Preventing Back Pain When You Have to Sit at a Desk All Day

Back pain is one of the most common reasons why people visit the doctor. It is especially challenging to keep your back in shape when you sit at a desk all day long. Our bodies were designed to be outside picking berries, fishing, and walking miles to look for shelter, not sitting stationary and reading email for hours on end.

Yoga can help to get all of your major muscles groups moving and strengthened. Watching your posture is also importent. If you sit hunched over a PC all day long, eventually your muscles may shorten into that position. Then when you need to stretch out your body for an activity like tennis or even reaching for a something on a high shelf, your back may "go out". The best way to prevent this is to keep your muscles flexible and aligned even before you have pain. Practicing yoga regularly and watching your posture may help.

Veggies for Asthma?

A study published in the journal Thorax found that women who ate the most tomatoes, carrots and leafy green vegetables had lower asthma rates. It is important to note that this study showed association, and not cause and effect. Women who eat a lot of veggies may have other healthy habits that lower their asthma rates. However, since no other fruits or vegetables were significantly associated with asthma prevalence, the study authors concluded that these results suggest that the intake of some vegetables may decrease the prevalence of adult asthma.

Coffee and Heart Attacks

This article from Yahoo News notes that people who are "slow caffeine metabolizers" are more likely to have a nonfatal heart attack if they drink two cups of coffee or more a day. In this study the researchers believed the ability to metabolize coffee is a genetic trait. The authors stated that there is no commercially available test to see if your body metabolizes caffeine well.

This is interesting because there are alternative health tests to see how well phase one of you liver detoxification process is working that involve a caffeine challenge test. In alternative health, caffeine processing is generally thought not to rely mostly on genetics but on how well your liver is working. In holistic medicine, how well your liver is working is thought to depend upon factors such as exposure to chemicals and toxins, proper diet, etc.

The truth about people who are slow caffeine metabolizers probably lies somewhere in between environmental, genetic and dietary factors. I can tolerate more caffeine when I'm eating healthier, but never more than a cup or so at most. Yet I know some people who can drink coffee all day long and not seem to have any side effects from it.

Study Shows Limited Benefits From Calcium

Yet, another urban myth of modern medicine bites the dust. Many alternative health experts have questioned the wisdom of women automatically taking calcium supplements for years, only to be dismissed by conventional medical doctors. Now a recent study validates that there may be a only very limited benefit for women's bone health from taking calcium and vitamin D supplements.

BioPiracy: Drug Companies Hop on the Herbal Bandwagon

If you can't beat them, file a patent to use against them.

Multinational drug companies are now beginning to see the value in herbal and nutritional medicine. That part is good. The bad news is that they are trying to patent centuries old traditional herbal cures to prevent other companies from marketing them.

Fat Helps with Nutrient Absorption

A study from 2004 shows that eating some fat with salads actually increases vitamin absorption, while eating vegetables without any fat reduces absorption rates of nutrients.

I've suspected this for years from trial and error because of my diet changes. If I eat a very low fat diet, I get edgy and my fibromyalgia returns, so I thought this was because I just wasn't getting enough nutrition from low fat diets.

I've been trying to lose weight lately, but I'd rather be a little overweight than in constant pain. So anyway now I'm trying to cut out high glycemic foods and any empty calories foods instead of fat. So far that seems to be working better for me than eating low fat.

Feeding Minds - The impact of food on mental health

A new report from The Mental Health charity of the U.K. along with Sustain, the alliance for better farming and food, highlights the impact of nutrition poor diets on mental health. Basically, it goes back to we are what we eat, and this include the human brain. The human brain is made fromthe foods you eat. Is you brain made from carrots, asparagus, cashews and salmon, or lattes, Doritos, hamburgers and pizza?

The report blames highly processed, trans fat laden, nutrition poor convenience foods with the rise in mental health issues in the U.K. The authors of the report believe that modern diets have reduced the amounts of essential fatty acids, amino acids vitamins and minerals in our foods. Since the brain is basically made from particular types of fats and vitamins and minerals, a lack of these can result in poor brain function. The result can be disorders such as Add, depression, memory loss and anxiety.

If you have been reading alternative health books over the last ten years, this report has absolutely nothing new in it. What is significant is that one of the coauthors of the report is a leading mental health nonprofit in the UK, which means that the alternative health ideas are becoming more accepted by mainstream groups.

Exercise Alleviates Depression

I think this just proves what many people interested in alternative health have known for a long time - that exercise is good for both your body and mind. While I'm not against mental health counseling, I think all too often people are given drugs and talk therapy, when their basic problem is they may not be getting enough healthy food, sunshine and exercise in the fresh air. Anyone is going to be depressed if he or she sits inside all day with the drapes drawn and eats nothing but junk food.

In one of my alternative health books there is a story of a woman who was put on anti-anxiety drugs while she was drinking 12 cups of coffee a day! Most people would be anxiety prone if they drank that much coffee. In this case the woman didn't really need drugs as much as she needed nutritional counseling.