West Valley Family Clinic Blog

Often I find people who have no complaint of symptoms, but have broblems in their spine. It is not uncommon to find moderate to severe degeneration in the spine of someone who has no history of symptoms. It is interesting how these people seem surprised to find out that they are so bad off and yet have no symptoms. How often have we gone to a dentist for a routine check up and found out that we had cavities even though we didn’t have a tooth ache?

Even more surprising to me is how often people will put off taking care of a problem because there are no symptoms. We tend to think that if there are no symptoms, then there is no problem.

The leeding cause of death in the United States is heart disease. 47% of the time, the first sign of heart disease is death. How many of us would put off taking care of a heart problem, which was detected in a routine examination prior to the developement of symptoms?

Some might say, “well, that’s different, that’s the heart we’re talking about.” It really is not any different, and here is why. If you took your car in for it’s routine maintenance, and where told that the transmision had a problem and needed to be fixed before it left you stranded, you would probably get it fixed. But, what if you were told that there was an electrical problem which was causing a short in the communication between the computer and your transmission. If not fixed, then eventually it would also ruin your transmission. Would you get it fixed? Well, when there is misalignment of the spine, which interferes with the nerves carying information from the brain to the body, it will eventually leed to the breakdown of one or more organs.

Don’t rely on symptoms to determine your health, get checked by a chiropractor, and if there is a problem, get it fixed. The problem with waiting until there are symptoms, is that while you are waiting the degeneration continues to get worse. When you do go to get it fixed, it will take longer, cost more, and may not be able to be completely corrected.

No doubt that we can put ourselves in some very awkward positions in our sleep, and can wake up feeling stiff and sore from it. However, this should be the exception, and not the rule. Often I have people tell me that they wake up every morning with stiffness in their lowback, or neck, and that they think it is because they are sleeping wrong. Well, if that’s the case then they need to go back to sleeping school. We don’t sleep wrong every night. To say that is just a way of brushing aside the obvious, and trying to ignore the fact that there is a serious problem. If you are waking up with pain and stiffness on any regular basis, then you need to get checked. Please address any questions that you may have to drmarksnow@westvalleyfamilyclinic.com.

Allergies are reactions, by the body, to substances which are typically harmless. These reactions can range in severity from full on watery eyes, runny nose, and sneazing to mild reactions which do not produce any “noticable” symptoms. Usually known as a sensativity these milder reactions are very dangerous because they can cause degenerative processes which are unnoticed until marked damage has occured. Leaky gut syndrome, a condition in which the lining of the intestine allows the passage of large molecules into the blood stream is believed to be one of the causes of allergies. These larger molecules can become attached to “self” tissue, and fool the body into recognizing that “self” tissue as a pathogen. The body then builds an immunity to that tissue, and begins an assault on it. This tissue could be the joint linings, causing an arthritic condition. This is why many arthritic conditions are known as “auto-immune” diseases. People with conditions such as arthritis, psoriasis, and intestinal disorders should be checked for allergies. If you have any questions, please address them to drmarksnow@westvalleyfamilyclinic.com.

What is the difference between food based supplements and synthetic supplements? Most supplements that you can buy in the grocery store are synthetic vitamins. What that means is that they have been made in a laboratory. They have been able to look at the chemical structure of a nutrient like vitamin C, and then they mix those chemicals together in a lab and call it “Vitamin C”. In fact, it is not a complete vitamin C, but is only ascorbic acid.

The complete vitamin C complex has many more factors to it such as bioflavinoids, quercitin, rutin, K and J factors as well as other substances, which we are unable to replicate in a laboratory. So what is wrong with taking supplements which are made in a laboratory?

The problem is that our bodies are the ultimate laboratories. If we take into our body a “partial” supplement, then the body will recognize the deficiency, and it will add the missing substances to make the vitamin whole and usable. This will lead to a deficiency in the body. Whole food based supplements are not made in a laboratory, but are concentrated from whole foods known to have a high concentration of the needed nutrient.

For instance, Optimal 2 vitamin mineral antioxidant formula from Optimal Health Systems contains acerola cherry, which is a rich source of vitamin C. Remember that these are concentrated, so for you to get the same amount of vitamin C by eating the cherries, you would be eating constantly. Because whole food based supplements are complete, they require a lower dose to be even more effective than the higher doses of synthetic vitamins.

Now a word about enzymes. Enzymes are the body’s chemists. They re the guys that make all of the essential chemical reactions in the body happen. Our bodies have a store of enzymes. Most of our diets are deficient in enzymes, and therefore the body’s store of enzymes is many times drained, and we are unable to utilize the nutrients that we take into our bodies. Whole food based supplements are complete with enzymes that not only help to utilize the supplement, but also other nutrients that we take in in the way of food. The more processed our foods are the more that we need to supplement our enzymes.

If you are wondering if you have a vitamin deficiency, take a free online nutritional assessment at http://sfhc.optimalhealthsystems.com. You can listen to this blog as a podcast at www.westvalleyfamilyclinic.com/audio/nutrition1.mp3. My Odeo Channel Just claiming my podcast on odeo. Until next time, here’s to your health, thank you.