Healthcare or Sick Care?

I recently heard a story about a thirteen year old girl who has been diagnosed with "Absence Seizures", by an M.D. The initial treatment was a prescription for anti-seizure medication and the doctor now wants to increase the dose.  Does this sound ridiculous to anyone else out there?  I happen to know that the young girl mentioned above is a good student and is actively participating in her life by playing sports and doing other activities as well as maintaining friendships, etc...
I mention this to try to relay that this person is a relatively "normal" young girl and not someone that needs to be managed with pharmaceutical intervention for her occasional inability to focus!
The health care system in the United State is so far off when it comes to day to day care of it's citizens that 28% of all hospital visits are as a result of adverse drug reactions.  Staggering huh?  The one thing that our health care system does well is take care of us in the case of an emergency.  In fact, the United States is at the top of the list for crisis care when compared to 100 other industrialized nations by the World Health Organization.
On the other hand, the U.S. doesn't fare so well when compared to the same 100 industrialized nations in non-crisis care, a.k.a. healthcare or sick care.  As a nation we are number 77 in healthcare, yet we spend the most money on healthcare, we have the most medical doctors and we have the best medical technology in the world!
Are you getting the point yet?
We are all repetitively lead to believe that there is a drug or surgery that is necessary to make us healthy.  First of all, telling sick people they need a drug or surgery is not health care it is sick care.  Our healthcare system is reactive to sickness and disease rather then proactive by focussing on reacquiring health, maintaining health and ulimately evidence based prevention.
The top neurologists in the world now definitively recommend that you should never allow children under three years of age watch television because of the way it stimulates and generates brain cells and the significant statistical link to attention disorders (i.e. ADHD), depression and childhood obesity.  In case you are unaware, from conception to three years of age is a critical time in healthy brain development and will have a significant impact on a person's life well into adulthood.  Furthermore, these same and many additional neuroscientists strongly recommend the supplementation of fish oil in order to support, repair and rebuild nerve and brain tissue.  In fact, in European countries fish oil is commonly prescribed by physicians for many conditions including depression, heart related disease, and many other inflammatory conditions.
Can anyone tell me why any physician, besides an ignorant one, would prescribe anti-seizure medication for a thirteen year old girl rather then prescribing some specific nutritional advice and behavioral exercises (i.e. less TV time and more outdoor physical activity).  Why not try the natural approach first?  Do you think that it might be a little confusing to the youth of this great nation that they should "Say No To Drugs", but not the drugs that the doctor prescribes?
There are a some M.D.'s out there that are providing sound advice to patients and the majority of them are published authors.  The average M.D., however, is routinely reliant upon drugs and surgery as their primary treatment options and thousands of people are becoming sick ane even dying everyday because of it.  Is this acceptable to the people of the United States?  Lets not forget that we are a country rich in culture and full of national pride.  Don't you think its time we demonstrate that with an effective, evidence based health care system that is primarily concerned with the health of the people instead of corporate gains and the bottom line?

Posture and Overall Health

The importance of posture is often overlooked and forgotten about in today’s society.  Perhaps we all grew so tired of hearing our parents or grandparents lecture us about sitting up straight when we were young, that we purposely chose to be lazy with our posture whenever possible.  Whatever the case may be, it is critical that we recognize the importance of healthy posture and the role it plays in our overall health.

As a chiropractor, I often treat people who sit throughout their day while at work and then frequently complain about having things like headaches, neck pain, upper back pain and sometimes even arm pain.  Is it a coincidence that these people typically have similar symptoms to one another?   No, and here is why.  When a person predominantly sits throughout their day they usually are performing some type of task that requires them to consistently look down.  As a result of looking down for many hours each day the head comes forward in relation to the neck and shoulders and therefore adds stress and inflammation on the muscles and nerves.  This stress and inflammation can cause some discomfort to the person on a short term scale, but the long term contribution to such things as arthritis, heart disease, and overall health is alarming.  As a result of being slumped forward from sitting too much we decrease our ability to breathe properly, which taxes the cardiovascular system and has an impact on every single cell in our body.  According to 1980 Nobel Prize winner Roger Sperry, PhD., “The more mechanically distorted a person is, the less energy available for thinking, metabolism and healing.” 

In helping someone overcome a postural problem, I begin by demonstrating to them where they are versus where they are designed to be and then I teach them strategies to re-train their bodies to habitually hold a more upright position.  For the person who is looking down all day while sitting, as described above, they will need to actively participate in exercises and stretches that bring the head back and decrease the rounding of the mid back so that the ears are over the shoulders.  This, in conjunction with manual spinal adjustments and specific postural adjustments, is a part of the rehabilitation necessary to overcome this type of problem and to lead a healthier life. 

“Posture affects and moderates every physiologic function from breathing to hormonal production.”…”Ultimately, it appears that homeostasis, and autonomic regulations are intimately connected with Posture.”

---J. Lennon, BM, MM, C.N.  Shealy, MD, PhD, R.K. Cady, MD, W. Mattia, PhD, R. Cox, PhD, W.F. Simpson, PhD

AJPM Vol 4 No1, Jan 1994