10 Reasons NOT to Eat Sugar!

10 Reasons NOT to Eat Sugar!

Sugar, in its many forms, is an increasingly common ingredient in processed foods. Many of us eat the equivalent of 53 heaping teaspoons of white sugar every day!

Here are ten reasons to avoid refined (white) sugar:

1. Sugar contributes to tooth decay because it decreases the effectiveness of a particular type of white blood cell that “eats” bacteria.

2. Sugar causes the body to release more adrenalin, which may explain hyperactivity in young children.

3. Calcium loss in urine occurs when a person consumes a soft drink containing sugar.

4. Ingesting sugar makes the pancreas work harder to produce insulin. Diabetes results when the overworked pancreas can no longer eliminate sugar from the blood stream.

5. Bleached with chlorine, when white refined sugar is exposed to certain organic compounds it converts to dioxin, a lethal compound.

6. Sugar can hinder weight loss because high insulin levels (see #4 above) cause the body to store excess carbohydrates as fat.

7. Sugar increases the likelihood of chronic fatigue.

8. Sugar increases mood swings, irritability and anxiety.

9. Sugar compromises the immune system because it lowers the efficiency of white blood cells for a minimum of five hours.

10. Eating sugar can decrease helpful high-density cholesterol (HDLs) and result in an increase in harmful cholesterol (LDLs).

Need to sweeten your food? Add raisins, dates or honey. Stevia is also a safer alternative. It’s available in several forms, has no calories and doesn’t raise blood sugar levels. Clearly, a better choice to satisfy any sweet tooth!


St Paul, Mn Chiropractor

Do I Need Antibacterial Soap?

By the looks of most bathrooms these days, just about everyone is using antibacterial soaps. In fact, it takes some effort to find soap that isn’t antibacterial.

Advertising teaches us to fear germs. You sell more antibacterial soap that way. It’s even marketed as a preventive measure against colds and flu. The problem? Colds and flu are viral, so anti-bacterial products have no effect. Antibacterial soaps contain carcinogens, are no more effective in killing germs than regular soap and are probably responsible for breeding stronger, more resistant strains of bacteria.

The U.S. Center for Disease Control agrees. It recommends that the most effective way to reduce the spread of infectious disease is washing our hands. But anti-bacterial soaps are not necessary. Neither is scalding hot water, since our hands can’t withstand the temperatures necessary to kill germs with heat.

Experts recommend that you use a combination of soap and comfortably warm water. Rub all surfaces of the hands for at least 20 seconds, especially under your fingernails. The soap and scrubbing action, along with the slippery surface created by the soap, do the trick.

Shoreview, MN Chiropractor Dr Douglas Yost

How To Be A Fit and Healthy Senior

Exercise and fitness

Exercising your body helps keep your brain fit, too!

Fit and Healthy Seniors

Many people mistakenly think that memory loss, dementia, Alzheimer’s and other ailments are an inevitable part of the aging process. How many times have you heard an older person say, “Just wait until you’re my age and see how much you remember!” Or, “Seems as though I am at a different doctor’s office every other day. It’s no fun to get old.”

Does aging really have to be that traumatic both physically and mentally? Many people seem to believe that’s just the way it is and there is very little you can do about it. Not so…or at least it doesn’t have to be that way!

There are a number of ways to keep your brain sharp and your body in good shape as you age. Here are some ways to remain fit and healthy as you enter your “golden years”:

• Stay active – 30 minutes of moderate exercise each day (you can do three 10 minute intervals if that’s easier) helps to boost the amount of oxygen that reaches your brain. And that oxygen “rush” can help to improve your memory and your reaction time – something else that tends to slow down as you get older!
Regular exercise also helps to strengthen bones and promotes a healthy weight - benefits that can reduce your risk of diabetes and heart disease – two conditions that can also affect normal brain function.
A Canadian study concluded that when folks over the age of 65 engage in regular exercise, they reduce their risk of Alzheimer’s, dementia and a decline in mental functioning. This is especially true for women.

• Make sure your diet is healthy – This is as important for your brain as it is for your body. Whole grains, lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats and fish help keep your body healthy. Carbohydrates found in these foods, along with the omega 3 fats found in fresh fish, provide energy to the brain to keep it healthy.

• Exercise your brain by doing crossword puzzles, playing board or card games, reading and being with friends.

• Control stress – Another great benefit of exercise! Learn relaxation techniques like meditation and deep breathing. Stress produces a hormone known as cortisol, which can negatively affect brain function.

• Be aware that certain illnesses and medications can also have an effect on your mental health.

• Continue to get regular chiropractic adjustments to keep your central nervous system in good working condition. When your nervous system is healthy, your body and mind reap health benefits as well.

And remember… we’re always available to address any concerns you might have about the aging process and its effects on your body and your brain!

Roseville, MN Chiropractor

Drug-Free Stress Busters

Drug-Free Stress Busters

Stress management

Something simple and inexpensive – and fun! – like game night with your family can do wonders for your stress levels.
Seems as though everyone is affected by stress to some extent these days. The world can be a pretty scary place when you factor in fear of losing your job, diminished equity in retirement accounts, investments and real estate, businesses closing their doors… So it’s really no wonder stress levels are at an all-time high!

So what do you do when you feel stressed? Do you reach for a pill or a glass of wine to calm you down? Do you escape into sleep in the confines of your room? Do you call a friend, attend a support group meeting or schedule a therapy session? Are some choices better than others? Of course they are…

If you’re looking for an all-natural stress buster, try one of these:

• Prayer – Many people find that prayer helps in times of emotional stress. The very act of praying for stress relief can lower blood pressure. Many find additional peace and comfort in prayer, meditation and religous services.

• Sleep – No, not crawling under the covers and hibernating – a regular sleep schedule with soothing, restful sleep. Can’t fall asleep? Many find that a warm shower and a good book do the trick!

• Massage – You don’t have to splurge on an expensive spa massage – have your partner or a family member give you one to ease the stress in those tight muscles – and then reciprocate!

• Ask forgiveness from someone you’ve hurt or forgive someone who has hurt you – Either way, you release pent up anger, resentment or guilt that is only hurting you. Get that heavy weight off your shoulders!

• Enjoy the simple pleasures – Take your children for an ice cream cone, get a free makeover in a department store, curl up with your cat or dog, snuggle with your special someone, brew a cup of chai or camomile tea and sip it with your feet up, watch a funny movie and laugh to release those endorphins, play a family board game, go to a bookstore and just meander, buy yourself a bouquet of flowers, watch the sunset at the beach – you get the idea – something simple, relaxing and inexpensive.

• Keep to your chiropractic adjustment schedule – Stress can really take a toll on your body. In fact, it can make you downright sick. The effects of too much stress (physical, emotional and/or chemical) can actually kill you. Chiropractic adjustments help your body stay healthy no matter what’s stressing you. And it’s far healthier than reaching for that pill or potion!
Let’s face it… stress is inevitable – but it doesn’t have to make you sick. Got stress? Get adjusted!

Shoreview, MN Chiropractor Dr Douglas Yost

Healthy Anti-Inflammatory Foods

Healthy Anti-Inflammatory Foods

Diet and Nutrition

Healthy foods like fish high in Omega-3 fats, leafy greens and vegetables aren’t just good for you – they’re also delicious!

What comes to your mind when you hear the word, “inflammation”? Think about a time when you cut your finger and it got infected. It probably got red and swollen and it hurt too – classic symptoms of inflammation, your body’s natural response to infection. Would it surprise you to find out that your body can become inflamed because of the foods you eat?

Inflammation in your body usually occurs when you eat foods that contain flour or sugar/sweeteners. These types of food also tend to pack on the pounds and being overweight can cause inflammation, speed up the aging process and put you at risk for heart disease.

So instead of eating bagels, doughnuts, cakes, red meat, processed foods, junk foods and fast foods with unhealthy oils and trans fats that cause inflammation, try some anti-inflammatory foods that reduce inflammation and promote health:

• Fish that is rich in omega-3 fats, including wild Alaskan (not farmed) salmon, herring, halibut, snapper, striped bass and tuna

• Grass-fed beef rather than grain-fed beef; grass-fed beef is higher in omega-3 fats while grain-fed has no omega-3 fats, but plenty of saturated, pro-inflammatory fats instead

• Extra-virgin olive oil rather than vegetable oil

• Salads that contain dark green leafy vegetables, spinach, tomatoes, bell peppers, kale, broccoli and other vegetables that are rich in antioxidants, vitamin C and other nutrients that help to reduce inflammation

• Fruits, such as cherries, apples, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, pineapple, oranges, lemons and limes; cherries and blueberries are especially effective anti-inflammatory fruits that are packed with antioxidants and available frozen all year round

• Herbs and spices that flavor foods but are no or low-calorie, such as turmeric, ginger, thyme, parsley, rosemary, basil, cinnamon and mint

• Green tea, which contains natural anti-inflammatory compounds that may reduce your risk of heart disease or cancer

When you replace pro-inflammatory foods with anti-inflammatory foods you reduce inflammation, promote weight loss, decrease pain associated with inflammation and lower your risk for chronic heart disease. Keep up with your regular chiropractic adjustments and add some inflammation-reducing exercise and you should be well on the road to experiencing true health.

Shoreview, MN Chiropractor

What Does the Pain Feel Like?

What Does the Pain Feel Like?

Backaches and sciatica
Saying, 'It hurts,' really isn’t very descriptive. Knowing how to describe your pain can be helpful in receiving the proper treatment!

Many times, when you seek the care and advice of a health care professional for pain, their first question will be, “So… what does the pain feel like?” And how often do you have a tough time answering what appears, at least on the surface, to be a very simple question?

Feelings of physical pain can vary greatly not only from one condition to the next, but for the same condition in different patients. Pain is often described as mild, sharp, severe, dull, intermittent, chronic, or tingly. These are adjectives that describe the sensation of the pain, but there are three different types of pain, based on where it occurs in your body:

Somatic Pain

You feel somatic pain when there is an injury to the skin or underlying tissue. This pain is usually sharp and of short duration, the kind of pain that occurs when you burn your hand on a hot pan or cut your finger with a knife.
Sometimes, somatic pain begins deeper under the skin in ligaments, tendons or bones. This type of pain tends to be a longer lasting, duller ache – the type of pain you might experience when you sprain your ankle or break a bone.

Visceral Pain

You feel visceral pain when there is something wrong with one of your internal organs (i.e. heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, spleen, bladder, uterus, and ovaries). This pain is often described as an “aching” or “cramping,” such as the pain many women feel as part of pre-menstrual syndrome.
One of the problems with internal organs is that many do not have sensitive pain receptors. In fact, diseases of the lungs, liver and kidneys may not produce any pain and may be fairly advanced before you even notice that something is wrong. On the other hand, relatively minor problems with the stomach or bladder can produce severe pain!

Neuropathic Pain

Also called nerve pain, neuropathic pain is often described as a sensation of numbness, pressure, tingling, pins and needles, tightness, throbbing, burning, or aching. Nerve pain can result from nerve compression (i.e. a cancerous growth pushing on a nerve), nerve damage from a disease (such as diabetes, fibromyalgia or multiple sclerosis), or abnormal brain processing, such as the phantom limb pain that a person may feel from an amputated limb.

Sciatica and other types of back pain can result when spinal bones press on nerves. The goal of chiropractic adjustments is to free those nerves to function as they should, allowing the area affected by the “pinched” nerve to heal.

Many of our patients who once suffered from some type of neuropathic pain are now pain-free because of regular chiropractic adjustments! If you are experiencing any type of pain, be sure to mention it the next time you come in to see us.

Shoreview, MN Pain Relief

The Truth About Insurance

The Truth About Insurance

It used to be, you’d visit a doctor, wave your insurance card and the bill was taken care of. Times have changed, especially with the talk of a health reform bill.

Sick Care

Your policy won’t pay for things that actually advance or preserve your health, such as wellness chiropractic care.

The truth is, so-called “health” care is actually “sick” care. It has little to do with promoting health. It’s mostly about reducing symptoms with drugs or surgically removing body parts when they fail.

Most policies help cover some sick care costs. But, will they pay for bottled water, nutritional supplements, gym memberships, jogging shoes and other wellness activities?

Probably not.

Repeated Relapses

Most policies will help pay for chiropractic care when you have obvious symptoms. Benefits run out when you’re feeling better, but before muscles and ligaments fully heal.
This invites a relapse of your original problem. Lasting healing occurs after symptoms clear up.

Discontinuing your care too soon invites a relapse of your original problem.
If you rely on your carrier, you’re likely to suffer a roller coaster series of relapses without correcting the underlying problem!

Catastrophic Problems!

That’s because your policy was probably designed for catastrophic problems. Cancer. Triple by-pass surgery. That sort of thing. Reimbursing for chiropractic care when you don’t have any obvious symptoms is a new idea for them.

And...it may be a new idea for you too.

That’s okay. There was a time when regular brushing and flossing to promote healthy teeth and gums was a new idea!

The Solution

Will you count on the limited vision and profit motives of your carrier to dictate what you do or how far you’ll take your chiropractic care?

Or will you value your health and longevity enough to pay for the care needed to strengthen, stabilize and support your spine and nervous system?

It’s your body, your health and your future.
Whatever your decision, we’ll honor it and do what we can to help you achieve your health goals.

Roseville, Arden Hills, St Paul Chiropractor

Checking Your Spine for Misalignment

Checking Your Spine for Misalignment

Uneven weight distribution is a common sign of spinal misalignments.

During the examination on your first visit to our office, we use a number of tools and techniques to determine the presence and extent of any misalignments in your spine.

When your spine is not aligned properly, nerve interference is often the result. This can affect your entire body, even your immune system. Chiropractic care is designed to reduce this nerve interference, which then permits your body to assume its true, healthful vigor.

How do we determine whether there are misalignments in your spine? Well, we generally use a number of different diagnostic tests, which may include one or more of the following:

Bilateral scales– Two scales, set up side-by-side, determine if there are differences in weight distribution, between the left and right sides of your body.

Leg length tests– A contracted leg, causing one leg to appear shorter than the other can be a common sign of spinal misalignment.

Gait – We may have you walk as we notice any pelvic or spinal abnormalities that affect your stride or the way your heels strike the floor.

Bending – Bending in different directions and at different angles can reveal spinal problems such as inflexibility or scoliosis.

Rotation – Restricted movement when turning your head to the right or left can be a significant clue that misalignments are present.

Posture – Checking your posture from the side can reveal a forward leaning head and other postural distortions. From behind, we’ll note a high shoulder or hip.

In the early, easiest-to-correct stages, spinal misalignments often produce no noticeable symptoms. Yet. A spinal checkup in our practice can reveal problem areas that we can address before they become headaches, back pain or more serious health issues.

St Paul, MN Area Chiropractor

"But Doc, I Didn’t Do Anything!"

"But Doc, I Didn’t Do Anything!"

Backaches and Sciatica

Some of the simplest, everyday things can reveal long-standing neglect.

I can't even count how many times a patient has walked into my practice with some kind of ache or pain and said, “But, Doc, I have no idea what happened, I didn’t do anything!” Really?

What many patients don’t know, or don’t understand, is that it’s not always a case of what you did five minutes ago, or what you did yesterday, or even what you did last week that’s causing the current problem; it’s more a case of “the straw broke the camel’s back,” no pun intended!
Sometimes it’s chronic stress that wreaks havoc on your nervous system and finally causes your back to “go out” or a “pain in your neck” because of the strain of carrying the weight of all that stress on your back and neck.

Or maybe it’s some underlying long-term health problem that you’ve failed to address that finally manifests itself in pain of some sort that forces you to look at the real cause of the symptom (pain).

So, you walk outside to pick up the newspaper and you feel a sharp pain in your lower back. But picking up the newspaper certainly didn’t cause that!

Let’s use an everyday example to demonstrate. You go to the local eatery and put your purchase on your bank debit card. All of a sudden, bells and whistles go off because you didn’t have enough in your account to cover that charge. It’s not this charge that “broke the bank,” it’s all the money you spent before this purchase and the fact that you didn’t properly manage your account in the first place that put you in this predicament. Now, you’re faced with overdraft charges, embarrassment and the inconvenience of having to deal with the situation.

It’s the same with your health…ignore it and it will find a way to let you know you’re overlooking something.

The best way to stay on top of things so you don’t wind up “over spent” is to stay on schedule with your chiropractic adjustments, eat healthy foods, sleep at least eight hours each night, and learn how to manage your stress (exercise, yoga, meditation, a relaxing hobby, etc.)

Shoreview, MN Back Pain Specialist

Wii Fit: Exercise in a Video Game?

Wii Fit: Exercise in a Video Game?

Exercise and Fitness

Anything that gets you up and moving is better than doing nothing at all, even if it’s just a game.

It seems as though everyone is talking about it. Is it a video game? Is it a serious interactive workout? Just what is Wii Fit and can it really help you to stay fit?

First introduced in Japan, Wii Fit became an instant success, selling more than 1 million copies at lightning speed. The success of Wii Fit lies in the fact that it actually makes the “player” get up and move, instead of sitting like a couch potato –the way you generally play most video games. Advertised as uniting fitness and fun, the game starts by calculating your body mass index (BMI), your body control and your center of balance to arrive at your “Wii age.”

The key component to this game is the balance board that is used in different types of “games.” Games include yoga, balance, strength training, and aerobics. Because the game requires the player to move physically, it allows you to simulate action-packed adventures such as snowboarding down a mountain or even walking a tightrope!

A daily chart that comes with the software allows you to monitor your progress and set goals to challenge yourself to meet higher levels of performance.

This game could be a good way to get off the video game controller and a sedentary lifestyle. However, we think maybe the Wii people have it a little backwards when they say. “Your center of balance, the point between your left and right sides when you are standing upright, has a lot to do with your health. Those without an even center of balance will be unnaturally compensating for this imbalance, which causes their posture to become misaligned, increasing the possibility of putting unnecessary strain on their body. Wii Fit can help you learn more about your balance, and give you tips on how to improve it.”

Chiropractic looks to correct spinal misalignments that cause imbalances in your body, not the other way around. The imbalances do not create the misalignments, the misalignments create the imbalances. That is why we look at the way you stand, compare leg lengths, adjust hips, etc. – to rebalance the body and remove nerve interference that contributes to ill health.

Anything that gets you up and moving is better than doing nothing at all, but, if you want to stay indoors, a dance video might just give you a more complete calorie-burning, heart-thumping workout!


Shoreview, MN Chiropractor