This news from the Canadian Pediatric Society conference held in Victoria, British Columbia, at first glance may seem surprising. Exercise helps one lose weight, right? Well according to this analysis of studies of school activity interventions done on 10,000 children in BC comparing Body Mass Index (BMI) before and after the intervention, there was no change in BMI, even in the studies where the activity interventions lasted three years. The studies analysis did show improvements in health measures like blood pressure, bone density, aerobic fitness and range of motion, but none of the studies showed a drop in bodyweight. This follows on the heels of another study done on 900 teens in grades 10 to 12 in the Vancouver area studied by researchers at University of British Columbia and McGill University in Montreal, who found “… there appeared to be no link between body mass index (BMI) values and levels of physical activity”

I recently taught a shoulder course, and so neck, upper back pain and nerve pain into the arm have been on my mind a lot. These are very common problems that many people suffer from, and although they can have many different causes, improving overall posture as well as the resting position of the shoulder-blade are frequently overlooked as potential solutions.

Is it logical to think that our bodies would manufacture a substance in order to give us a disease? Of course not. Yet many of us are worried about our cholesterol levels, something our body manufactures regularly. Cholesterol is a waxy substance that is the precursor to many of our hormones, including testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, cortisol, pregnenalone and DHEA. Cholesterol is an antioxidant, sopping up free radicals, and is also a very important part of cell membranes, so as our cells die (blood cells, skin cells, bone cells, muscle cells etc.), cholesterol is needed to make the membranes of the replacement cells. Considering we
replace about 2 million blood cells each second, it becomes obvious that cholesterol is vitally important, and we would not survive without it. If tissue is damaged, more cholesterol is needed to repair and replace the damaged cells with healthy ones. No wonder it is so important that our liver can easily manufacture cholesterol.

Pain is the number one reason people go to their doctors, and pain is usually the result of inflammation. Inflammation is the body’s natural response to injury or infection, resulting in redness, swelling, warmth, frequently pain, and loss of function. Inflammation is vital to the healing process of the injured tissue, as the circulatory system and immune system deliver what is necessary to the damaged site to fight infection and repair injured tissues. Controlling swelling at the time of an acute injury can do much to reduce pain, and the easiest ways to do this is to RICE - Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. Rest the injured tissue, ice it, put some compression on it by using a clean gauze pad and applying some pressure, and elevate the injured tissue above the heart. However, once the threat of infection is over, the inflammation response should stop by itself.

I’ve noticed a big change at the gym I work out of - those colourful hard plastic water bottles have become an endangered species, due to the risk of bisphenol A (BPA) leaching into the water. Everyone appears to be switching to the stainless-steel variety, which seems to me to be a much better choice. Many families have stopped using baby bottles and sippy cups made from #7 plastic to feed their infants and toddlers. Europe has banned the substance in items for children under the age of3, and Health Canada indicated that it is adding BPA to its toxic substance list. When huge outdoor-gear companies like Mountain Equipment Coop listen to their customers' concerns and decide to stop selling the offending water bottles, and the companies that make them (like Nalgene), suddenly lose very large orders, they take notice and change. Nalgene, which always did have alternatives to the no. 7 lexan water bottles, is now going out of its way to promote BPA-free alternatives, whereas in the past they tended to dismiss the concerns as baseless. We reached the tipping point, where concerned consumers have made BPA in water bottles unsellable. Congratulations, everyone!!! This is the way
positive change can happen - consumers have more power than governments to change corporate practice by choosing where they spend their money. Now we need to do this on the food front.

First of all, what IS blood pressure exactly? Your doctor tells you two numbers, say 130 over 80 - what do they mean? The first or top number is the pressure or force the blood is exerting on the walls of the artery while the heart is contracting, and the bottom number is the pressure or force the blood is exerting on the walls of the artery when the heart is relaxing between beats, and filling up with blood. So, if the pressure is high, it means the arteries may be constricted or possibly partially blocked, which is why blood pressure is an easy way to detect potential cardiovascular risk factors. The bottom number is particularly telling, because if that number is higher than it should be when the heart is between beats, it is likely there is a problem. "Normal" blood pressure is considered to be 120/80, and most people get put on medication if their blood pressure rises to 140/90. I find it interesting to note that in the primitive cultures that were studied in the 1920s and 30s, blood pressure tended to decline with age, rather than go up, as we are currently witnessing in Western society.

On occasion over the last few years, I’ve known people, usually elderly, that were told by their physicians to take “Ensure” or “Boost”, or some other meal replacement beverage, in order to be certain they are getting all the nutrients they need. And even when a plate of healthy, real food is offered, the dutiful patient follows the doctor’s advice and chooses the artificial drink instead, believing they will get better nutrition from the drink than from the food. Doctors are doing their very best, but please remember that most have had very little if any nutrition training at all. The weight-loss industry also frequently markets meal-replacement beverages as part of their weight-loss plans. Having looked at the ingredient list on these beverages, I don’t think they should be recommended to anyone!

It may be hard to believe that watching TV can damage our health, but there are many reasons that this is true. The obvious one is that time spent watching TV means less time spent doing physical activity, and inactivity is definitely very damaging to one’s health. Many people watch over four hours of television a day, and that is frequently in addition to sitting at work for eight hours! The more the TV time, the fatter we are. Childhood TV watching is clearly linked to childhood obesity.

Osteoporosis is a disease that results in the thinning of the bones to the point where there is a risk of fracture, and it affects one in three women and one in five men over the age of 50. The most common sites of fracture are the vertebrae of the spine, particularly the upper back, the wrist, and the top of the thigh bone where it joins the pelvis (neck of the femur).

A client of mine told me this story about a friend of hers that needlessly passed away, and I thought that there was a lesson here that we could all benefit from. There is a lot of publicity around the idea of not drinking and driving, but I haven’t seen anything in the media about the potential dangers of drinking and passing out.