I was recently asked this question, and I have to say it disturbed me a bit.  This rumor, urban myth or just plain bad press, pops up about the chiropractic adjustment every few years.  The simple answer is that chiropractic adjustments can not cause permanent damage, and it's significantly safer than most other forms of health care.  Over 20 million people receive either chiropractic and osteopathic manipulations, and the incidents of serious side effects are “very low.”

When talking to the general public, I will inevitably be asked how do you know you're not going to break a neck?  Well, I have studied martial arts for about half of my life, and there is no way that the chiropractic adjustment can break a neck, baring any major underlying pathology.

There are a few simple facts about the safety of chiropractic.  First, insurance companies spend a lot of money researching the danger of an event or activity.  If events and activities that carry more risk, much more must be spent on t...

Welcome to this Thursday version of my Wednesday Q & A, sorry I didn't get this up yesterday, but I felt this was an important question that I didn't want overshadowing by our great ADHD webinar last night.

I was shocked when I got this question from a patient not too long ago.  They showed me a letter they received from the Plano Independent School District, that stated:

“Dear Plano ISD parent, I want to make you aware of some additional immunizations that will be required for the 2014 school year The changes will amend 25 Texas Administrative Code, Chapter 97, Subchapter B, 97.61; 97.63-97.72.  Following are immunizations that will be affected:

Meningococcal Vaccine
One dose requirements for seventh – twelfth-grade entry
Varicella Vaccine
Two dose requirements for kindergarten – fifth and seventh – twelfth
grade entry
Tdap Vaccine (Tetanus and diphtheria toxoids and acellular pertussis)
Booster dose required for seventh grade
MMR Vaccine (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella)
Two dose require...

I see this all the time.  We're now four weeks into the New Year, and you've been exercising more than you have in a long time.  You're skipping the drive-thru's and being strict about your diet.  However, when you're stepping on the scale, the numbers aren't budging in the direction that you need them to. So why are you not losing weight?  Here are the top 10 reasons you are not losing weight:

1. You haven't chosen the right diet
   With the thousands, if not millions, of potential diets out there, it's so easy to get overwhelmed and confused.  When choosing a 'diet', you need to make sure it revolves around real food, and not the processed homogenized crap served from a drive thru window or inner isles of a grocery store.  Protein meal replacement weight-loss shakes also are not real food.   The best clinical results I have seen in my office are from the ancestral based diets like the paleo or primal diets.
2. You're not drinking enough water
   You need to be drinking at least ½ your body wei
...

There are so many ways that intestine health is important, especially considering that 80% of our immune system is in our intestines.  Autoimmune diseases are now such a common and devastating problem, and they are strongly linked to unhealthy, 'leaky' guts.  These occur when your immune system becomes hypersensitive to a protein or foreign compound because it sees that substance way too often.  The problem comes when you have increased intestinal permeability (leaky gut), you absorb too big of proteins, and these proteins look a lot like your tissue.  So your immune system starts attacking.  This would be a great thing except for the fact that it is attacking you!

Here is the best analogy I have come up with for an autoimmune disease.  Think of how annoyed you get when you see that in-law or relative that just gets on your nerves.  If they are around enough, then you start to get inflamed, irritated and might just take it out of family members that you like.  So basically your immune...

US News has recently rated the Paleo diet low on its list of healthy and acceptable diets.  I get so upset reading articles about how bad eating a Paleo diet is for you.  It's always backed up by misinformation, misrepresentation, and blatant attempts to protect their advertisers.  I’m not saying the editors or panel polled were unduly influenced.  However, how can it be that Weight Watchers was rated as one of the best overall diets for weight loss, but something that encourages you to eat whole, unprocessed food, can be the worst?  I also find it a coincidence that Weight Watchers has an advertisement on every page of US News’ diet section, which makes it even harder for me to take this 'study' seriously.

So let's look at these so-called flaws they've found with the Paleo diet.

Will you lose weight?

US News Stated: “No way to tell. Paleo diets haven’t yet drawn the attention of many researchers.”

This is a ridiculous statement! No way to tell?   Seriously, if you own a scale, and...

I am sure that you all have seen the news this week, but here's a quick recap if you haven't.  A science teacher in Iowa gave his students an assignment to change his diet.  He challenged them to plan three meals a day, that totaled 2000 calories.  The tricky part was that all these meals had to come from McDonald's.  They also were to keep the macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbohydrate) somewhat balanced.  He followed this diet for 90 days while adding in 45 minutes of walking every day.  He ended the 90 days losing 37 pounds and having a significant improvement in his total cholesterol, dropping it from 249 to 170.  I have to admit I was a bit shocked by these numbers, so let's look in detail to see how this could happen.

A science teacher in Iowa gave his students an assignment to change his diet.  He challenged them to plan three meals a day, that totaled 2000 calories.  The tricky part was that all these meals had to come from McDonald's.  They also were to keep the macronutr...

Here we are again on January 1^st, the start of a new year.  It's a time to reflect on last twelve months and look forward to the coming year.  It's also a time to analyze what we did last year and make resolutions to do better.  Some people love this time of year, and others hate it.   I'm one who gets really excited about it, as I like decide how my year is going to turn out.   I prefer to 'decide' rather than 'plan' because when you make a decision, all other possibilities are cut off.   I love creating my goals, and removing the doubt doesn't allow my subconscious to steer me in a bad direction.

Only about half of Americans make any new year resolutions or goals for the year.  What's really sad is that only 8% of those people actually keep up those resolutions within the first 30 days.  So here are some of the things I'm using to achieve my goals so I will be in that 8%.

Set big goals and plan to act just as big - Conventional wisdom tells you to make your goals attainable, not un...

Bacon is proof that I could never live a kosher lifestyle. 

If you pay attention to some paleo bloggers then you've read that bacon is proof that God loves us, but bacon still gets a bad wrap in mainstream circles. My general take on bacon is that if the pork is raised properly, meaning, if it's fed a proper diet and without hormones or antibiotics, or screw up the  meat with nitrates and other chemical additives/enhancers, and if you can manage to cook it properly (not burned to a crisp), you actually have a pretty good food! 

A food that I consider somewhat healthy.  The problem with bacon occurs when shortcuts are taken along this path. All in all, bacon may be as good as green vegetables, but, like the veggies, needs to be well cared for and raised properly.

I've been asked to share what my family and I will be eating this Thanksgiving, and I'm happy to share that information! Obviously, turkey is on the menu!  I picked a nice bird up from our friends at Local Yocal on Tuesday.  

I'll brine the turkey with some fresh sage, thyme, and tarragon along with a brine kit I purchased from Whole Foods.  The turkey will brine for about 24 hours.  I feel like brining makes the turkey juicier and keeps it from drying out during the cooking process.  Brining may make the turkey juicier, but less flavorful, that's why I add the sage, thyme, and tarragon to push the flavor back into the turkey.  I'll cook the turkey on the grill with a bit of smoke from hickory.  I don't like a fully smoked turkey so I only use it for the first hour to encase that smokey flavor.

Thanksgiving wouldn't be the same without stuffing.  And this paleo stuffing is flat-out amazing!  Can't say it enough - I really can't tell the difference between this stuffing and the tradit...

My babies have softened and rounded me out in life and made me a much better person. I am forever thankful for my parents.   

Without their loving guidance and support, there's no way that I could have made it as far as I have!  I'm very blessed that they, along with my sister, will be making the trip to join us for Thanksgiving this year. I'm very aware how fortunate I am to have both my parents still living and healthy enough to make the trip.

As in every year, I'm thankful to my patients!  They teach me every day just how amazing the body is and how it can heal itself without massive amounts of intervention.  They teach me courage, strength, and hope as I see their trust in me as a healer. 

I'm especially thankful for Lisa.  She is an asset I never knew I needed.  She keeps the office organized and keeps me focused, as much as she can, on the goals and tasks at hand. I'm looking forward to what next year will bring with her on my team. Not to sound preachy or trite here, but I am...