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HEALTHBEAT SHOW NOTES .... Episode #50 - Recorded June 23, 2006

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of HealthBeat, Chiropractic OnLine Today’s Health, News and informational Podcast.

In this week’s news:  We’ll Look At –

• CCGPP Releases 1^st Low Back Best Practices Draft

• Student Loan Alert

• Genetics of Migraine: An Update

• Pain Characteristics of the Acute Migraine Attack

• Genes in gum disease may allow bacteria to invade arteries

• And Health Corner looks at the Marketing of Junk Food that contributes to Childhood Obesity

For HealthBeat, This is Dr. Todd Eglow.

Welcome to HealthBeat Podcast #50, recorded June 23, 2006.   We have reached the Half Century episode!  HealthBeat is Chiropractic OnLine Today’s radio program, providing current news and commentary about Chiropractic and Health.

This week’s Episode is sponsored by DaVinci Laboratories.  Please surf to our web site at ChiropracticRadio.com and click on the DaVinci link for your Health and Nutritional needs.

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And Now for some news ….

CCGPP Releases 1^st Low Back Best Practices Draft

The Council on Chiropractic Guidelines and Practice Parameters (CCGPP), was formed in 1995 at the behest of the Congress of Chiropractic State Associations (COCSA) and with assistance from various Chiropractic organizations in order to create an equitable chiropractic practice document.

Following a baseline study of the profession in 2000-2002, several years of planning, organization and collection of evidence relative to conditions commonly seen by chiropractic doctors in the United States, the Council on Chiropractic Guidelines and Practice Parameters (CCGPP) is pleased to release the lower back best practices chapter draft, the first of seven chapter drafts to be released over the next year. This is being released online at this time in order to solicit comments.

CCGPP's desire is that chiropractic doctors and others will use this library of information as a decision-making tool and we have termed this the Chiropractic Clinical Compass©.

Surf to http://www.ccgpp.org for links to download this draft in its entirety - http://www.ccgpp.org/view.htm

Student Loan Alert

Each year on July 1 the U.S. Department of Education adjusts the interest rates on outstanding college loans. This year, interest rates on student loans are expected to rise to just over 7 percent and interest rates on parent loans are expected to rise to 7.8 percent, their highest rate in six years.  While there is no guarantee that interest rates will continue to rise in the future, many people are choosing to consolidate their federal college loans before rates rise on July 1st. 

Consolidation allows students and parents to combine their separate loans into one and lock in a fixed interest rate – which could save borrowers thousands of dollars over the life of their loans.  Student borrowers who consolidate their outstanding loans before July 1 would be eligible to lock in an interest rate as low as 4.75 percent, which would save an average of nearly $3,500 over the life of the loan, and parent borrowers who consolidate would be eligible to lock in a rate as low as 6.1 percent. 

For more information on student and parent loan consolidation information, please surf to our Show Notes for links to Consolidation links –

http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/studentloanconsolidation.html

Genetics of Migraine: An Update

Observations including the long-recognized tendency of migraine to run in families, the high concordance rates for migraine in twins reared together or apart, and the association of specific mutations with a rare migraine form are consistent with a genetic contribution to the disorder.

An article in the June 2006 issue of The Journal of Head and Face Pain summarizes major findings to date on the genetics of migraine.

Study of the heritability of migraine, particularly the common forms of migraine, is beset by several challenges including the absence of easily measurable biological markers, uncertainty about the etiologic and clinical overlap among migraine types, and the apparently complex interplay of environmental and genetic factors in determining migraine phenotype.

Nevertheless, significant progress has been realized in recent years. Familial hemiplegic migraine, a rare migraine variant, appears to be transmitted by a Mendelian, autosomal dominant mode of inheritance involving mutations in at least 2 genes. These genes do not seem to be critically involved in the other forms of migraine; however, several other susceptibility loci for more common forms of migraine have been identified in recent genome-wide screens and candidate-locus studies.

These and other data suggest that the genetic contribution to migraine is complex, multifactorial, and subject to significant modification by environmental factors.

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/hed/46/s1;jsessionid=gSRJyhrIhTi_3ARp3V

Pain Characteristics of the Acute Migraine Attack

A study in the June 2006 issue of  Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain, describes the pain characteristics of the acute migraine attack, including time of onset, time to peak, duration, intensity, quality, aggravation by activity, as well as recurrence frequency and time to recurrence, in a tertiary care practice.

Some of the findings from the study were:

• A total of 84.3% patients were female,

• Time of onset of headache was mostly in the morning in 18.7%,

• Headache duration medians were reported as minimum of 12 hours, maximum of 48 hours with an average of 24 hours, females being greater than males in average headache,

• Headache character (greater than grade 1) was throbbing (73.5%), aching (73.8%), pressure (75.4%), and stabbing (42.6%) with significantly more throbbing in migraine than in probable migraine (73.5% vs. 63.2%) and more aching in chronic than in episodic migraine

This study provides an in-depth description of pain features in the acute migraine attack. It was found that a significant number of patients need to be provided with the means of treating headache rapidly in at least some of their headaches and that headache recurrence needs to be addressed in a large number of patients.

For specifics about these pain characteristics, listeners are urged to surf to our Show Notes for a link to this Study’s Abstract –

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/hed/46/6;jsessionid=gSRJyhrIhTi_3ARp3V

Genes in gum disease may allow bacteria to invade arteries

Researchers may have taken a major step towards understanding how gum disease can lead to cardiovascular disease.

Diseases of the gums and teeth have long been implicated as risk factors for heart disease, particularly cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis. Gum disease in particular has been linked to inflammatory diseases of the heart.

However, while previous study results have clearly identified a cause and effect risk between gum disease and heart disease, researchers have been unable to adequately explain the relationship between the two. Because of this the medical community has long sought to better understand their link.

That link may now be better understood thanks to the efforts of researchers from the University of Florida. The researchers were recently able to identify four gum disease genes that appear to allow gum disease bacteria to invade and stay alive inside the cells of the arteries.

This genetically influenced ability to invade the arteries could help explain how gum disease results in cardiovascular disease.

The results of the study were recently presented at the 106th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

http://heart.healthcentersonline.com/newsstories/genesingumdiseasemayallowbacteriainvade.cfm?general=nl_heart

As always, please surf to our Podcast Show Notes at ChiropractiRadio.com for a full listing of web references mentioned in today’s show.

And remember - COT’s Healthbeat always recommends discussing any nutritional or exercise lifestyle modifications with a qualified healthcare professional.

Health Corner –In this edition of HealthBeat’s Health Corner, we present a New England Journal of Medicine interview about the dangers of marketing junk foods to children along with the rise in childhood obesity.

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Finally, I leave you with the following quote:

"We adore chaos because we love to produce order." 
– M.C. Escher

For Chiropractic OnLine Today’s HealthBeat, This is Dr. Todd Eglow.

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