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HEALTHBEAT SHOW NOTES .... Episode #63 - Recorded September 22, 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 –  

• Medicare Donut Hole

• New Financial Law

• Gene Found to Switch Off Stem Cells During Aging

• Preventing Knee Injuries during Sports Competition

• Gum disease may increase the risk of stroke

• Acupuncture and Low Back Pain

• And Finally, Health Corner looks at the role of Primary Care Physicians

For HealthBeat, This is Dr. Todd Eglow.

Welcome to HealthBeat Podcast #63, recorded September 22, 2006.  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 ….

Medicare Donut Hole

According to the Campaign for America’s Future, Friday September 22^nd will be the first “burp” in the newly created Medicare Part D Prescription Drug coverage.

According to their report, on the 15^th, thousands of senior citizens will be surprised when they find out that their Medicare Prescription Drug coverage falls into what has been called a “Donut Hole.”

Here's how it happens. People enrolled in Part D are only covered for their first, roughly, $2,000 in drug costs. After that, their drug coverage stops completely. They fall into the donut hole. Here, they're forced to pay monthly premiums, and get no coverage until spending nearly $3,000 out of pocket for their medications.

Surf to http://www.nodonuthole.com for more information

New Financial Law

On August 17, 2006, President Bush signed into law the recently passed pension reform bill (H.R. 4) that includes a package of charitable giving incentives and safeguard measures.

Among the charitable tax incentives included in the pension reform bill (H.R. 4) is an IRA rollover provision that allows individuals age 70 ½ and older to make charitable donations up to $100,000 from an IRA without having to count the donation as taxable income. This provision would be in effect for two years, allowing the charitable community to demonstrate its value as an incentive for increased giving that could be expanded in the future.

Please consult your tax accountant and/or financial planning representative regarding how this pension reform bill can benefit you.

Gene Found to Switch Off Stem Cells During Aging

Biologists have uncovered a deep link between lifespan and cancer in the form of a gene that switches off stem cells as a person ages.

The critical gene, already well known for its role in suppressing tumors, seems to mediate a profound balance between life and death.

It weighs the generation of new replacement cells, required for continued life, against the risk of death from cancer, which is the inevitable outcome of letting cells divide. To offset the increasing risk of cancer as a person ages, the gene gradually reduces the ability of stem cells to proliferate.

The new finding, reported by three groups of researchers early in September 2006 in the journal Nature, was made in a special breed of mice that lack the pivotal gene, but is thought likely to apply to people as well.

The finding indicates that many of the degenerative diseases of aging are caused by an active shutting down of the stem cells that renew the body's various tissues, and are not just a passive disintegration of tissues under life's daily wear and tear, as is often assumed.

The gene involved in the new finding has the unmemorable name of p16-Ink4a but plays a central role in the body's defenses against cancer. It produces two quite different proteins that interact with the two principal systems for deciding whether a cell will be allowed to divide.

Surf to our Show Notes for more on this story - http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/science/06cnd-stem.html?ei=5094&en=db44a829e712934c&hp=&ex=1157601600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

Preventing Knee Injuries during Sports Competition

According to Orthopedics Today, sports medicine specialists are working to identify various risk factors and to devise techniques to reduce ACL injuries. Keen assessment and rigorous training are proving essential to minimizing this common athletic injury.

The postulate was that the mechanism of injury in females having quadriceps-dominant knees and their mechanism of landing from a jump, has been found to be different than in males.  Overall, females have a higher incidence of ACL tears than males.

Noncontact injury mechanisms are common among both males and females, but females suffer a higher percentage of noncontact ACL tears. In contrast, males sustain a higher percentage of contact-related tears because more males play contact sports, especially football.   Further, females tend to be “ligament dominant,” relying on the ligaments, rather than the larger muscles to absorb force.

Training can help females avoid valgus collapse, strengthen their hamstrings and balance their hamstrings side to side, thus reducing the injury risk.  Current research focuses on neuromuscular coordination relating to specific maneuvers, particularly the plant-and-pivot, start-and-stop and jump landing moves.  For example, the jump maneuver involves a soft landing with a bent knee and hip, allowing the lower leg muscles and ligaments to absorb landing forces more safely. In the plant-and-pivot maneuver, the athlete is taught to keep his or her leg in a “cylinder” shape over the knee to maintain balance and control body weight.

Specialists have various tools, like videos, to identify injury mechanisms, but Arendt cited new identification strategies, such as analysis of 3-D motion and electromyography recordings, as promising new measurement instruments.

According to the article, multiple factors contribute to ACL injuries, and more research is needed to link certain risk factors to specific ACL injuries.  Although researchers have struggled to make these links, they are starting to make some progress.

As always, COT’s HealthBeat recommends discussing all preventative strategies with a qualified healthcare professional.

Surf to our Show Notes for more information and visualizations - http://www.orthosupersite.com/default.asp?page=view&rid=17998

Gum disease may increase the risk of stroke

People with antibodies to a certain strain of gingivalis, the organism most strongly associated with periodontal disease, were more likely to have a stroke, according to a recent study in the journal Science Direct.

Women who were exposed to the pathogen were up to 2.3 times more likely than other women to have a stroke, shows the research, which was published online ahead of print publication on 26 July in Atherosclerosis

Periodontitis, a chronic multibacterial infection of the gums that can lead to loss of teeth, is one of the most common bacterial infections in humans. It is most often seen in middle aged and elderly people. Periodontitis has also been associated with a raised risk of atherosclerosis.

Surf to our Show Notes for links to this study.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T12-4KGX8D7-1&_user=10&_coverDate=07%2F26%2F2006&_alid=449722134&_rdoc=13&_fmt=summary&_orig=search&_cdi=4878&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=bb7ea51603b5143b0326abd09a74ad76

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/short/333/7568/570-b?etoc

Acupuncture and Low Back Pain

A recent study published in the British Journal of Medicine evaluates the cost effectiveness of acupuncture in the management of persistent non-specific low back pain.

The study found that total costs to the United Kingdom ’s health service during the two year study period were higher on average for the acupuncture group.

The study concluded that a short course of traditional acupuncture for persistent non-specific low back pain in primary care confers a modest health benefit for minor extra cost to the NHS compared with usual care. Acupuncture care for low back pain seems to be cost effective in the longer term.

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/short/bmj.38932.806134.7Cv1?etoc

Health Corner – In this edition of HealthBeat’s Health Corner, we present an interview from the New England Journal of Medicine.

While the focus of the interview is on the role of Primary Care in the Medical or Allopathic field, the interview provides some overlap, from a practice management point of view for running a health practice.

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.

Thank you for listening…. As always, We Want to hear from you.  Please send us emails…. Simply surf to our Web Site at ChiropracticRadio.com and click on the Email link.

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Finally, I leave you with the following quote:

"Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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