When my back just kept hurting, my mother did something brave. She went against convention. She took me to a chiropractor. A grey haired man in his 60's named Dr. Gray. He looked at me, felt my back with nimble, soft, warm and knowing hands. In a few moments he found the problem and delivered a gentle corrective adjustment to my 8 year old spine. I was an active boy. We lived in the valleys of the rocky mountains. I loved to run, play, swim, and ride bikes. Sports were not an activity, but a way of life. I know my body took a beating. But as I stood up and stretched after my first adjustment feeling that sharp pain gone, I thought he was a miracle worker. As I looked up at him and told him that what he had done was amazing. He looked into my young eyes, far below his, and with a sincerity that denied the vast age difference, said “If you ever want to know more about how to do this, you let me know.” Inside my mind, spirit and body resonated a loud echo that spoke firmly, “Yes, I do.”

What was the impact of that adjustment? It has not stopped healing yet. The area he touched, adjusted and allowed to heal protects the nerve that controls and nurtures my liver. For two weeks I was sore and in pain, a sure sign there was nerve interference. I was interested at that time about the pain. Since then I have benefited infinitely by having a clean functioning liver. If my dear mother hadn’t had the wisdom to take me to a chiropractor, I would have lived for the last 40 years with nerve interference to the liver. Any number of problems could have been instigated such as digestion, cholesterol, bowel dysfunction, excess anger, stress, hormonal imbalances, or any one of over 1400 of the liver functions. That adjustment is one of the lasting legacies of a wise mother who loved me. You may think it is just a back pain that went away. I know better and so does my body. But there is another legacy that has blossomed from that adjustment and kind comment.

Billy had had two surgeries to correct a lazy eye. At least that was what they called it. The surgery worked, at least for a short time. But the lazy eye just kept coming back. Another surgery will be necessary the mother was told. This time she thought out of the box. A short series of chiropractic adjustments to correct nerve interference in his upper neck and the lazy eye straightened out with no invasive procedure. Another brave act of a wise mother.

Many of you have heard about baby Jessica. She was more dead than alive when his mother brought him in. She had no reflexes at all. She couldn’t suck a bottle. She couldn’t even cry. She had no life in her eyes. She laid in her mothers arms, a limp nearly lifeless testament to a violent birth procedure. A few gentle adjustments to her grossly out of subluxated neck and she started sucking the bottle, crying, thriving and coming back to life. Dr. Gray's adjustment had touched another life. One adjustment to a child’s back, and it was still healing.

Jane said, handing me the x-rays, "The last three doctors I have been to laughed at me. Don’t laugh at me. My back hurts. Can you help me?" She had a curve to her spine that no x-rays were needed to reveal. She had a spine shaped like a sideways horseshoe. It was the worse scoliosis I have ever seen. The other so called doctors laughed at her when she said her back hurt. Their scorn was biting her as deeply as the pain. After 8 adjustments she was smiling again. Dr. Gray had struck again. “If you ever want to know more about how to do this, you let me know.”

Not only has my body been blessed every day of my life since that adjustment, but it has served thousands of people more than his healing hands ever touched . I am the older chiropractor now to about 15 chiropractors, with three more starting Chiropractic School in the next few months. Every day, they touch and help children, mothers and fathers and grandparents to heal.

God is good to me. He gave me a Mother that is good, courageous and even though she has passed on in life, she is still gifting me in so many ways. That first visit to Dr, Gray was just one of them. Please take advantage of the power God put in your body to heal. Trust in it. Give it the help it needs. Mothers, be courageous enough to follow my mother’s wisdom. Give your child a gift that will keep healing through their whole lives. Mine did.

A spine in alignment is at the core of a body that has the chance to heal.

Low-fat, low-cal, low-carb. Atkins, South Beach, The Zone. Food fads may be distracting attention from something more insidiously piling on pounds: beverages.

One in every five calories in the American diet is liquid. The nation's single biggest "food" is soda, and experts have long demonized it.

In reports to be published in science journals, two groups of researchers hope to add evidence to the theory that soda and other sugar-sweetened drinks don't just go hand-in-hand with obesity, but actually cause it. Not that these drinks are the only cause -- genetics, exercise, and other factors are involved -- but they are one cause, perhaps the leading cause.

In reality, proving this would be a scientific leap that could help make the case for higher taxes on soda, restrictions on how and where it is sold --- maybe even a surgeon generals' warning on labels.

"We've done it with cigarettes," said Barry Popkins, a scientist advocating the issue.

Other scientist disagree saying, "I think that's laughable," "Comparing soda and obesity to tobacco and ling caner is a baseless crusade," and "The science is being stretched."

"There are many different links of evidence, just like smoking," claims Dr. David Ludwig, a Harvard pediatrician who wants a "fat tax" on fast food and drinks.

All this talk seems to worry beverage companies. Some are making sodas "healthier" by adding calcium and vitamins, and pushing fortified but sugary drinks in schools that ban soda.

Some say that even defining milk 'milk' is getting tough these days, there are so many flavored varieties and sweetened liquid yogurts, that they taste like you are sucking on ice cream.

Proving that something causes disease is not easy. It took decades with tobacco, asbestos and other substances now to to cause cancer, and met strong industry opposition. It would be especially tough for a disease as complex as obesity, where there are many factors to it.

Diet is hard to study. Most people drink at least some sweetened beverages and also get calories from other drinks like milk and orange juice, diluting the =strength of any observations about excess weight from soda alone.

Children are growing and gaining weight naturally, so trying to figure out how much extra gain is due to sweet-drink consumption is an added complication.

Here is the "food police" indictment of soda and its sugar- sweetened co-conspirators. you be the judge:

• Soft drink consumption rose more that 60 percent among adults and more that doubled in kids from 1977-19997. The prevalence of obesity roughly doubled in that time. Scientists say the parallel trends are one criterion for proving cause-and- effect.
• Numerous studies like sugary drink consumption with weight gain or obesity. A study done by Ludwing of 548 Massachusetts schoolchildren fount hat for each additional sweet drink consumed per day, the odds of obesity increased 60 percent.
• Another at Harvard of 51,603 nurses compared two periods, 1991-95 and 1995-99, and found that women whose soda drinking increased had bigger rises in body-mass index then whose who drank less or the same.
• The calories from sugar-sweetened beverages are fundamentally different in the body than those from food.
• The main sweetener in soda -- high-fructose corn syrup -- can increase fats in the blood called triglycerides which raises the risk of heart problems, diabetes, and other health woes.
• This sweetener also doesn't spur production of insulin to make the body "process" calories, nor does it spur leptin, a substance that tamps down appetite, as other carbohydrates do.
• Two studies by Penn State nutritionist Barbara Rolls illustrates this. One gave 14 men lemonade, diet lemonade, water, or no drink and then allowed them to east as much as they wanted at lunch. Food intake didn't vary, not matter what they drank.
  The second study gave 44 women water, diet soda, regular soda, orange juice, milk, or no drink before lunch. Total intake was 104 calories greater for those given a caloric beverages than those given diet soda, water, or no beverage. Caloric drinks didn't help women feel any fuller either.
• Then there is the "jelly bean study." Purdue University researchers gave 15 men and women 450 calories a day either soda or jelly beans for a month, then switched them for the next month and kept track of total consumption. Candy eaters ate less food to compensate for the extra calories. Soda drinkers did not.
• Sugar-sweetened beverages affect the intake of other foods, such as lowering milk consumption. Popkins contend they also may be psychological triggers of poor eating habits and cravings for fast food.
  He examined dietary patterns of 9,500 American adults in a general study from 1999-2002. Those who drank healthier beverages -- water, low-fat milk, unsweetened coffee or tea -- were more likely to eat vegetables and less likely to eat fast food.
  Fast food consumption was doubled if they were high soda consumers and vegetable consumption was halved. You see this pattern of less healthy intake across the board.

An unhealthy relationship with your spouse may make you more susceptible to heart disease. Hardening of the coronary arteries is more likely in wives then in their husbands express hostility during marital disagreements, and more common in husbands when either they or their wives act in a controlling manner.

"Women who are hostile are more likely to have arthero- sclerosis (hardening of the coronary arteries), especially if their husbands are hostile too."

In men the hostility, their own or their wives hostility during the interaction - wasted related to athero-sclerosis in husbands.

The study - which began in 2002 and ended in 2005 - involved 150 married couples with at least one member being between 60 and 70 and the other one no more that five years older or younger. The couples were recruited through newspaper advertisements and a polling firm. Those who participated had no history of cardiovascular disease and were not taking medicine for it.

The more hostile the wives' comments during the discussion, the greater the extent of calcification or hardening of the arteries. And particularly high levels of calcification were found in women who behaved in a hostile and unfriendly way and who were interacting with husbands who were also hostile and unfriendly.

The extent to which wither wives or husbands acted in a dominant or controlling manner was unrelated to the severity of hardening of the arteries in the wives.

Acupressure (applying pressure with the thumbs and fingertips to the same points on the body stimulated in acupuncture) seems to be more effective in reducing low back pain than physical therapy, finds a study published only by the BMJ today.

Low back pain is a common health problem worldwide. In previous studies, acupressure has been shown to be effective in alleviating various types of pain, but little is known about its effect on low back pain.

Researchers in Taiwan recruited 129 patients with chronic low back pain form a specialist orthopedic clinic. All patients completed a standard disability questionnaire before being randomly allocated to two treatment groups: 64 patients received six sessions of acupressure and 65 received physical therapy. Results were analyses immediately after treatment and again after six months.

The mean disability score after treatment was significantly lower in the acupressure group than in the physical therapy group.

Acupressure conferred an 89% reduction in disability compared with physical therapy, after adjusting for pre-treatment disability. this improvement lasted for six months.

Benefit was also greater in the acupressure group for variables such as "leg pain," "pain interferes with normal work," and "days off work/school."

This study shows that acupressure is more effective in alleviating low back pain than physical therapy in terms of pain scores, functional status, and disability, say the authors. The effect was not only seen in the short term, but lasted for six months.

These results support the conclusion of previous studies. Acupressure may thus be useful for reducing pain and improving body function and level of disability in low back pain, they conclude.

-From BMJ

A new study shows that autism may be linked to the use of mercury in childhood vaccines, despite government's claims to the contrary.

The investigation shows that since mercury was removed from childhood vaccines, the alarming increase in rates of autism and other neurological disorders in children has dropped as much as 35%.

Independent researchers David A. Geier, and Mark R. Geier, M.D., analyzed data from the CDC's Vaccine Adverse Even Reporting System and the California Department of Developmental Services.

This is what they found. Autism rates hit a high of 800 in May of 2003 and the went down to 620 in the beginning of 2006. This is a decrease of 22% and a decrease of 35% from he previously projected levels.

The results directly contradict governmental analyses which have denied a clear connection between mercury in vaccines and autism.

The Geiers conclude that mercury continues to be a concern, as it is still added to some of the most commonly-used vaccines, such as those for flu.

They conclude that despite its removal form many childhood vaccines, thimerosal is still routinely added to some formulations of influenza vaccine administered to U.S. infants, as well as to several other vaccines (e.g. tetanus-diphtheria and monovalent tetanus) administered to older children and adults.

-The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons

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