Optimal Health for Active Lifestyles

by Dr. John Kupper

We are excited to introduce you to our 1st newsletter from K2 Health Center!  Our goal is to provide you with useful and meaningful information to better your health and life.  We believe that knowledge is power, especially when it comes to your health. Far too often, we are seeing patients that are lost and beat down by all the medical jargon and confusion surrounding healthcare these days.  Most are told that they are sick because of BAD GERMS, BAD GENES, or just BAD LUCK. Your Encinitas chiropractor team are here to help inform you how your body is supposed to work. Our focus is to show you the natural, inborn intelligence that controls and regulates everything that happens with your body.  Despite being told that your genetics determines your destiny, we will fight through the fog and break through to a new understanding of health. Let us arm you with power, knowledge, and confidence. YOU determine your health destiny and in turn the way you live your life. The choices you make are a result of your belief system.  Whether it be about food, exercise, money, family, relationships - you name it we behave based on what we believe. We behave based on our perception of reality. We are here to burst the bubble surrounding logical health reasoning and physiologically centered healthcare! Thank you for reading!

Does Over-the-Counter Mean Safe?

A bothersome trend we are seeing increasingly is the use of NSAIDs.  Go ahead and open up your medicine cabinet and count how many NSAIDs (ibuprofen, aspirin, naproxen) you have in there.  The most common brand names we see include Aleve, Advil, Motrin, Excedrin, and Bayer. Or you can even take a stroll down to your local drug store and see dozens and dozens of pain relievers lining the shelves.  It has become commonplace in our culture to see these seemingly benign over-the-counter chemicals and most americans use them at record breaking levels.  

The key is, THEY ARE NOT BENIGN.  They are dangerous. Bulletproof evidence, with decades of data, shows that these abused drugs, even in small amounts, increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, internal bleeding, and gastro-intestinal disorders.  Not to mention the decrease in your body’s ability to grow new joint cartilage.  

FDA Releases Order to Change Warning Label for NSAIDs

The Food and Drug Administration recently (2015) announced that warning labels on NSAIDs will be strengthened.  The press release included the following:

• “The risk of heart attack or stroke can occur as early as the first weeks of using an NSAID.
• The risk appears greater at higher doses
• NSAIDs can increase the risk of heart attack or stroke in patients with or without heart disease or risk factors for heart disease. A large number of studies support this finding, with varying estimates of how much the risk is increased, depending on the drugs and the doses studied.
• In general, patients with heart disease or risk factors for it have a greater likelihood of heart attack or stroke following NSAID use than patients without these risk factors because they have a higher risk at baseline.
• Patients treated with NSAIDs following a first heart attack were more likely to die in the first year after the heart attack compared to patients who were not treated with NSAIDs after their first heart attack.
• There is an increased risk of heart failure with NSAID use."

PLEASE use these chemicals sparingly and responsibly.  In an article for the New York Times, Professor Bruce Lambert, director of the Center of Communication and Health at Northwestern University, explains that the data is now crystal clear and the evidence against these drugs “is now extremely solid”.  Lambert goes on to state, “ I don’t think we will ever see a study that says, ‘Oops, NSAIDs were safe after all.”

What we must remember is that NSAIDs were developed and approved in the 1950s  and have been sold over-the-counter for years. With all the extensive damage these medications have now caused, it is likely that if NSAIDs came out in 2019, they would be prescription only.  Not that it would drastically change the epidemic our country now faces in terms of pain medication abuse, but it would go a long way to limit the access and hopefully steer those seeking pain relief to more conservative treatment options.

For natural pain relief and anti-inflammatory action, your chiropractor in Encinitas typically recommend Omega-3 fatty acids (dosage will depend on blood labs testing) and Turmeric/Curcumin.  There are many others that are very effective and if used correctly, can make a big difference. 

Of course, getting to the root cause of pain is BY FAR the best course of action. Search for chiropractors near me or visit https://k2healthcenter.com/ for more information.

Sources:

FDA Drug Safety Communication: FDA strengthens warning that non-aspirin nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can cause heart attacks or strokes, FDA, accessed 2016

Experts Urge Sparing Use of Nonaspirin Painkillers, The New York Times, July 13, 2015

K2 Health Center

317 N. El Camino Real Suite 110

Encinitas, CA 92024