. That is, until Soichiro make a critical error. His family name was symmetrical so it did not need to be made in reverse on the stamp. But, his friends’ family names were not symmetrical. Soichiro did not recognize and his friend’s new seals stamped backwards! The teacher noticed the mistake and Soichiro found himself in very hot water.

Soichiro’s father was very upset. He was so upset that he made Soichiro kneel in the corner for an entire day. But this story has a little twist…

You see, Soichiro’s father was not upset because Soichiro forged the family stamps. He was upset because he did not pick up on the mirror imaging and made the stamps incorrectly. That’s why he punished him.

This lesson and others like it stuck with Soichiro, and they served him well when he met with failure after failure a little later in life when he had a dream to create a piston ring engine. He devoted his entire life to accomplishing this goal. He invested all of his money (he even brought his wife’s jewelry to the pawn shop) and sunk it into his dream.

He went back to school only to drop out because he refused to take the examinations. He founded his own company (Tokai Seiki) and was doing business with Toyota until World War II put a stop to it. Once again, he did not quit. In 1946, he started “Honda Technology Research Institute” and started making mopeds. Within two years, Honda Technology Research Institute became Honda Motor Company.

In the 1960s, Soichiro fulfilled a dream and started producing cars. I think we all know where this story ends. Clearly, the take home message is that success is rarely, if ever, a straight line. There are always twists and turns. Disappointment and adaptation. More failure than success. But thank goodness you can fail 99% of the time and still be successful in the end. You just have to be willing to fail.

 

We love helping our patients and their friends and relatives through their tough times and

getting them feeling better! We are here to help you stay feeling better and looking younger!

Don’t be a stranger. You really can afford Chiropractic care! Don’t wait until you can no longer move!

Did You Know?…

13 Facts You May Not Know About Your Own Body!

 

1. Nerve impulses in the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour (105.6 km/hr).
2. The brain operates on the same amount of power as a 10-watt light bulb.
3. Your brain uses 20% of the oxygen that enters your blood stream.
4. The brain is more active at night than during the day.
5. Eighty percent of the brain is water.
6. The largest internal organ is the small intestine.
7. The heart creates enough pressure to squirt blood 30 feet (~9 meters).
8. The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razorblades.
9. The surface area of a human lung is equal to a tennis court.
10. The hardest bone in the body is the jawbone.
11. The feet account for one quarter of all the human body’s bones.
12. The tooth is the only part of the body that can’t repair itself.
13. Facial hair grows faster than any other hair on the body.

 

Tip Of The Month

Multiple Studies Show Breastfed Babies Have Higher IQs –

But There is More to the Story…

There is quite a bit of proof that breastfeeding is superior to not breastfeeding. One benefit that has been shown in several studies is that breastfed babies have higher IQs and perform better in school. Well, now a new study sheds even more light on this subject. According to Sciencedaily: “A new study by sociologists at Brigham Young University pinpoints two parenting skills as the real source of this cognitive boost: Responding to children’s emotional cues and reading to children starting nine months of age. Breastfeeding mothers tend to do both of those things, said lead study author Ben Gibbs.” This study was published in the March 2014 issue of the Journal of Pediatrics. In other words, the authors do not believe the breast milk itself is the reason for the higher IQ and “smarter babies.” Instead, they believe it is the parenting that makes the difference.

Child development expert from Wayne State University, Dr. Sandra Jacobson, praised the study and said, “Children in the study who were breastfed for six months or longer performed the best on reading assessments because they also experienced the most optimal parenting practices.” It seems that parents who make the decision to breastfeed are also willing to make the decision to do other things that maximize the development of their children.

Next Time You Drop Food on the Floor…

When you drop food on the floor, do you pick it up and eat it? If you do, you are not alone. According to a new study, 87% of people questioned said they would or already have eaten food that was dropped on the ground. Fifty-five percent of these people were women. Here is the most surprising statistic: 81% of the women who would eat the food follow what is known as “the five-second rule.” This “rule” states that food dropped on the floor is okay to eat as long as it is picked up within five seconds. Crazy? Perhaps, but there is also some science behind the idea. A new study recorded the transfer of certain common bacteria from the different types of floors to food over time (3-30 seconds). Both the type of floor and time had an impact on the transfer of bacteria. Bacteria was least likely to transfer to carpeted surfaces and most likely to transfer to tile or laminate surfaces. The bacteria was most likely to transfer to the dropped foods if they remained on the ground for more than five seconds. It also depends on how contaminated (clean or dirty) the floor surface is so don’t laugh the next time someone drops food on a seemingly clean floor, picks it up, and eats it claiming they’re abiding by the five-second rule!

 

Remember, we’re always here to help your body heal

and maintain the pain free body you deserve.

 

This information is solely advisory, and should not be substituted for medical or chiropractic advice. Any and all health care concerns, decisions, and actions must be done through the advice and counsel of a healthcare professional who is familiar with your updated medical history. We cannot be held responsible for actions you may take without a thorough exam or appropriate referral. If you have any further concerns or questions, please let us know at 281-286-1300.