Here's a clear, informative article to read that discusses the gender differences in how often ACL tears of the knee occur in girls and boys.  I am an athlete, and would have loved to have this information as I was growing up.  I played every sport I had access too, and have always been glad for what Title 9 did for myself and other girls growing up in the 70's, 80's and 90's.  If you have a child or children ages 9 and higher, check out what our friends at Body By X Gym - Skills Development and Training Center have to say about prevention of ACL injuries.  This particular injory can be devastating, and ruin chances for an athletic scholarship, or simply freedom from knee pain while being physically active for a life time.

Thank you to Nadia McClinton, Co-Owner of Body By X Gym - Skills Development and Training Center for sharing this important information with us all. 

Check out the article here:

 http://www.getfitmarin.com/jump-training.html

Want to learn more about the Body By X Gym, Skills Development and Training Center?  Check out their website @  http://www.GetFitMarin.com/

In one case, I worked with a woman in her late 50's who'd been obese for the last 15 years, with creeping weight gain over the years that started after she'd given birth to her 3rd child.  She had high blood pressure, was on Type 2 Diabetes medicines and high blood pressure medicine.  She had been on cholesterol lowering medicine for a while, but stopped as it hadn't help to lower her cholesterol - her cholesterol kept going up, despite the medication. This person also had severe chronic sleep apnea, and refused to wear a CPAP mask and use a CPAP machine to help her breathe at night.  I explained that the facts that she was obese, diabetic and had high blood pressure put her at extreme risk for a heart attack or a stroke if she didn't lose the excess weight ASAP and start using her CPAP machine when she slept.

Sometimes people don't realize what risks they are taking with their health, and that if they don't do something about it, they are very likely to die early or be incapacitated for the rest of their life.  These kinds of outcomes are not necessary.  An obese or overweight person has to take appropriate steps to lose weight, deal with their diabetes, their high blood pressure, sleep apnea and cholesterol problems or they run the very real risk of the bad consequences of these chronic health problems.

She did the HCG Diet Weight Loss Program in two rounds, and did really well.  She lost a total of 51 pounds, dropped 8 dress sizes and felt so much better she started playing actively with her grandchildren.  Her grandkids are delighted to have Grandmom be active with them!  She has lots of energy and is really enjoying her life again. This patients reports that she looks much closer to the body size she was when she married years ago.

Losing the weight improved her sleep apnea, and she no longer woke up with the headache that is a common side effect of having sleep apnea and not using a CPAP mask and breathing machine while asleep.  After her first round of the HCG Diet, she reported that her cholesterol lowered to the normal range, and that she no longer had high blood pressure.  She was able to safely stop taking the high blood pressure medicine, as her blood pressure has stayed normal, along with her cholesterol.  Also, after her first round of the HCG Diet, she no longer needed her Type 2 Diabetes medicines either. 

Life became a lot simpler as she lost weight.  Her costs for medications dropped, and the savings from no longer needing the prescription medications paid for the costs of the HCG Diet programs with change left over. 

Weight loss is a sensible goal and can provide numerous rewards, both personal and financial.

Unwanted weight gain can be the result of poor sleep, hormone imbalance, wrong kinds and amounts of foods, wrong kinds and amounts of exercise, and too much stress.  Each of these factors can really keep a person trapped in a body that stores fat efficiently and that does not burn fat efficiently.  When this happens, it makes sense to get professional help to lose the excess fat. 

Why do I say "lose the excess fat" and not just say "weight loss"?  These details matter for a person who struggles with weight to succeed at losing weight and keeping it off as they acheive a healthy weight range again. 

If you do a weight loss program, lose weight, but do not lose fat, then you've done yourself no favors.  Once you are off of the weight loss program, you gain all the lost weight back; it becomes a rebound weight gain program.  Is this what you want?  Of course not!

Muscle tissue is needed for you to have a healthy, normal metabolism. 

If a weight loss program causes you to lose muscle, it means you are losing the very thing you need - the muscle tissue - to burn fat for fuel after your weight loss program is done.  So, after the program ends, here comes the weight right back, and likely more, as you are now at risk of having the metabolism slow down even further, making it even easier for you to gain weight, and especially gain fat. 

Active muscle tissue keeps your metabolism revved up and burns calories effectively and efficiently.  Active muscle tissue also uses glucose for fuel and helps keep glucose from being turned into fat.  Glucose gets turned into fat as a storage form of energy when you don't exercise, as a lack of exercise means there is no demand for muscles to use glucose as fuel, so it gets turned into fat instead. 

The Systems Approach™ HCG Diet Weight Loss Program is specific for preserving muscle tissue while losing fat.  You can test your own body fat percentage before and after this program to prove it to yourself.

If you find that after you've done a weight loss program that you are gaining back the weight you've lost, it's a great idea to get yourself assessed and tested.  You need to find out if you have a hormone imbalance, sleep apnea or another sleep problem, as these chronic health conditions can really undermine both your weight loss efforts and your ability to maintain a healthy weight range. 

If your hormone balance is missing, then you may be a candidate for bio-identical hormone replacement therapy - BHRT. 

Often people who struggle with weight are hypothyroid and they can benefit from bio-identical thyroid hormone replacement therapy - thyroid BHRT.

Some other hormone imbalances to consider are cortisol (a stress hormone), estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA, and more.

Once hormone imbalances are corrected and hormone balance is restored, patients who respond well to BHRT therapy enjoy an improved quality of life as their body and mind work better.  They often report that they feel much more like their old self again.

I did further research to find if there was another way to approach her case, putting on my clinical thinking cap and looking at the big picture for this patient. 

She is a very sensitive person, and therapies of all kinds that are well indicated for most people in her situation often do not provide relief or other benefit, whether it is natural medicines, drugs, or a combination approach.  This is one of the most difficult patient histories I've worked on in my almost 20 years of clinical practice, and I really wanted to find something that was a help to this patient.

In doing the research, I came across some information that mentioned that some cases of uncorrected hypothyroidism can lead to a worsening of either fibromyalgia or rheumatoid arthritis.  This made me think perhaps this was a  hidden issue for this patient, and maybe should be put front and center in the treatment of the case. 

I knew she had some hypothyroid symptoms, but the fibromyalgia and rheumatoid symptoms were always more severe than the hypothyroid symptoms.  So, I prescribed bio-identical thyroid hormone replacement treatment for her and so far she has noticed that she has a lot more energy to get through her day.  She also reports that she moves more easily and has less pain.  So, to quantify the improvements: she has so much more energy, says she: "I feel almost like my old self again - this is great."  She says her pain is improved by about 40 - 60% and her stiffness is decreased by 30 - 50%.  These are big positive changes in her quality of life, for which she and I are both very glad.  May it continue!

Sugar is a key factor in PCOS symptoms, especially weight gain and infertility.  For a woman who has PCOS to be successful in managing her PCOS symptoms, she must deeply understand what "sugar" really means for her health.

Researchers at UCSF consider sugar to be a danger to health.  Click this link to read more about their findings.   UCSF Scientists Take Bitter View of Sugar in Food

Eating sugary foods affects PCOS symptoms and worsens these symptoms, out of proportion to the amount of sugar eaten.  For these women, one of the biggest frustrations is eating what seems like a reasonable amount of sugar only to see weight creep up, and at the same time, find that exercise doesn't lead to weight loss or even weight control for some women.

Research and clinical experience have clearly shown that keeping blood sugar as even as possible makes a big difference in controlling and reversing the symptoms of PCOS.  Two key PCOS symptoms, problems with weight loss and problems with fertility, are strongly affected by the amount of sugar a woman eats.

Read labels for prepared foods so you know what the carbohydrate content is in what you eat.  Even if it is a really familiar food, read the label any way, as processed food manufacturers and food processors change ingredients and formulations from time to time. 

Simplest ways to control sugar in food are to choose foods with no added sugar, and to have vegetables and other high fiber content foods with each meal.  By eating foods that are fresh and have no added sugar, you can easily control your sugar intake.  By eating vegetables with each meal, the natural fiber found in vegetables helps you to keep your blood sugar levels even.  When you avoid the blood sugar spike (and insulin rocket ride to chase the blood sugar rise), your blood sugar levels stay much more even and your body doesn't get a signal to gain weight from the extra sugar calories. 

Keeping blood sugar levels even also affects fertility, as research shows that higher levels of blood sugar lead to lower levels of conception.  A key blood test, called HgA1C (Hemoglobin A1C), helps to determine the long term impact and level of blood sugar control.  Ideally, the HgA1C blood marker is below 6.0 .  For women who experience infertility and other difficulties with conception, it is important that they be really clear that added sugar in food can be an important factor that keeps them from being able to have a baby. Simple, specific dietary changes can go a long way in bringing relief from PCOS.

Click here to read the article: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/337574/title/Head_Agony

Triggers for migraine headaches include bright light, food intolerances, dehydration, neurotransmitter imbalances, hormone imbalances, lack of sleep, eyestrain, extreme temperatures, MSG (mono-sodium-glutamate), stress, anxiety and overexertion.  

People who experience migraines often have to miss out on planned activities, as the pain of the migraine can be excruciating. 

For some, relief is found through sleep, as when they awaken the migraine is gone.  For others, natural medicines like the herbs feverfew and butterbur provide relief and can help with migraine prevention.  Others get relief with prescription drugs, and for some folks, nothing seems to provide reliable relief.  Women who experience migraines caused by hormone imbalances benefit from restoring hormone balance, which may include the use of bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT). 

Some people find that after they go through an intestinal cleanse process they have fewer migraines, or their migraine headaches stop all together. Juicing and fasting can also help clear interfering factors from the digestive tract and create a "reset" for the gut, leading to fewer or no migraines.

If a person has poor spinal alignment, that can contribute to the frequency of migraines, and getting a chiropractic adjustment can really help to bring much needed relief. 

Stress management techniques can help when stress is a trigger; simple measures like taking a warm bath and soaking in lots of Epsom Salts, which are rich in magnesium, can be a helpful tool too. 

Neurotransmitter imbalances in the excitatory and calming neurotransmitters can lead to too much stimulation for vulnerable neurons and set off a migraine.  Lab testing can help assess if this is part of the problem, so the person affected isn't forced to guess about what might be wrong.

Where possible, it can really make a difference in the quality of life to figure out what are the likely triggers for having migraine headaches and eliminate them. 

Yesterday he exercised in the early morning by going to a Spin bike class and doing some weight lifting. 

He returned home to eat breakfast and then remembered that a family car was still at the ferry parking lot.  So, he hopped on his road bike, pedaled about 5 miles over to the car, and drove it back home.  Later in the afternoon, he took his children to a family-friendly gym where they could all work out together and jumped rope for a while with them. 

Wow!

This amount of voluntary activity, of genuinely wanting to be physically active, is a welcome change for him. 

Says he: "It has been decades since felt comfortable jumping rope.  This has been a real step forward for me!"

One of the things that happens for people with chronic hypothyroidism is their reflexes become really SLOW. Typically this shows up as dropping things all the time, and appearing clumsy in daily life.

Now, with hormonal balance restored, he has the energy to hike AND keep himself from getting injured in a bad fall.

This is a great example of the difference it makes in daily life to have much improved health, as a result of following the treatment plan I created for his benefit.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/01/25/bloomberg_articlesLYBIH00D9L3501-LYDAW.DTL&ao=all

I remember when the initial push came for revamping school lunches to feature healthier food choices, there was a lot of criticism that it would cost too much and that kids wouldn't eat the better quality, more nutrient-rich food.  The assumption was that the children would choose the junk food (which is nutrient-poor) every time.  It turns out that children do make good food choices when they get the chance, much of the time, especially when they are taught about food choices and basic nutrition.

Given what it costs to treat the medical problems of obesity, I know it's a super wise investment to be sure kids eat great food for school lunches.  Yes, it does cost more in the short term to feed them better food, and the long term gain is less obesity, less Type 2 diabetes and healthier, more active lives.  This directly leads to better learning and improved education outcomes. 

After all, don't we want a healthy, well-educated and nourished population? 

Of course we do. 

Every one wins when cildren are at their healthy weight and have great food to eat to fuel their growing minds and bodies.

PCOS, which stands for PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome, is a complex hormonal imbalance disorder where a woman experiences irregular or missing menstrual cycles, unwanted hair growth (or loss), weight gain out of proportion to the calories or amount of food eaten, and other chronic symptoms.

Women who have a BMI of 28 or higher experience more problems with conception and have fewer positive fertility outcomes.  Having a higher BMI and excess weight interferes with the ability to conceive and give birth, and makes it more likely that a pregnancy will be a high-risk pregnancy. 

Keeping blood sugar even throughout the day, as much as possible, is a key to effectively treating PCOS.

Keeping blood sugar even throughout the day, as much as possible, is a key to effectively lowering BMI and losing weight at a steady, sustainable pace, coupled with good food choices and regular exercise that is doable and enjoyable.

Keeping blood sugar even also promotes improved fertility.  A long-term measure of blood sugar control, called HgA1C (Hemoglobin A1C), is a really helpful indicator of whether or not a person has reasonably stable blood sugar.  For people with higher HgA1c, in the range of 7.0 and higher, it interferes with the balance of the hormones that let a woman become pregnant.  So, keeping a lower average blood sugar, and keeping blood sugar stable by avoiding big spikes in blood sugar from eating candy, refined flour products like bread, etc. can make a big difference in lowering BMI and losing the excess weight.  This same idea applies to PCOS symptoms, and also to Type 2 Diabetes.

High fiber foods contribute to keeping blood sugar even and keeping overall blood sugar lower too.  High fiber content is found in fresh vegetables and most fruits. 

By the way, CORN is NOT a VEGETABLE, though many refer to CORN as if it were a vegetable.  CORN is a GRAIN.

Refined grains raise blood sugar.  Avoid them, they don't offer as much nutrient value as whole grains do.