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Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Beautiful story about the restorative power of music.

April 29th, 2012 No comments

I do wonder how many sceptics would privately or publicly call for double blind randomised controlled studies before experimenting with such “controversial” therapy, or should we say enjoyment. Sometimes common sense needs to prevail, kind of like this case study on using magnetic therapy for faster recovery with soft tissue injuries and mirror therapy. When a therapy is simple, inexpensive, no risk and demonstrates obvious benefits what motivates practitioners to ignore or even oppose it?

 

Categories: Life Tags: , ,

The best return on investment for your health? Here it is…

February 15th, 2012 No comments

I’m not sure how it stacks up against quitting smoking though?

Is pain keeping you from being active? The Lifestyle Pain Clinic can help with expert physiotherapy and the latest cutting edge treatment therapies.

Categories: Life Tags:

The importance of a smile!

June 17th, 2011 No comments

Physiotherapist Dianne Hermans has a beautiful smile.

 

Can you believe that smiling can be a predictor of wellbeing and longevity?

 

Read more…

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Volcano eruption causes delay in musculoskeletal massage visit

June 15th, 2011 No comments

Leanne Ingram is a highly skilled musculoskeletal therapist, completing a bachelor of science in musculoskeletal therapy in 2009.  Leanne provides remedial massage services in the Bayside here at Manly West.

Recently one of Leanne’s patients was not able to keep her appointment due to being stranded in Chile from the fallout of volcanic ash. Does that mean that our business has now been affected by a volcano in another continent?

Categories: Life Tags:

Sacred cows and why do we need to wear good joggers when we run?

February 23rd, 2011 No comments

Little pleases me more than when sacred cows fall. Like Dr Barry Marshall from Perth who was ridiculed for years after he discovered that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori lived in the stomach and were the cause of stomach ulcers.

To be honest I had never given a thought to NOT running in a good quality pair of joggers. Not until my brother John suggested it and then I heard this program on ABC radio with a lecturer in functional anatomy and saw this research article. Here is another informative article by a sports podiatrist. It’s only the commercial interests behind running shoes that so entrenches us to this paradigm. So I gave it a go.

My Bare Feet

My Bare Feet

The first time after I went running barefoot and gave my feet a wash in the bath, I couldn’t believe how alive my feet felt. All that sensory input the soles of my feet had been missing out on for so long. On Sunday I completed a 3km barefoot run and I think from now on it’s barefoot for me, although I’m not sure if I’ll ever conquer a gravel road!

Categories: Life Tags:

Science is finally catching up – Happiness and Acne more about choices than genes.

October 8th, 2010 No comments

In a world where pharmaceutical companies control most of the research dollars and the prevailing dogma pedalled by scientists and media is that we are a victim to our genes and environment and medication and gene therapy hold the keys to our health, it’s refreshing to see these two pieces of research. In what I would consider nothing short of the bleeding obvious the two stories which you can click on below highlight the importance of personal choices and responsibility in determining the quality of our own health and wellbeing.

Professor Neil Mann, Professor of Human Nutrition at RMIT University conducted the acne study. He mentions in the interview that all the medical texts state that diet has no effect on acne. Is it any wonder most doctors practicing today have little idea about nutrition? This is what their taught in university by the professors, so why should they question it?

See the links below for the stories and audio:
Happiness more than gene deep.
The effect of diet on acne.

Categories: Health Crisis, Life Tags:

What’s the most effective way to quit smoking?

March 23rd, 2010 No comments
ENJOY!

ENJOY!

Smoking…are all the drugs and treatments to quit really worth it?

For people who enjoy their cigarette smoking (I can’t see any other reason why one would continue with it), their single most important health gain is to simply quit, stop, cease, give up.

What’s the most effective way to quit? According to this article it’s a two step process: Read more…

Categories: Cancer, Health Crisis, Life Tags:

A real life hero. Why we should all know about and thank this great scientist!

January 3rd, 2010 2 comments
Clair Patterson

Clair Patterson

The late Claire Patterson is someone we should all thank at least once in our lives but sadly very few people have even heard of him. Apart from inventing and using the uranium-lead dating method to calculate the definitive age of the earth in 1953, Claire is the main reason that a major pollutant, lead was removed as an additive from things such as petrol (gasoline) and paint.

We are all the beneficiaries of Claire’s work with the general public having around an 80% reduction in lead blood levels as a direct result. The health outcomes are a reduced risk of lead poisoning and all the associated health problems including fatigue, abdominal pain, low IQ and learning and behaviour disorders in children.

Since his recommendations were going to decimate the revenue of lead additive manufactures such as the powerful Ethyl Corporation, Claire was subjected to financial and professional privation as they tried to sideline him. People like Claire Patterson are the true heroes in life, people who overcome tremendous obstacles and persecution in the pursuit of truth and the benefit of mankind.

Read more…

Categories: Life Tags:

A link to an ABC radio interview with my brother John Hermans discussing sustainable living.

September 11th, 2009 No comments

My older brother John and I are very different, even though I spent a lot of time with him in my early teenage years. I have a lot of respect for him. John spent most of his formative years (14-20) by himself cycling or in the wilderness contemplating and planning the future that he lives today and you have to admire that. He was planning a self sufficient, sustainable, low carbon footprint life in the 1970’s when 99.9% of people wouldn’t have had a clue what that was about. If you are interested in sustainable living you will enjoy these links.

 See the images of his life and listen to his story on this interview on the ABC.

Another article and video here.

Categories: Life Tags:

Evidence for link between calorie restriction and longevity and better health mounts

July 10th, 2009 No comments

Now this is not good news for those that love their food, well what I mean by that is food quantity not quality. Calorie restriction is basically eating less and if you love to eat like a horse, aside from the weight problems this causes for some, the evidence that it speeds up the aging process keeps growing. Scientists have known for a long time that animals such as roundworms and rodents live much longer when their food is rationed. But you can’t always assume that this will translate to humans, although it makes it more likely and it certainly makes sense. Food is a fuel and just like your car the more it burns, the more wear and tear and the more exhausts that are produced.

Science magazine has just published a study titled…Calorie-Counting Monkeys Live Longer. Professor Richard Weindruch and colleagues at the  Wisconsin National Primate Research Center reveal that calorie restriction is indeed successful at improving survival and delaying disease in rhesus macaques, whose average life span is 27 years. “We have been able to show that caloric restriction can slow the aging process in a primate species,” Dr Weindruch announced.

The calorie restricted group of monkeys received 30 percent fewer calories than those on unrestricted diets. After 20 years, 80 percent of the animals given restricted diets are alive, compared to half of the unrestricted animals. Cancer and cardiovascular disease incidence is over 50 percent lower in the calorie restricted animals, and impaired glucose regulation has not been observed. “So far, we’ve seen the complete prevention of diabetes,” Dr Weindruch stated. Additionally, brain volume, motor control, working memory and problem solving abilities appear to be better maintained in the restricted monkeys.

Sterling Johnson, who is a neuroscientist in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health explains… “It’s not a global effect, but the findings are helping us understand if this dietary treatment is having any effect on the loss of neurons in aging. “Both motor speed and mental speed slow down with aging,” Dr Johnson explained. “Those are the areas which we found to be better preserved. We can’t yet make the claim that a difference in diet is associated with functional change because those studies are still ongoing. What we know so far is that there are regional differences in brain mass that appear to be related to diet.”

Read more…

Categories: Food, Life Tags: