Secondhand smoke is a toxic cocktail consisting of poisons and carcinogens - chemicals known to cause cancer. Did you know there are over 4,000 chemical compounds in secondhand smoke? 200 of those are known to be poisonous and around 60 have been identified as carcinogens. Secondhand smoke is serious business and should be a concern for everyone. Non-smokers inhaling secondhand smoke share many of the health risks smokers face claiming thousands of lives every year. The risks of secondhand smoke to a child are low birth weight for gestational age, higher risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), dental cavities, eye and nose irritation, irritability, middle ear infections, as well as asthma conditions.

If you or your children have been exposed to secondhand smoke, we can help. Dr. Moss' techniques have been able to help many different types of conditions including those caused by smoking and secondhand smoke. If you would like to set up an appointment for your child to be seen please give Wendy a call at 964-9114. We want to help as many people as possible including children. We have found that patients who receive Chiropractic care as a child are able to avoid many future problems as adults.

"The believing we do something when we do nothing is the first illusion of tobacco." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

-- For your health, Dr. Moss, Angi, Wendy and Rachael

---
Angi
wife to Paul
mom to Kierian (14yob), Kianna (11yog), Aiden (9yob), Lycan (5yob), baby Moss (due 4/21/12), and puppy Brinley (2yob)

STUDY DISCOVERS THAT AIR QUALITY PLAYS AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN INFANT HEALTH

Nearly every family strives to create a healthy environment for their new babies. From locking poisons away to covering electrical outlets, millions of mothers and fathers try to ensure that a child can freely explore their home environment without risk. But the air that a child breathes is so much harder to control. Air filters and ionizers may help clean the home air, but no family spends all of their time indoors. Every infant is still exposed to the ambient air quality with pollutants such as ozone, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide.
Studies have been done in many different locations to try to determine the effect of pollution in infant mortality. The results of these studies can help guide parents in their choices of good locations in which to raise their children.
In 2008, a study was published from the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, that evaluated the relationship between air pollution in U.S. counties that have more than 250,000 residents and the number of deaths of infants between one and 12 months of age. Approximately 3.5 million births with 6,639 deaths
were used in the evaluation. The study found that infant deaths from respiratory-related causes were higher in areas with particulate pollution, and deaths from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) were higher in areas with increased ozone pollution.
In a similar comparison done in Spain and published in Valencian School of Studies for Health in 2005, higher levels of pollution were found to correlate with a 5 percent increase in infant deaths from any cause. Higher pollution levels also correlated with a 22 percent increase in the number of infant deaths due to respiratory causes.
In most areas, air quality is monitored at the county level. For information on the pollutants in your county, contact county administrative offices or look in the phone book for an air quality board. Many counties have published reports that provide statistics on ozone, sulfur dioxide and many other pollutants that you can ask to have mailed to you.

Source: National Center for Biotechnology Information,

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15792286?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSys....

Pubmed Results Panel

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18197308?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSys...

This month we are focusing on the effects of smoking on your body as well as how smoking affects the people around you. Smoking is an addiction and must be treated as such when the decision is made to stop. A plan is necessary when a person stops smoking
1. Make determined commitment to quit.
2. Choose a quit day.
3. Get social support.
4. Develop alternative behavior in place of smoking.
5. Know of non-smoking aids in case you may need them.
6. Be mentally prepared to succeed and know you will find obstacles and challenges to your plan.
7. Stay away from functions, events, and places where smoking is an activity, at least until you are strong enough to resist the temptation.
8. Persevere.
Every best laid plan has the greatest chance of success if you surround yourself with people willing to help you and give tough love when necessary to help you reach your goal. Chiropractic adjustments do wonders to assist you in quitting. The nicotine affects the nerves in your body and getting adjusted while getting rid of the drug works wonderfully together. Our purpose is to help as many people as possible in the pursuit of good health! Let us help you!!

We have a VERY special event going on this month, FOOD DRIVE! We are collecting food to be donated to the DMARC area food pantry from November 1-18. Just bring a non-perishable food item or a toiletry item into the office at any time. DMARC also accepts monetary gifts that allow them to purchase the food items rarely donated at a much lower rate than normal. Lets see how many families we can help have a happy holiday!

Our next Home Health Care class will be held on Tuesday the 8th of November. The class starts at 6:30pm Seating is limited and we will be serving dinner so, if you are interested in attending please let us know. You can give Leigh Ann a call at 689-2223 or let us know the next time you are in the office.

"A cigarette is the only consumer product which when used as directed kills its consumer." - Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland

-- For your health, Dr Moss, Angi, Wendy, and Rachael

WHEN HEALTH ACTIVITIES OF A GROUP CHANGE, THE HABITS OF AN INDIVIDUAL MAY SOON FOLLOW

Here’s an interesting bit of wellness and life-changing research from the Harvard Medical School. It appears that when people change their habits, this decision has as much do with what’s happening in the social network around them as in their own personal desire to alter their behavior.
Smoking is a personal habit that has gone through some interesting social connotations in the past 50 years. Back in the olden days, everyone who was anyone smoked. If you wanted to be a big shot in high school, you started smoking. “If you look back at 1971, smokers and non-smokers alike were at the centers of social networks,”
says James Fowler of the University of California San Diego. “For people running companies and having parties, smoking was irrelevant. But, during the 80s and 90s we saw a dramatic shift of smokers to the periphery of the social network. Contrary to what we might have thought in high school, smoking has become a supremely bad strategy for getting popular.”
In establishing this group connection, researchers studied 12,067 people and their social connections over a period of 32 years. What they found is that groups of people quit in “droves” and those who continue to smoke are pushed further to the periphery of the social network. The research was jointly conducted through the Department of Health Care Policy of the Harvard Medical School along with a researcher of U.C. San Diego James Fowler, the study author. Funding came from the National Institute on Aging with results published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“We’ve found that when you analyze large social networks, entire pockets of people who might not know each other all quit smoking at once,” said Nicholas Christakis, a Harvard professor in the Department of Health Care Policy. “So if there’s a change in the zeitgeist (prevalence of ideas in a period of time) of this social network, like a cultural shift, a whole group of people who are connected but who might not know each other all quit together.”
Here is how that might work, says Christakis in describing a small social network of three individual smokers, persons A, B and C. “The first person, A, is friends with B, and B is friends with C, but A and C do not know each other. If C quits smoking, A’s chances of not smoking spike 30 percent, regardless of whether or not B smokes. The middle individual, it would appear, might act as a kind of ‘carrier’ for a social norm.”
These researchers found that these same group principles apply to other areas of health and wellness too. In another study, they discovered that the current increase in obesity in society follows these same group principles.
Persons who are looking to change their personal habits need to have a look at the group around them to determine if it is going to help or hinder their efforts to change. Quitting smoking will most likely be easier when involved in a group of people with like think. Similarly, be aware of the habits – positive or negative – of those with whom you interact. The activities your social network may have more influence on you than you might think.

Source: The Harvard Medical School. “Smoking is Addictive, but Quitting is Contagious.” May 2008.

http://web.med.harvard.edu/sites/RELEASES/html/052108Christakis.html

HEALTH REPORTS Vol. 12 Issue 138

Although bottled water is readily available, most Americans are still drinking water from the tap. Many people think “it was good enough for my parents and grandparents, so it’s good enough for me.” However, today’s tap water is not the same as the tap water from long ago. In fact, a recent study found out that much of what’s in our tap water generally comes from our medicine cabinets. The study, conducted in New York, found the following drugs and chemicals in the city’s drinking water:

*Acetaminophen – a nonprescription pain reliever and fever reducer
*Butalbital - a sedative and hypnotic drug, prescribed as a pain reliever
*Caffeine - a stimulant most commonly found in coffee and some types of soda
*Carbamazepine - a prescription anticonvulsant
*Cotinine - a byproduct of nicotine, found in tobacco
*DEET – extremely toxic, the most common active ingredient in insect repellents
*Diltiazem - a drug used to treat high blood pressure and chest pain (angina)
*Gemfibrozil - a prescription drug used to treat high cholesterol.
*Ibuprofen – a non-prescription pain reliever and fever reducer
*Iopromide - a substance used to enhance contrast in X-rays and medical imaging
*Meprobamate - a sedative used to relax the muscles and reduce anxiety
*Paraxanthine - a stimulant that's chemically related to caffeine
*Primidone - a drug used to treat seizure disorders
*Sulfamethoxazole - an antibiotic, generally used in combination with other drugs

Even though the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)ensures us that the amounts of these chemicals found in drinking water are too small to harm us despite the hundreds of other chemicals found in drinking water. For many chemicals, no safety standards have been set and no one knows how these hundreds of additional chemicals interact. To protect your health, get the best tap water filter and bottled water you can afford.

The next home care class will be held on Tuesday, November 8th at 6:30PM here at our office. We will be providing a meal and seating will be limited so please let us know that you will be attending. Remember to try and bring as many people as you can because the more people that know how to help you the better. We will be teaching everyone how to do Trigger Point massage at home. We understand that it is important for you to be as pain free as possible. Trigger Point massage can help you with that. It's also a great way to help you hold your adjustments longer. We are looking forward to seeing everyone there.

On Friday, October 28th, we will be having our Halloween Bash from 6:30 - 7:30pm! We will have a potluck table to share some goodies from all of our patients. We will be having all types of fun activities for all ages. Come on out and enjoy our fall fun!

"Healthy living defies a single definition. There are many, many ways to live well." Terri Trespicio

--
For your health,

Dr Moss, Angi, Wendy, Rachael & Leigh Ann

IS WATER FROM THE TAP BETTER THEN BOTTLED?

Are you among the many Americans who assume that drinking bottled water is better for your body and better for your health than drinking plain old tap water? If so, it may come as a surprise to you that tap water quality is far more regulated in the United States and may be much safer to drink than some of the bottled items on your grocer’s shelves.
According to testimony presented by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Americans each day are allowed to drink water in bottles which is higher in levels of toxic chemicals associated with birth defects and cancer than is in tap water. The testimony of the council was presented by attorney Mae Wu before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Transportation Safety, Infrastructure Security and Water Quality.
The amount of bottled water consumed by Americans has more that quadrupled since 1990. According to a Gallup poll, 3 out of 4 Americans drink bottled water, and 1 out of 5 drinks “only” bottled water. As a country, we consume some 8 billion gallons of bottled water annually at a cost of more than $15 billion dollars. According to many surveys, Americans believe bottled water to be the safer choice than tap water.
Unfortunately, the truth is that bottle water is not necessarily of better quality, safer or even properly tested, said Ms. Wu in her testimony. Tap water in the U.S. is tested far more frequently and must meet higher standards than bottled water as set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Only an estimated 40 percent of bottled water provided by suppliers in the U.S. comes under the scrutiny of the FDA. Also, when water from 103 supplies was tested, 25 percent of bottled water was found to be nothing more than tap water, mostly sold with no additives or further treatment.
Additionally, concerns surround the bottles themselves. They are known to be produced with a toxic plasticizer known as DEHP [di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate] used in the gasket for plastic tops. It is a potent endocrine disruptor which interferes with the production of the male hormone testosterone, affects sperm quality and can cause cancer. This chemical has been listed in the State of California as a chemical known to cause cancer and developmental or reproductive harm. Bottled water containing this substance used in infant formulas is also an exposure concern. Still the FDA sets no standards for the amounts of DEHP allowed in bottling water.
In addition, Ms. Wu pointed out that there is a terrific environmental impact on the production of about 60 billion bottles per year. Some 90 percent of all bottles go to landfills rather than recycling. The bottles themselves are made from oil derivatives which requires over 10 million barrels of oil per year to produce. Ironically, large quantities of water are used in the production of each bottle. Estimates have it that 9 liters of water are used to extract and refine the oil and produce the plastic used to make just 1 liter of water!
With water standards in the U.S. set to the best in the world, it makes great sense to use more water direct from the tap. Municipal water agencies are required to publish their safety and quality standards regularly. It would be a good place to start in deciding if your tap water is up to your standards or if adding a filter to your own tap would give you greater confidence. If so, it is probably better for us all to say no to bottles and give the tap a twist of the wrist.

Source: Natural Resources Defense Council. “Bottled Water Must Be Better Tested, Labeled and Regulated.” September 2008.
http://www.nrdc.org/media/2008/080910a.asp
NRDC Attorney Testimony “Quality and Environmental Impacts of Bottle Water.” September 2008.
http://docs.nrdc.org/water/wat_08091001A.pdf.

HEALTH REPORTS
Vol. 12 Issue 125
DAVID SINGER ENTERPRISES, INC. 401 YELVINGTON AVE. CLEARWATER, FL 33755 (800) 326-1797