If you're hitting the road this week, traveling to your holiday destinations, watch your back! Hours upon hours in the car or on planes can do a number on your spine and contribute to mounting physical stress. We put together a few tips to keep your ergonomics in check during your holiday travel.

1. Mirror Check

When you jump in the front seat, before putting the car in gear, take a minute to adjust your mirrors. Sit up straight and tall and adjust your mirrors to match your perfect posture. As your trip progresses, your mirrors will remind you sit up straight for the duration and save your sacrum and pelvis a lot of stress in the process.



2. Take a Break

Once you've been on the road for an hour, get off the road!  Pull over somewhere safe and take a lap.  Stand up straight and fully extend your arms. Palms to the sky, stick your thumbs back behind you and really open up your chest. Look up, and breathe deep. Hold it for as long as you can. Then roll your shoulders back slowly in a circular motion for a full sixty seconds. Repeat every hour or so that you're on the road to combat any forward head posture and rounding out of your shoulders that can build up on long drives. If you're really feeling ambitious, throw in a few deep, slow squats, keeping your chest proud. This will utilize your large muscle groups and weight-baring joints, which can start to feel neglected on long journeys.



3. Keep Things Moving

Taking a tip from the American Physical Therapy Association, we have found doing a few in-seat exercises while flying can be really beneficial. After all, if that pesky seatbelt light is on, you may not have the luxury of getting up and moving around in more interesting ways. Every hour or so do about 5 minutes of heel raises, toe lifts, ankle circles, overhead reaches, and back twists. And you can also throw in a few "curl downs" where you reach for the floor and pull your chin and stomach in. Hold for 5-10 seconds and then repeat a few times.

If you're not traveling this year, share these tips with your friends and family that are! We wish you Happy and Healthy Holidays from everyone at Innate Response.

Labels: back, christmas, driving, ergonomics, flying, holiday, pain, travel

Avoid unpasteurized dairy.

Limit raw fish consumption.

No alcohol.

These types of recommendations for pregnant women are well known. In addition, supplementation of essential nutrition is important. But now there is more you can do to ensure a healthy pregnancy. A new report from Environmental Health Sciences reveals that environmental factors can be very important to the health of the fetus and deserve attention. Substances in the food we eat, flame retardants in furniture or even exposure to gas fumes when at the pump can all have negative effects.

"Virtually all pregnant women have chemicals in their bodies that might harm fetal development.

Monitoring of pregnant women found about 100 different chemical, with 43 of them in all women tested. Lead, mercury, toluene, perchlorate, bisphenol A, flame retardants, perfluorinated compounds, organochlorine pesticides and phthalates are among the chemicals, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;s nationwide testing program. 

Studies suggest that for many of these compounds, low-level exposures in the womb seem to disrupt development of the brain or reproductive systems. Others may raise the risk of birth defects, or lead to cancer, immune problems, asthma, fertility problems or other disorders later in life"

What troubling is that many health care providers are not talking to patients about these risks.

"A new nationwide survey of 2,600 obstetricians and gynecologists found that most do not warn their pregnant patients about chemicals in food, consumer products or the environment that could endanger their fetuses. More than half said they don't warn about mercury, and hardly any of them give advice about lead, pesticides, air pollution or chemicals in plastics of cosmetics. 

Many doctors sat their priority is to protect pregnant women from more immediate dangers, and that warning them about environmental risks may create undue anxiety. Some say they don't feel confident in their ability to discuss the topics.

'We're worrying about pre-term labor, obesity and hypertension,' said Dr. Jeanne A Conry, an ob/gyn at Kaiser Permanente in Roseville, Calif., and incoming president of a national medical society. 'Obesity trumps almost everything. We put our time and energy there, and don't dwell on some of the other things we should be aware of."

Read the entire article here.

How does this information sit with you? Do you tell your pregnant patients about potential environmental dangers? Do you think that patients can handle the information and make good use of it? What resources to you use to stay up to date on environmental research?

Let us know in the comments.

Labels: BPA, chemicals, environmental, fetal, flame retardants, fumes, gynecology, health, infant, obstetricians, pregnancy, pregnant

Here at Innate Response, we are very proud of our gluten-free catalogue of products. And it appears that the public is really catching on!

In recent years there has been an undeniable uptick in consumer interest in supplements and foods that are free of gluten, but reports of sales numbers currently coming in are remarkable.

Supermarket news reports:

"U.S. Sales of gluten-free foods and beverages will exceed $6.6 billion by 2017, according to market research firm, Packaged Facts. 

The market for gluten-free foods and beverages has continued to grow faster than anticipated, reaching $4.2 billion in 2012, for a compound annual growth rate of 28% over the 2008-2012 period, according to Packaged Facts. 

 

They go on to say that 18% of adults are buying or consuming foods and products tagged as gluten-free, up from 15% in 2010.

They report that one of the reasons that people are choosing GF products because they believe them to be healthier. Hopefully this means its not just a trend and that people will continue to limit gluten in their diets! Also, many people are being diagnosed with celiac or gluten-sensitive and are adjusting their diets accordingly. We are so happy that people are voting with their dollars and making better choices for themselves and their families.

Have you seen an increase in folks opting to limit gluten in their diets in your practices? Have you been guiding folks to cut it out? What kinds of outcomes are you seeing? Learn more about allergies at our Seasonal Therapeutics event coming up in February. More information here.

Labels: allergies, celiac, free, gluten, news, sensitive, supermarket