Terry A. Rondberg's blog

Attention … attention … attention

In real estate, they say the three most important factors are location, location, location.

In life, I think they're attention, attention, attention.

But who can pay attention to anyone or anything anymore, with all the cell phones ringing and text messages coming in every two minutes? People are walking around with a BlueTooth on their ear like some alien antenna. I used to think they were talking to themselves (which is bad enough) but now I know they're off in another sphere entirely, paying attention to people on the other end. And they're ignoring me, you, the traffic, the sales clerk in the store, their customers and patients, and everything and everyone else in their immediate vicinity.

We already know that texting and cell phone use has caused a significant increase in traffic accidents. In fact, researchers recently found that traffic fatalities from distracted driving increased 28% after 2005, rising from 4,572 fatalities to 5,870 in 2008 ("Trends in Fatalities from Distracted Driving in the United States, 1999 to 2008," American Journal of Public Health, 10.2105/AJPH.2009.187179).

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Distractions aren't only a problem for drivers. People at home, in their offices, stores, and on the street constantly insult others when they answer their cell phone in your presence. "Sorry, but whoever this is on the line has to be more important than you," is the message they send out.

Plus, think of all the life experience they miss because they fail to live in the "present moment." They don't see the tree changing colors in the autumn. They fail to notice that cute kid skateboarding past them. They can't relax and watch the world go by because they just aren't there. It's amazing how much the human mind can tune out when concentrating on a phone call.

For instance, a psychology professor at Western Washington University conducted an experiment to see just how much we miss when we're distracted. Professor Ira Hyman, had one of his students dress up as a clown and ride a unicycle around a central square on campus. Unbelievable as it may seem, 75% of people who were talking on a cell phone when they passed by actually failed to notice the clown (a report on his study will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology).

"Cell phone use causes people to be oblivious to their surroundings while engaged in even a simple task such as walking," Prof. Hyman said. "Cell phone users walk more slowly, change directions and weave more often and fail to notice interesting and novel objects."

In an age when there are so many truly interesting and novel objects to observe, that's truly a shame!

It's official "I'll proclaim anything" day

It seems lately that states and cities are declaring a "day" or even a "month" for everything. There are the old-timers like the official Arbor Day, Earth Day and Peace Day. But the new crop of official days and months proclaimed by governors and mayors include such designations as Connecticut's "National Hunting and Fishing Day," California's "Drowsy Driver Awareness Day," North Carolina's "Wine and Grape Appreciation Month," and Georgia's "Litter Clean Up Month."

So, it shouldn't come as a surprise that one state -- Texas -- officially recognized this Sept. 8 as "Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Nurses Day."

In a weird and satisfying example of one-upmanship, chiropractic scored a victory by getting the entire MONTH of October dedicated as "Chiropractic Month" in Oregon. Texas is 2.7 times larger in area than Oregon, but it's only got one day, so chiropractic wins!

Although some of the nonsense surrounding these official proclamations have made the whole idea of "official days" something of a joke, having a governor declare a chiropractic month can be a great idea, if it ends up being something more than a way to score points with an organization's membership.

To be effective, chiropractors have to really plan and execute a massive public education program around such proclamations as the one in Oregon, making sure local news outlets publicize them, and individual practitioners build events around the news.

Otherwise, it just ends up being an empty gesture that distracts from our real goals. Just another meaningless proclamation like National Mustard Day.

British court: MMR vaccine caused child's brain damage

Although the British government continues to insist that the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) is completely safe, a UK court panel -- consisting of two medical doctors and a judge -- has ruled that the vaccine caused severe brain damage in Robert Fletcher, now aged 18, and has ordered the government to pay £90,000 ($138,889US as of  09.09.10) in compensation.

The boy's mother, Jackie Fletcher, has been fighting her legal battle for more than 13 years. Robert was 13 months old when he received the MMR vaccination as part of the UK's normal, recommended childhood vaccines. Ten days later, he began experiencing epileptic seizures and became unresponsive. Now severely disabled both physically and mentally, the young man still cannot talk, feed himself or even stand up unaided.

In a BBC report, his mother stated: "I feel vindicated by it because over the years I've been labelled anti-vaccine and a scaremonger and all sorts of things, when all I've been trying to do is highlight what's happened to my son, to help safeguard other parents' children. What I'm hoping now is that other parents whose children have suffered a similar reaction to Robert can maybe go down the same route that we've gone down to achieve justice for their children."

Although this is thought to be the first successful case to result in compensation for damages done by the MMR vaccine, between 1997 and 2005, the British government paid out £3.5 million ($5,399,568US as of 09.09.10) to patients who were disabled by vaccinations. The real extent of the vaccine's damage may never be known since most claims are denied, and claims are automatically denied for children under the age of two years, even though the government recommends vaccines for children under that age. Regardless of how severe the disabilities are, the payout is a flat £100,000 ($154,273US as of 09.09.10) per successful claim.

The US has a similar program, called the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Since 1988, 13,479 claims have been filed and nearly $2 billion has been paid in compensation (with another $71 million going to legal fees).

I find it difficult to believe the governments of the UK and US will pay billions of dollars in compensation for deaths and injuries PROVEN to be the result of vaccines, and yet continue to deny there are any risks involved.

While I personally feel that vaccines are ineffective, costly and dangerous, I am not advocating the abolition of all vaccines. That would be imposing my beliefs on others. But I feel strongly that people should have the right to make an informed decision about what drugs they and their children should receive (and vaccines ARE drugs). To do so, they must have access to all information available, including the risks involved. This is not what they're getting from our public health officials, who use scare tactics, misinformation, and legal mandates to coerce people to get shots they may not want or need and which may do them irreparable harm.

Vaccine Zombie uses humor to warn about vaccine

Here's a new approach to warning people about the dangers of routine vaccines: a new hip hop/rap song and animated music video produced by Mike Adams, best known as the "Health Ranger." His "Vaccine Zombie" video is hilarious yet contains an important message.

I hope that delivering the message in this way will reach a lot of the younger generation who just don't listen to the "establishment."

Adams, an award-winning journalist and accomplished songwriter, is the editor of NaturalNews.com and the executive director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center. "We planned the launch of this song to coincide with the start of this year's big vaccine push," he explained. "People need to know that vaccines can cause extremely dangerous side effects such as seizures and nervous system disorders. They have even paralyzed and killed many children and teens around the world."

For Sale: 4 bedroom, 2 bath, near bike paths

When we're out looking for a new home, we don't often think about how our choice can impact our health -- but we should! A new study provides evidence supporting a seemingly obvious, although scientifically unproven, link between walking- and cycling-friendly communities and lower levels of obesity. And we all know how obesity relates to health.

Researchers found that people are more likely to have healthy weights if they live in places where walking and cycling are more common. The link held up among nations, cities, and US states.

"It's really important to promote walking and cycling as safe, convenient and feasible modes of getting around on an everyday basis," said lead author John Pucher, a professor who studies transportation at Rutgers University.

Prof. Pucher and colleagues analyzed statistics about walking and cycling for all purposes from 14 countries, including Sweden, Spain, and Great Britain. They also looked at statistics about walking and cycling to work (it had to be the main way people got there) in all 50 US states and 47 of the 50 largest US cities.

Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Spain had the highest levels of walking and cycling among the countries, with the United States in the bottom three with Australia and Canada. Among American cities, the highest rates of walking and cycling to work were in Boston, Washington DC, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Seattle.

The researchers tried to find links between the levels of walking and cycling and those of physical activity, obesity, and diabetes in the geographic areas. Their findings appear in the August issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

There's a connection between more walking and cycling and lower levels of obesity and diabetes, the researchers found. Not surprisingly, they also linked more walking and cycling to higher overall levels of physical activity.

The study's findings suggest that a big part of the gaps between American states and cities concerning health can be explained by differences in levels of walking and cycling, Pucher said.

While the link between more exercise and less obesity might seem obvious, many people simply don't make the connection. "As obvious as it is," he said, "it's shocking that Americans don't want to do anything about it. It's amazing how unconcerned most Americans are about this."

Lawrence Frank, an associate professor who studies transportation at the University of British Columbia, said the study findings reflect the results of previous research that show the effects of exercise (or the lack of it) on health.

"Physical activity is crucial," Frank said. "If we keep designing communities in ways that make driving the more rational choice, we can expect health care costs to go up and quality of life to go down."

So, instead of making sure your next house is close to the freeway or within driving distance of a shopping mall, check out the walking areas and bike paths!

SOURCE: "Walking and cycling to health: a comparison of recent evidence from city, state, and international studies." Am J Public Health 100(10), 2010. Abstract online

Pass the plate of flavanol, please

When I first heard of chiropractors marketing a type of chocolate as a "health food," I was a bit surprised and maybe a little annoyed. I'm all for backend marketing of products and services that can really help our patients, but chocolate?

I did a little more research and it turns out they might be on to a good idea. In fact, I just read that, according to a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), cocoa flavanols may be an important part of a healthy diet for people with cardiovascular disease, which affects more than 80 million Americans.

The research, conducted at the University of California San Francisco found that daily cocoa flavanol consumption more than doubled the number of circulating angiogenic cells (CACs) in the blood. These cells have been shown to have vessel repair and maintenance functions, which can contribute to healthy blood vessels. Poor blood vessel function is recognized as an early stage in the development process of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), including coronary artery disease. Increasing levels of CACs have also been associated with a decreased risk of death from cardiovascular causes, according to a 2005 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

To me, the new study published in JACC was important in that, while previous research pointed to physical activity and experimental drug therapy to increase CAC levels, this study focuses on an alternative to drugs.

The study also showed that high-flavanol cocoa significantly reduced systolic blood pressure, an important risk factor for heart disease and stroke, and improved blood vessel function by 47% compared to low-flavanol consumption in optimally medicated adults with severe cardiovascular disease.

Obviously, they didn't use just any old chocolate in the research. It was a specially prepared cocoa drink with a high level of flavanol. Other research has shown that while solid raw chocolate products often contain a substantial amount of flavanols, chocolate beverages don't. In addition, while found in abundance in raw cocoa beans, most cocoa flavanols are destroyed during the conventional chocolate-making process. Which means that regular chocolate bought in the grocery store -- overloaded with sugars and processed to within an inch of its life -- is simply tasty poison.

“And perhaps most importantly, for the first time, we found that cocoa flavanols might even directly mobilize important cells that could repair damaged blood vessels. The benefits are substantial, without any observed adverse effects,” added study author Christian Heiss, MD, Heinrich-Heine University.

A number of previously published studies already suggested that the consumption of cocoa flavanols can have important beneficial effects on the function of the body’s network of blood vessels. Yet, contrary to statements often made in the popular media, the collective research demonstrates that the cardiovascular effects of cocoa flavanols are independent of general "antioxidant" effects that cocoa flavanols exhibit in a test tube, outside of the body. The body of research not only suggests that these cocoa flavanols may provide a dietary approach to maintaining cardiovascular function and health, but also points to new possibilities for cocoa flavanol-based interventions associated with age-related blood vessel dysfunction and vascular complications of type 2 diabetes.

Can you imagine the look on patients' faces if you offered them some chocolate for their health?

Dream big … and think positive

According to the concepts in energy healing and the new biology, our thoughts and intentions are the guiding forces in our lives. What we think about, comes about. That's why it's important for us to think positive and DREAM BIG.

That's exactly what Lynn Dowswell, DC, of Orillia, Ontario, did when she dreamed of completing the Lake Placid (NY) Ironman event. In an article on Simcoe.com -- which provides news and information about the Ontario communities of Simcoe County and Grey-Bruce -- Dr. Dowswell posted a time of 14 hours, 41 minutes and 52 seconds for the grueling course.

The Ironman (maybe it's time to change the name to Ironperson?) is one of the most challenging fitness events you can imagine. First, you swim for 2.4 miles, then cycle for 112 miles, and then top it off with a 26.2-mile marathon run.

A more impressive fact is that she did it to celebrate her 40th birthday. So much for the myth about 40 being "over the hill!"

She trained hard for the event and believed she could achieve it. But the belief had to come first. If she didn't think it possible, she wouldn't have attempted it or would have ended up meeting her own internal expectations of failure.

How many of us fail to fulfill our dreams because our subconscious is programmed for failure? Somewhere along the way, we came to believe that we either couldn't -- or shouldn't -- succeed in our efforts. Maybe we put mental limitations on how much money we can make, or we believed the myths about being too young, too old or too whatever to try a new venture. Unless we can change that programming, we're going to continue along the way we're going.

We need to all take a lesson from Dr. Dowswell -- dream BIG, believe you can do it, and work hard to make it happen.

St. Louis story a wolf in sheep's clothing

At first glance, the article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch looks like positive publicity for chiropractic. After all, author Cynthia Gregorian states that "Medical doctors now refer patients to chiropractors. A growing number of insurance companies covers chiropractic treatments. And the Higher Learning Commission recognizes Logan College the same way as Washington University, St. Louis University and the University of Missouri."

But it doesn't take long for the underlying message of the article to bubble to the surface.

"The chiropractic discipline has had its black spots. Chiropractors once believed that a vertebral subluxation or out-of-whack spinal joint could interfere with the body's function and cause all sorts of systemic diseases," Gregorian states.

Once believed? Sadly, this writer hasn't kept abreast of the newest developments in energy medicine, or even in the chiropractic profession, which is once again embracing the original vitalistic concepts of neurologically based chiropractic.

The author managed to include the apparently obligatory anti-chiropractic statements from medical doctors such as Daniel Scodary, a neurosurgeon at North County Neurosurgery in Bridgeton who states: "I think chiropractors now understand pathology and microbiology much better. They recognize that if you have a strep infection of the throat, it needs antibiotics."

Later in the article, Scodary allows that he "refers patients who aren't good surgical candidates to chiropractors after they've exhausted all other options, including pain management and physical therapy."

Where is the "acceptance" mentioned in the headline? Is it acceptance only on a "last resort" basis, after the MDs have tried drugs, surgery, and everything else they can think of?

The article follows the same tired pattern we've seen in hundreds of articles for many years -- chiropractors are being "accepted" by the medical profession, but only if they stick to very limited areas of pain management or musculoskeletal "treatment." If they attempt to do what chiropractic is supposed to do -- that is, address neurological function by correcting subluxations -- they are still labeled quacks by the medical profession and those writers who refuse to open their eyes and minds to new ideas.

I hope everyone will stop by the Post Dispatch website and leave a comment about how YOU feel about chiropractic's role in health care. Since reporters don't ask us our opinions, we have to take the initiative to provide them wherever we can!

Inspiring students

I came across this article the other day and thought it showcased everything that was generous and noble about our profession.

Chiropractic students practice their craft in Vietnam

Brandon Dellechiaie and Amanda Russo were among 15 students from Palmer Chiropractic College's Port Orange, Fla. campus to go to Vietnam on a health care "mission." They each saw some 120 patients while working at eight rural clinics.

The team also distributed five tons of rice, 300 gallons of milk and several wheelchairs. People came for miles around to receive chiropractic adjustments, even some who had to be carried by family members. Altogether, this intrepid band of students cared for about 5,000 people. "One day we had 936 patients, our record," said John Schaeffer, the chiropractic faculty advisor who led the students. It was his fifth trip to Vietnam.

The great humanitarian work these individuals performed in Vietnam was enough to make this trip a resounding success. But as an added bonus, the chiropractic profession is enjoying very positive publicity thanks to the Daytona-Beach News-Journal story -- which (hopefully) will spread throughout the Internet.

If you see similar stories about chiropractors or chiropractic students doing noteworthy things, let me know. I think such efforts are worth passing along!

Skateboarder saved from surgery

In a recent article in the WCA Health Watch newsletter, I reported on research showing that the failure rate for most ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) reconstruction surgeries is as high as 23.4%.

That's probably why the Real Street Interview with Nick Trapasso posted on ESPN.com caught my attention. Nick's an extreme skateboarder who does unbelievable things on his board -- like gliding down the roof of a building or a staircase banister.

The part of the interview that pulled me in was this:

Remember when you needed knee surgery and somehow it just magically went away. What's up with that?

"They told me I needed to have it, then I went to a chiropractor and they stretched it out. The chiropractor said I'll have arthritis but that I didn't really need [surgery]. But I just skated on it and it feels good. I don't know what happened."

Of course, stretching a knee isn't a chiropractic adjustment, but the fact is, a DC saved this young man from unnecessary surgery that could have put a halt to his career as a skateboarder (and don't laugh … he makes a lot of money doing commercials for his big-time sponsors).

The Real Street Interview has been read by thousands of people on the Internet and picked up by hundreds of other sites (as this is written, just a day after the article on ESPN was posted, Google found 171 hits for the words "Nick Trapasso" and "chiropractor").

Millions of people might ultimately hear how Nick's managed to skate clear of the surgeon's knife -- and that bit of info is stored away for future reference.

That's good news for chiropractic -- and for who knows how many people who might decide to try chiropractic first if they ever injure a knee!