Applied Kinesiology in Australia

Hi Everyone,
There are some great articles in this weeks issue to help your patients and your application of applied kinesiology methods.  I am always interested in articles and observations of those on this list that may be of interest to all of us.  Just send me you observations, link to an article and I will list it to share.  So far, AK News and Views is a non profit and volunteer production.  Sharing info adds more perspective than my views that may be more narrow than some of you.  I am working on a summary of this past years articles.  I am presenting a paper to the ICAK-Australia AGM in March with the Best of AK News and Views with my interpretation of how to use the information.  I hope to divide all the articles into our AK structural, emotional/mental and nutritional/chemical format.  I am interested to see how many articles may fit in each category.    Best wishes,  Donald

1. Muscle weakness causes more shoulder dysfunction than "wear and tear".
2. Hip abductor strength and iliotibial band tightness do not cause low back pain.
3. AK is included in this combined approach to learning difficulties.
4. Left thoracic curve indicates high risk of Neural axis problems.
5. Gentle, mild to the stomach but deadly paracetamol
6. Activator Instruments have over 100 research papers available.
7. Safety guidelines using the internet when you travel.
8. Lycopene (from tomatoes) may help prostate cancer.
9. What to do if your internet profile is trashed.
10. Babies and breast feeding do not affect mother's bone mineral density.
11. Aggression has a smell.
12. Guidelines for designing a good questionnaire for a clinical trial.
13. The Amygdala determines how unfair decisions affect your social life.
14. A new marker for treating and diagnosing prostate cancer is found.
15. "Eyeballing" the patient is a valid form of diagnosis.
16. Misoprostol uses sublingual absorption pathways for treatment.
17. Physiotherapy helps lymphedema after breast surgery.
18. Body building supplements may create misdiagnosed kidney disease.
19. Chronic sleep loss affects you and everything around you.
20. Chiropractic services improve efficiency of health insurance.
21. Pomegranates may prevent estrogen dependant breast cancer.
22. Pistachios may reduce lung cancer risk.
23. Make sure you live in a happy place for good health.
24. Mercola discusses how sodas are the biggest cause of fat.
25. How you indirectly reward or punish strangers sustains your cooperation with them.
26. Social position does not always affect health.
27. The kind of doctors patients like.
28. Food supplement (phytalgic) helps reduce pain in knee arthritis.
29. Early morphine helps post traumtic stress disorder.
30. Mistletoe extract (iscador) may help cancer.
Business and Personal development.



1. Muscle weakness causes more shoulder dysfunction than "wear and tear" .  "There are two main hypotheses for the cause of exercise related osteoarthritis: wear and tear of the articular cartilage and muscle dysfunction. This is a review of the clinical literature to see which hypothesis has the greatest support. Clinical studies support the muscle dysfunction hypothesis over the wear and tear hypothesis."  Thank you to Dr. Cuthbert for this link.   Free download. (Return to List )

2. Hip abductor strength and iliotibial band tightness do not cause low back pain.   "Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) with the body mass index (BMI) as the covariate revealed significant difference in hip abductor strength between three groups (P<0.001). Post hoc analysis showed no significant difference in hip abductor muscle strength between the LBP subjects with and without ITB tightness (P=0.59). However, subjects with no LBP had significantly stronger hip abductor muscle strength compared to subjects with LBP with ITB tightness (P<0.001) and those with LBP without ITB tightness (P<0.001).    The relationship between ITB tightness and hip abductor weakness in patients with LBP is not supported as assumed in theory. More clinical studies are needed to assess the theory of muscle imbalance of hip abductor weakness and ITB tightness in LBP."   Free download. (Return to List )

3. AK is included in this combined approach to learning difficulties.   "The scope of problems covered by the term “Learning Difficulties” is reviewed. The requirement to match individual needs with specific treatment is stressed. The traditional role of Osteopathy and Cranial Osteopathy in helping children, and some of the author's reasons for using Applied Kinesiology (A.K) within his osteopathic approach to children is discussed. The contribution of the Irlen Technique for Scotopic Sensitivity (a visual problem) and Audio Integration Training for auditory perceptual problems is raised. It is argued that combined with A.K. techniques which assess structural, mental and chemical elements of the problem, these therapies can contribute additional benefit to the educationally challenged child. Such an approach enables children to obtain the greatest benefits from the special teaching that they receive. Some results of a survey completed by 44 parents of children treated at the practice are summarised."  (Return to List )

4. Left thoracic curve indicates high risk of Neural axis problems.   "When a left thoracic curve pattern is present in patients with “idiopathic” scoliosis, especially in male patients or patients with severe curve, strong consideration should be given to the possibility of the presence of neural axis abnormalities, and acquisition of an MRI scan considered."  (Return to List )

5. Gentle, mild to the stomach but deadly paracetamol .  Some people are allergic to it.  (Return to List )

6. Activator Instruments have over 100 research papers available.   Many AK doctors use this instrument in a variety of methods that help strengthen weak muscles.   (Return to List )

7. Safety guidelines using the internet when you travel.

(Return to List )

 
8. Lycopene (from tomatoes) may help prostate cancer.   "An inverse association was observed between lycopene intake and PSA levels in six studies. The rates of progression measured by bone scan in one RCT were lower in the intervention group. Lycopene resulted in lowering cancer-related symptoms (pain, urinary tract symptoms), and severe toxicity or intolerance was not evident. However, the evidence available to date is insufficient to draw a firm conclusion with respect to lycopene supplementation in prostate cancer patients and larger RCTs are required in broader patient groups."  (Return to List )

9. What to do if your internet profile is trashed.  "John Swapceinski, co-founder of RateMDs (www.ratemds.com), a Sunnyvale, California-based physician rating site that garners 800 new ratings daily, says that 70% of posters express satisfaction with their physicians. But as Kenneth Harkavy, a pediatrician in Reston, Virginia, points out, "Satisfied customers rarely make the effort to spread good news, while dissatisfied customers will share with as many people as they can. As a result, a compilation of submitted reviews will tend to be biased, usually to the negative."  (Return to List )

10. Babies and breast feeding do not affect mother's bone mineral density.  "this study indicates that there is no long-term detrimental effect of multiple pregnancies and long total duration of breast-feeding on maternal BMD in women within a socio-economic group whose nutritional intake is often marginal. These data are in general agreement with the common view that mothers should breast feed their children as long as they can, due to the well-known positive effects of breast-feeding.' (Return to List )

11. Aggression has a smell. It seems the statement that "some people can smell trouble"  may be true. "Aggressive behavior between males in a number of animal species is regulated by pheromones; however, the mechanisms involved are unclear. Social experience has effects on male aggression in Drosophila. For example, the group of Wang and Anderson showed that Cyp6a20, which encodes a cytochrome P450 protein, is more highly expressed in socially experienced, nonaggressive flies than in aggressive flies and that it is localized to cells sensitive to the male volatile pheromone 11-cis-vaccenyl acetate (cVA). " (Return to List )

12. Guidelines for designing a good questionnaire for a clinical trial. Here is a Free Download.   "A good questionnaire design for a clinical trial will minimise bias and maximise precision in the estimates of treatment effect within budget. Attempts to collect more data than will be analysed may risk reducing recruitment (reducing power) and increasing losses to follow-up (possibly introducing bias). The mode of administration can also impact on the cost, quality and completeness of data collected. There is good evidence for design features that improve data completeness but further research is required to evaluate strategies in clinical trials. Theory-based guidelines for style, appearance, and layout of self-administered questionnaires have been proposed but require evaluation."  (Return to List )

13. The Amygdala determines how unfair decisions affect your social life.   "Social value orientation' characterizes individual differences in anchoring attitudes toward the division of resources. Here, by contrasting people with prosocial and individualistic orientations using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we demonstrate that degree of inequity aversion in prosocials is predictable from amygdala activity and unaffected by cognitive load. This result suggests that automatic emotional processing in the amygdala lies at the core of prosocial value orientation."  (Return to List )

14. A new marker for treating and diagnosing prostate cancer is found.   "the present study indicates that mAb F77 defines a unique prostate cancer marker and shows promising potential for diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer, especially for androgen-independent metastatic prostate cancer."  (Return to List )

15. "Eyeballing" the patient is a valid form of diagnosis.   "Eyeballing" a patient is a skill that is taught early on in medical training, and it is invaluable to us all, whether a junior house officer or a senior consultant. A cursory inspection from the end of the bed can glean huge insight into the patient’s condition. It can gauge signs of distress, level of consciousness, nourishment status, and complexion, to name just a few. (Return to List )

16. Misoprostol uses sublingual absorption pathways for treatment.  "Oxytocin, the standard of care for treatment of post-partum haemorrhage, is not available in all settings because of refrigeration requirements and the need for intravenous administration. Misoprostol, an effective uterotonic agent with several advantages for resource-poor settings, has been investigated as an alternative. This trial established whether sublingual misoprostol was similarly efficacious to intravenous oxytocin for treatment of post-partum haemorrhage in women not exposed to oxytocin during labour."  (Return to List )

17. Physiotherapy helps lymphedema after breast surgery.   "116 women completed the one year follow-up. Of these, 18 developed secondary lymphoedema (16%): 14 in the control group (25%) and four in the intervention group (7%). The difference was significant (P=0.01); risk ratio 0.28 (95% confidence interval 0.10 to 0.79). A survival analysis showed a significant difference, with secondary lymphoedema being diagnosed four times earlier in the control group than in the intervention group (intervention/control, hazard ratio 0.26, 95% confidence interval 0.09 to 0.79)"  (Return to List )

18. Body building supplements may create misdiagnosed kidney disease.   "The past five years has seen increasing emphasis on the early detection and treatment of chronic kidney disease, together with reporting of estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR) alongside serum creatinine values.1 Most laboratories calculate estimated GFR automatically, using age, serum creatinine, gender, and ethnic group.2 Increasing reliance on this value as a marker of chronic kidney disease means that any factor which affects creatinine independently of true changes in renal function may lead patients to be misdiagnosed with kidney disease. Also, doctors have become more aware of the importance of reduction of estimated GFR. We report a series of patients referred for investigation of kidney disease (both acute and chronic) in whom ingestion of protein and creatine supplements led to a high serum creatinine and low reported estimated GFR in the absence of kidney disease."  (Return to List )

19. Chronic sleep loss affects you and everything around you.   "chronic sleep loss markedly increased the rate of deterioration in performance across wakefulness, particularly during the circadian “night.” Thus, extended wake during the circadian night reveals the cumulative detrimental effects of chronic sleep loss on performance, with potential adverse health and safety consequences."  (Return to List )

20. Chiropractic services improve efficiency of health insurance.   Free download.    (Return to List )

21. Pomegranates may prevent estrogen dependant breast cancer.  "These studies suggest that pomegranate ET–derived compounds have potential for the prevention of estrogen-responsive breast cancers."  (Return to List )

22. Pistachios may reduce lung cancer risk. "A diet that incorporates a daily dose of pistachios may help reduce the risk of lung and other cancers, according to data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference, held Dec. 6-9.  It is known that vitamin E provides a degree of protection against certain forms of cancer. Higher intakes of gamma-tocopherol, which is a form of vitamin E, may reduce the risk of lung cancer," said Ladia M. Hernandez, M.S., R.D., L.D., senior research dietitian in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and doctoral candidate at Texas Woman's University - Houston Center.  Pistachios are a good source of gamma-tocopherol. Eating them increases intake of gamma-tocopherol so pistachios may help to decrease lung cancer risk," she said."   (Return to List )

23. Make sure you live in a happy place for good health. "The happiest states were Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida, Tennessee, and Arizona.  The least happy state was New York.  " (Return to List )

24. Mercola discusses how sodas are the biggest cause of fat .  At least the fructose in the sodas.  "The fatty acids created during fructose metabolism accumulate as fat droplets in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Insulin resistance progresses to metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes."  (Return to List )

25. How you indirectly reward or punish strangers sustains your cooperation with them.   "Many people incur costs to reward strangers who have been kind to others. Theoretical and experimental evidence suggests that such "indirect rewarding" sustains cooperation between unrelated humans. Its emergence is surprising, because rewarders incur costs but receive no immediate benefits. It can prevail in the long run only if rewarders earn higher payoffs than "defectors" who ignore strangers’ kindness. We provide experimental evidence regarding the payoffs received by individuals who employ these and other strategies, such as "indirect punishment," by imposing costs on unkind strangers. We find that if unkind strangers cannot be punished, defection earns most. If they can be punished, however, then indirect rewarding earns most. Indirect punishmentplays this important role, even if it gives a low payoff and is rarely implemented."  (Return to List )

26. Social position does not always affect health.   "The findings suggest that the causal relationship hypothesized in prior studies—that perceived social position affects health—does not necessarily hold in empirical models of reciprocal relationships. Future research should interrogate the relationship between perceived social position and health rather than assume the direction of causality in their relationship."  (Return to List )

27. The kind of doctors patients like.   Here are responses to one doctor's blog.  He also explains why he changed his mind about chiropractors. "I will admit that when I first started out, chiropractors were not high on my list of acceptable specialists. It was only after seeing what these people can do that I came around. My acceptance of home and natural remedies occurred in much the same way. Again, I had to see it to believe it."   (Return to List )

28. Food supplement (phytalgic) helps reduce pain in knee arthritis. "The food supplement tested appeared to decrease the need for analgesics and NSAIDs and improve the symptoms of osteoarthritis."   (Return to List )

29. Early morphine helps post traumtic stress disorder.   "Quickly giving morphine to wounded troops cuts in half the chance they will develop post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a provocative study that suggests a new strategy for preventing the psychological fallout of war.  Researchers at the U.S. Naval Health Research Center led the study of about 700 troops injured in Iraq from 2004 through 2006." (Return to List )

30. Mistletoe extract (iscador) may help cancer.  This systematic review suggests more studies are needed.  "Pooled analysis of clinical studies suggests that adjuvant treatment of cancer patients with the mistletoe extract Iscador is associated with a better survival. Despite obvious limitations, and strong hints for a publication bias which limits the evidence found in this meta-analysis, one can not ignore the fact that studies with positive effects of VA-E on survival of cancer patients are accumulating. Future studies evaluating the effects of Iscador should focus on a transparent design and description of endpoints in order to provide greater insight into a treatment often being depreciated as ineffective, but highly valued by cancer patients."  (Return to List )

Business and Personal development:

One of the best places to start to turn your life around is by doing whatever appears on your mental “I should” list.

Indecision is the thief of opportunity.

Every life form seems to strive to its maximum except human beings. How tall will a tree grow? As tall as it possibly can. Human beings, on the other hand, have been given the dignity of choice. You can choose to be all or you can choose to be less. Why not stretch up to the full measure of the challenge and see what all you can do?

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

Decision making can sometimes seem like inner civil war.

I used to say, “I sure hope things will change.” Then I learned that the only way things are going to change for me is when I change.

Don’t say, “If I could, I would.” Say, “If I can, I will.”

It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off sometimes. What matters most is getting off! You cannot make progress without making decisions.

We generally change ourselves for one of two reasons: inspiration or desperation.

If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree. (Return to List )

Donald McDowall
DC, MAppSc, DNBCE, DIBAK, FACC
cosmos2k@bigpond.net.au
skype: donaldannie
www.chiroclinic.com.au
www.appliedkinesiology.com.au

Past issues of AK News and Views are found at www.appliedkinesiology.com.au .  just register on the site and click "dashboard to go to each page published over the past year.

 Dr. Goodheart's audio lectures can be found here.

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"Neglect starts out as an infection then becomes a disease." —Jim Rohn