Neck pain study reinforces use of chiropractic, other conservative options

January 6, 2012 — A new studypublished this month in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) and exercise more effective at relieving neck pain than pain medication. The research reinforces the use of conservative care options like chiropractic as a first line of defense against pain, according to the American Chiropractic Association (ACA).

The study divided participants into three groups that received either SMT from a doctor of chiropractic (DC), pain medication (over-the-counter pain relievers, narcotics, and muscle relaxants) or exercise recommendations.

After 12 weeks, about 57 percent of those who met with DCs and 48 percent who exercised reported at least a 75 percent reduction in pain, compared to 33 percent of the people in the medication group.

After one year, approximately 53 percent of the drug-free groups still reported at least a 75 percent reduction in pain; compared to just 38 percent pain reduction among those who took medication.

The study also found that despite experiencing limited pain relief, people in the drug group continued using a higher amount of medication more frequently throughout the follow-up period. This finding underscores concerns raised in an April 2011 government report that indicated prescription drug abuse in the U.S. has reached crisis level.

"Doctors of chiropractic have long cautioned against the overuse of medication to treat musculoskeletal pain," said ACA President Keith Overland, DC. "We continue to promote drug-free, conservative interventions for neck pain patients before referral for medical management that may result in side effects. Patients deserve to know that there are natural, drug-free options when it comes to pain relief."

Source: American Chiropractic Association, www.acatoday.org

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

January 6, 2012 — A new studypublished this month in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) and exercise more effective at relieving neck pain than pain medication. The research reinforces the use of conservative care options like chiropractic as a first line of defense against pain, according to the American Chiropractic Association (ACA).

The study divided participants into three groups that received either SMT from a doctor of chiropractic (DC), pain medication (over-the-counter pain relievers, narcotics, and muscle relaxants) or exercise recommendations.

After 12 weeks, about 57 percent of those who met with DCs and 48 percent who exercised reported at least a 75 percent reduction in pain, compared to 33 percent of the people in the medication group.

After one year, approximately 53 percent of the drug-free groups still reported at least a 75 percent reduction in pain; compared to just 38 percent pain reduction among those who took medication.

The study also found that despite experiencing limited pain relief, people in the drug group continued using a higher amount of medication more frequently throughout the follow-up period. This finding underscores concerns raised in an April 2011 government report that indicated prescription drug abuse in the U.S. has reached crisis level.

"Doctors of chiropractic have long cautioned against the overuse of medication to treat musculoskeletal pain," said ACA President Keith Overland, DC. "We continue to promote drug-free, conservative interventions for neck pain patients before referral for medical management that may result in side effects. Patients deserve to know that there are natural, drug-free options when it comes to pain relief."

Source: American Chiropractic Association, www.acatoday.org

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

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Why you should eat more (not less) cholesterol

For decades now, the general American population has been neurotically avoiding cholesterol-rich foods for fear of developing heart disease, thanks to the promulgation of the unfortunate Diet-Heart hypothesis. (1)

Those of us that follow a paleo diet are well aware by now thatdietary cholesterol does not significantly affect cholesterol levels in the blood or risk for heart disease, and that there is no reason to avoid whole foods with naturally high levels of cholesterol.

However, beyond just ‘not avoiding’ high cholesterol foods, there is a significant reason for us to make a special effort to include many high cholesterol foods in our diet.

The reason? The much under-appreciated B-vitamin called choline, found primarily in cholesterol-rich foods.

If you haven’t heard of choline, or don’t know much about this vital nutrient, you’re not alone. Choline has only been ‘officially’ recognized as an essential nutrient since 1998, when the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine established an Adequate Intake (AI) level of 425 mg per day for women and 550 mg per day for men. (2) Even though it has been deemed a nutrient vital for human health, only 10% of Americans are meeting the conservative AI levels established by the IOM.

If you eat a strict paleo diet, you may be closer to meeting your choline needs than the average American, but only if you are regularly including choline rich foods in your diet. The best whole food sources of dietary choline are egg yolks and liver, which are often avoided by many Americans due to unfounded fear of dietary fat and cholesterol. However, these high cholesterol foods are at the top the choline-rich foods list, followed (albeit distantly) by beef, cod, brussels sprouts, and broccoli. (3)

Why is choline such an important nutrient to consider in one’s diet?

Choline has a variety of functions in the body, including the synthesis of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, cell-membrane signaling, lipid transport, and methylgroup metabolism. (4) In addition, it is an essential component of the many phospholipids that make up cell membranes, regulates several metabolic pathways, and aids detoxification in the body. During pregnancy, low choline intake is significantly associated with a higher risk of neural tube defects in the newborn.

Choline deficiency over time can have serious implications for our health. Symptoms of choline deficiency include fatigue, insomnia, poor kidney function, memory problems, and nerve-muscle imbalances. Extreme dietary deficiency of choline can result in liver dysfunction, cardiovascular disease, impaired growth, abnormalities in bone formation, lack of red blood cell formation, infertility, kidney failure, anemia, and high blood pressure. Incredibly, choline deficiency is the only nutrient deficiency shown to induce the development of spontaneous carcinoma. (5)

Chris Masterjohn has written extensively about choline deficiency and its relationship to fatty liver disease which affects as many as 100 million Americans and is often attributed to excess alcohol and sugar consumption by conventional practitioners. After a review of the literature, Masterjohn concludes that choline deficiency plays a role in virtually every type of diet-induced fatty liver model, and that adequate dietary choline is essential for proper liver function. He also suggests that high consumption of dietary fat, including saturated fats, increases the amount of choline required to prevent the accumulation of fat in the liver. (6)

This means that if you’re eating a higher fat diet, it is even more crucial that you include a variety of choline rich foods in your diet.

Another important factor to consider is that while humans are able to produce some level of endogenous choline, some people have a common gene variation that further increases the amount of choline they must consume to satisfy their body’s requirements. (7) These particular people are more susceptible to choline deficiency, and must be especially vigilant about including choline rich food in their diets.

As choline is so important, you may be wondering what the best food sources are in order to improve your intake. There are many natural, whole foods that are excellent sources of bioavailable choline, with the best sources being beef liver, poultry liver, and whole eggs. (8) These foods are not only high in choline, but are also very high in many different vitamins and minerals such as as vitamin A, arachidonic acid, DHA, and the B vitamins. (9)

We already know liver is an amazing superfood. Liver from pastured animals is a great source of trace elements such as copper, zinc and chromium, plus highly bioavailable folate and iron. (10)

Liver is also the most potent source of dietary choline that we know of.

For example, a three ounce serving of pan-fried beef liver has over 400 mg of choline in it, compared to less than 80 mg in the same amount of cooked ground beef. (11) While you don’t need to consume beef liver on a daily basis to reap the benefits of this superfood, it should be clear that including pastured liver and other organ meats as part of a nutritionally complete diet is one of the best ways to improve your health and prevent the many types of chronic disease caused by nutrient deficiencies.

If you’re not used to including lots of liver and whole eggs in your regular meal plan, give a few of the following recipes a try. It’s never too late to start incorporating more choline into your diet!

http://chriskresser.com/why-you-should-eat-more-not-less-cholesterol

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

For decades now, the general American population has been neurotically avoiding cholesterol-rich foods for fear of developing heart disease, thanks to the promulgation of the unfortunate Diet-Heart hypothesis. (1)

Those of us that follow a paleo diet are well aware by now thatdietary cholesterol does not significantly affect cholesterol levels in the blood or risk for heart disease, and that there is no reason to avoid whole foods with naturally high levels of cholesterol.

However, beyond just ‘not avoiding’ high cholesterol foods, there is a significant reason for us to make a special effort to include many high cholesterol foods in our diet.

The reason? The much under-appreciated B-vitamin called choline, found primarily in cholesterol-rich foods.

If you haven’t heard of choline, or don’t know much about this vital nutrient, you’re not alone. Choline has only been ‘officially’ recognized as an essential nutrient since 1998, when the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine established an Adequate Intake (AI) level of 425 mg per day for women and 550 mg per day for men. (2) Even though it has been deemed a nutrient vital for human health, only 10% of Americans are meeting the conservative AI levels established by the IOM.

If you eat a strict paleo diet, you may be closer to meeting your choline needs than the average American, but only if you are regularly including choline rich foods in your diet. The best whole food sources of dietary choline are egg yolks and liver, which are often avoided by many Americans due to unfounded fear of dietary fat and cholesterol. However, these high cholesterol foods are at the top the choline-rich foods list, followed (albeit distantly) by beef, cod, brussels sprouts, and broccoli. (3)

Why is choline such an important nutrient to consider in one’s diet?

Choline has a variety of functions in the body, including the synthesis of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, cell-membrane signaling, lipid transport, and methylgroup metabolism. (4) In addition, it is an essential component of the many phospholipids that make up cell membranes, regulates several metabolic pathways, and aids detoxification in the body. During pregnancy, low choline intake is significantly associated with a higher risk of neural tube defects in the newborn.

Choline deficiency over time can have serious implications for our health. Symptoms of choline deficiency include fatigue, insomnia, poor kidney function, memory problems, and nerve-muscle imbalances. Extreme dietary deficiency of choline can result in liver dysfunction, cardiovascular disease, impaired growth, abnormalities in bone formation, lack of red blood cell formation, infertility, kidney failure, anemia, and high blood pressure. Incredibly, choline deficiency is the only nutrient deficiency shown to induce the development of spontaneous carcinoma. (5)

Chris Masterjohn has written extensively about choline deficiency and its relationship to fatty liver disease which affects as many as 100 million Americans and is often attributed to excess alcohol and sugar consumption by conventional practitioners. After a review of the literature, Masterjohn concludes that choline deficiency plays a role in virtually every type of diet-induced fatty liver model, and that adequate dietary choline is essential for proper liver function. He also suggests that high consumption of dietary fat, including saturated fats, increases the amount of choline required to prevent the accumulation of fat in the liver. (6)

This means that if you’re eating a higher fat diet, it is even more crucial that you include a variety of choline rich foods in your diet.

Another important factor to consider is that while humans are able to produce some level of endogenous choline, some people have a common gene variation that further increases the amount of choline they must consume to satisfy their body’s requirements. (7) These particular people are more susceptible to choline deficiency, and must be especially vigilant about including choline rich food in their diets.

As choline is so important, you may be wondering what the best food sources are in order to improve your intake. There are many natural, whole foods that are excellent sources of bioavailable choline, with the best sources being beef liver, poultry liver, and whole eggs. (8) These foods are not only high in choline, but are also very high in many different vitamins and minerals such as as vitamin A, arachidonic acid, DHA, and the B vitamins. (9)

We already know liver is an amazing superfood. Liver from pastured animals is a great source of trace elements such as copper, zinc and chromium, plus highly bioavailable folate and iron. (10)

Liver is also the most potent source of dietary choline that we know of.

For example, a three ounce serving of pan-fried beef liver has over 400 mg of choline in it, compared to less than 80 mg in the same amount of cooked ground beef. (11) While you don’t need to consume beef liver on a daily basis to reap the benefits of this superfood, it should be clear that including pastured liver and other organ meats as part of a nutritionally complete diet is one of the best ways to improve your health and prevent the many types of chronic disease caused by nutrient deficiencies.

If you’re not used to including lots of liver and whole eggs in your regular meal plan, give a few of the following recipes a try. It’s never too late to start incorporating more choline into your diet!

http://chriskresser.com/why-you-should-eat-more-not-less-cholesterol

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

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Exercise May Encourage Healthy Eating Via Brain Changes

Exercise may encourage healthy eating by changing parts of the brain that influence impulsive behaviour, according to a new review of the available literature by researchers from Spain and the US published in Obesity Reviews. The researchers conclude that in a society where we are surrounded by temptations and triggers that facilitate over-eating and excess, the part of the brain responsible for "inhibitory control" undergoes "relentless strain" (they note it has limited capacity anyway), and doing exercise on a regular basis enhances it. 

"By enhancing the resources that facilitate 'top-down' inhibitory control, increased physical activity may help compensate and suppress the hedonic drive to over-eat," they write. 

Obesity has been rising at an alarming rate in Spain in recent years, so much so that in some parts of Spain, the proportion of the population that is obese is higher than that in many parts of the United States, the country traditionally considered as having the highest obesity rates in the western world. 

Also, in line with other countries in the Mediterranean, Spain has one of the highest rates of childhood obesity in Europe. 


Co-author Dr Miguel Alonso Alonso, a Spanish neurologist working at the Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in the US, told the press on Wednesday that many studies suggest "physical exercise seems to encourage a healthy diet. In fact, when exercise is added to a weight-loss diet, treatment of obesity is more successful and the diet is adhered to in the long run". 

However, in order better to inform and improve current approaches and treatments for obesity, he and his co-authors, from the US and Spain, thought it might be useful to bring together what these "somewhat disparate, yet interrelated lines of literature" may have to say about the neurological underpinning of the link between exercise and weight loss. 

"Designing effective weight-loss interventions requires an understanding of how these behaviours are elicited, how they relate to each other and whether they are supported by common neurocognitive mechanisms," they write. 

There is evidence that regular physical exercise changes the working and structure of the brain. From their review, the researchers conclude these changes seem to support the idea that regular exercise improves the results of tests that measure the state of the brain's executive functions, and increases in connections in the grey matter and prefrontal cortex. 

One of the brain's executive functions is "inhibitory control" which helps us keep check on impulsiveness, or to suppress inadequate, excessive or inappropriate behaviour toward a goal. 

The researchers conclude that regular practice of physical exercise, in time, produces a "potentiating effect" on the brain's executive functions, including the ability for inhibitory control, and this helps us "resist the many temptations that we are faced with everyday in a society where food, especially hypercaloric food, is more and more omnipresent". 

Exercise also brings other benefits, such as making the brain more sensitive to physiological signs of fulness. This helps not only to control appetite, but it also modifies the "hedonic" response to food stimuli, say the researchers. Thus the benefits of exercise occur in the short term (these affect metabolism) and in the long term (these affect behaviour). 

Alonso Alonso and colleagues suggest it is important that social policies help and encourage people to practise sport and engage in physical exercise, whether at school, in urban settings, or daily life, with the help of public transport, pedestrianized areas and sports centres. 

Written by Catharine Paddock PhD 

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

Exercise may encourage healthy eating by changing parts of the brain that influence impulsive behaviour, according to a new review of the available literature by researchers from Spain and the US published in Obesity Reviews. The researchers conclude that in a society where we are surrounded by temptations and triggers that facilitate over-eating and excess, the part of the brain responsible for "inhibitory control" undergoes "relentless strain" (they note it has limited capacity anyway), and doing exercise on a regular basis enhances it. 

"By enhancing the resources that facilitate 'top-down' inhibitory control, increased physical activity may help compensate and suppress the hedonic drive to over-eat," they write. 

Obesity has been rising at an alarming rate in Spain in recent years, so much so that in some parts of Spain, the proportion of the population that is obese is higher than that in many parts of the United States, the country traditionally considered as having the highest obesity rates in the western world. 

Also, in line with other countries in the Mediterranean, Spain has one of the highest rates of childhood obesity in Europe. 


Co-author Dr Miguel Alonso Alonso, a Spanish neurologist working at the Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in the US, told the press on Wednesday that many studies suggest "physical exercise seems to encourage a healthy diet. In fact, when exercise is added to a weight-loss diet, treatment of obesity is more successful and the diet is adhered to in the long run". 

However, in order better to inform and improve current approaches and treatments for obesity, he and his co-authors, from the US and Spain, thought it might be useful to bring together what these "somewhat disparate, yet interrelated lines of literature" may have to say about the neurological underpinning of the link between exercise and weight loss. 

"Designing effective weight-loss interventions requires an understanding of how these behaviours are elicited, how they relate to each other and whether they are supported by common neurocognitive mechanisms," they write. 

There is evidence that regular physical exercise changes the working and structure of the brain. From their review, the researchers conclude these changes seem to support the idea that regular exercise improves the results of tests that measure the state of the brain's executive functions, and increases in connections in the grey matter and prefrontal cortex. 

One of the brain's executive functions is "inhibitory control" which helps us keep check on impulsiveness, or to suppress inadequate, excessive or inappropriate behaviour toward a goal. 

The researchers conclude that regular practice of physical exercise, in time, produces a "potentiating effect" on the brain's executive functions, including the ability for inhibitory control, and this helps us "resist the many temptations that we are faced with everyday in a society where food, especially hypercaloric food, is more and more omnipresent". 

Exercise also brings other benefits, such as making the brain more sensitive to physiological signs of fulness. This helps not only to control appetite, but it also modifies the "hedonic" response to food stimuli, say the researchers. Thus the benefits of exercise occur in the short term (these affect metabolism) and in the long term (these affect behaviour). 

Alonso Alonso and colleagues suggest it is important that social policies help and encourage people to practise sport and engage in physical exercise, whether at school, in urban settings, or daily life, with the help of public transport, pedestrianized areas and sports centres. 

Written by Catharine Paddock PhD 

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

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The Calcium Supplement Problem: As Serious As A Heart Attack

Osteoporosis is not caused by a lack of limestone, oyster shell or bone meal. Heart attack, however, may be caused by supplementation with these exact same "elemental" forms of calcium, according to two meta-analyses published last year in the British Medical Journal.

Back in July of 2011, the British Medical Journal published the results of a high-powered meta-analysis which looked at whether or not calcium supplementation had any effect on cardiovascular disease risk.  Indeed, this groundbreaking report, which was based on the results of five clinical trials conducted in the US, Britain and New Zealand, involving over 8,000 people, showed that taking elemental calcium supplements of 500 mg or more increased the relative risk of heart attack by 27%.  

Though the study made international headlines at the time, critics soon took issue with the fact that it involved calcium supplementation without co-administered vitamin D.  However, in April of that same year, another meta-analysis published in the same journal showed that even with co-administered D elemental calcium increased the risk of heart attack by 24%, and in addition, the composite of heart attack and stroke by 15% -- in essence, putting those doubts to rest.

The idea that calcium supplementation may be toxic to cardiovascular health is not new, as many in the field of nutrition have long warned against supplementation with elemental calcium; which is to say, calcium from limestone, oyster shell, egg shell and bone meal (hydroxylapatite). 

Despite the growing popularity of elemental calcium supplementation, largely reinforced by conventional health "experts" and organizations like the National Osteoporosis Foundation (whose corporate sponsors include the calcium manufacturers Oscal and Citrical), the habit simply does not make sense.  After all, have you ever experienced visceral disgust after accidentally consuming eggshell? If you have, you know your body is "hard-wired" to reject low-quality calcium sources (stones and bones as it were), in favor of getting calcium from food.

Inorganic or "elemental" calcium, when not bound to the natural co-factors, e.g. amino acids, lipids and glyconutrients,  found in "food" (which is to say other living beings, e.g. plants and animals), no longer has the intelligent delivery system that enables your body to utilize it in a biologically appropriate manner. Lacking this "delivery system," the calcium may end up going to places you do not want (ectopic calcification), or go to places you do want (e.g. the bones), but in excessive amounts, stimulating unnaturally accelerated cell-division (osteoblasts), resulting in higher bone turn over rates later in life (this is explained in the article below).

Or, the body attempts to disburden itself of this inappropriate calcium and dumps it into the bowel (constipation), or pushes it through the kidneys (stones). Worse, high levels of calcium can accumulate in the blood (hypercalcemia), which can contribute to destabilizing the atherosclerotic plaque through the formation of a brittle calcium cap on the atheroma, can contribute to thrombosis (clot) formation, hypertension (that's why we use calcium channel blockers to lower blood pressure), and perhaps causing arrhythmias/fibrillation and or heart muscle cramping (a rather common, though rarely recognized trigger of 'heart attack'). 

The breasts too are uniquely susceptible to calcification, which is why we use the same x-rays to ascertain bone density that we do to discern pathological microcalcifications in the breast, i.e. x-ray mammography. Due to the fact that the hydroxylapatitate crystals found in malignant breast tissue may act as a cellular 'signaling molecule' or mitogen (inducing cell proliferation), it is possible that certain breast calcifications may be a cause, and not just an effect, of the tumorous lesions ("breast cancer") found there. This may also help to explain why women with the highest bone density (often obtained through massive, lifelong calcium supplementation) have up to 300% higher incidence of malignant breast cancer.

"Brain gravel" is also an increasingly prevalent phenomenon, where autoposied patients have been found to have pebble-size calcium deposits distributed throughout their brains, including the pineal gland ('the seat of the soul'). The wide range of existing calcium-associateted pathologies, and their increasing prevalence in calcium-fixated cultures, demand further investigation and explanation.  Could one aspect be our cultural fixation on mega-dose calcium supplementation?  

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

Osteoporosis is not caused by a lack of limestone, oyster shell or bone meal. Heart attack, however, may be caused by supplementation with these exact same "elemental" forms of calcium, according to two meta-analyses published last year in the British Medical Journal.

Back in July of 2011, the British Medical Journal published the results of a high-powered meta-analysis which looked at whether or not calcium supplementation had any effect on cardiovascular disease risk.  Indeed, this groundbreaking report, which was based on the results of five clinical trials conducted in the US, Britain and New Zealand, involving over 8,000 people, showed that taking elemental calcium supplements of 500 mg or more increased the relative risk of heart attack by 27%.  

Though the study made international headlines at the time, critics soon took issue with the fact that it involved calcium supplementation without co-administered vitamin D.  However, in April of that same year, another meta-analysis published in the same journal showed that even with co-administered D elemental calcium increased the risk of heart attack by 24%, and in addition, the composite of heart attack and stroke by 15% -- in essence, putting those doubts to rest.

The idea that calcium supplementation may be toxic to cardiovascular health is not new, as many in the field of nutrition have long warned against supplementation with elemental calcium; which is to say, calcium from limestone, oyster shell, egg shell and bone meal (hydroxylapatite). 

Despite the growing popularity of elemental calcium supplementation, largely reinforced by conventional health "experts" and organizations like the National Osteoporosis Foundation (whose corporate sponsors include the calcium manufacturers Oscal and Citrical), the habit simply does not make sense.  After all, have you ever experienced visceral disgust after accidentally consuming eggshell? If you have, you know your body is "hard-wired" to reject low-quality calcium sources (stones and bones as it were), in favor of getting calcium from food.

Inorganic or "elemental" calcium, when not bound to the natural co-factors, e.g. amino acids, lipids and glyconutrients,  found in "food" (which is to say other living beings, e.g. plants and animals), no longer has the intelligent delivery system that enables your body to utilize it in a biologically appropriate manner. Lacking this "delivery system," the calcium may end up going to places you do not want (ectopic calcification), or go to places you do want (e.g. the bones), but in excessive amounts, stimulating unnaturally accelerated cell-division (osteoblasts), resulting in higher bone turn over rates later in life (this is explained in the article below).

Or, the body attempts to disburden itself of this inappropriate calcium and dumps it into the bowel (constipation), or pushes it through the kidneys (stones). Worse, high levels of calcium can accumulate in the blood (hypercalcemia), which can contribute to destabilizing the atherosclerotic plaque through the formation of a brittle calcium cap on the atheroma, can contribute to thrombosis (clot) formation, hypertension (that's why we use calcium channel blockers to lower blood pressure), and perhaps causing arrhythmias/fibrillation and or heart muscle cramping (a rather common, though rarely recognized trigger of 'heart attack'). 

The breasts too are uniquely susceptible to calcification, which is why we use the same x-rays to ascertain bone density that we do to discern pathological microcalcifications in the breast, i.e. x-ray mammography. Due to the fact that the hydroxylapatitate crystals found in malignant breast tissue may act as a cellular 'signaling molecule' or mitogen (inducing cell proliferation), it is possible that certain breast calcifications may be a cause, and not just an effect, of the tumorous lesions ("breast cancer") found there. This may also help to explain why women with the highest bone density (often obtained through massive, lifelong calcium supplementation) have up to 300% higher incidence of malignant breast cancer.

"Brain gravel" is also an increasingly prevalent phenomenon, where autoposied patients have been found to have pebble-size calcium deposits distributed throughout their brains, including the pineal gland ('the seat of the soul'). The wide range of existing calcium-associateted pathologies, and their increasing prevalence in calcium-fixated cultures, demand further investigation and explanation.  Could one aspect be our cultural fixation on mega-dose calcium supplementation?  

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

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Axis-line-distance technique preferred method to evaluate perioperative scoliosis treatment

When compared with the Cobb method, the axis-line-distance technique is the preferred method for evaluating perioperative scoliosis treatment, according to recent research.

Researchers found a weak to moderate correlation with the Cobb method, where the axis-line-distance technique (ALDT) showed a good to excellent correlation in measuring scoliosis patients during bracing therapy or surgery and in subsequent follow-ups, according to the abstract.

Two independent radiologists calculated the correction rate after either consecutive bracing therapy or surgery of 57 patients with scoliosis using both methods based on 171 perioperative X-rays, according to the abstract. The calculations were done before surgery, during the bracing therapy or surgery and after the final follow-up.

The ADLT showed no significant difference between either of the radiologists when calculating the correction rate or rate of correction loss during or after treatment. The ALDT measured the preoperative lateral deviations of the apical vertebrae as 31 ± 14 mm and also during and after treatment, which were 16 mm ± 8 mm and 20 mm ± 8 mm, respectively.

In contrast, the researchers differed significantly in their intraoperative calculations when using the Cobb method, though their calculation of the correction rate and rate of correction loss were not affected. Cobb angles were calculated at 34° ± 14°, 19° ± 7° and 22° ± 6° at preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative time periods, according to the abstract.

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

When compared with the Cobb method, the axis-line-distance technique is the preferred method for evaluating perioperative scoliosis treatment, according to recent research.

Researchers found a weak to moderate correlation with the Cobb method, where the axis-line-distance technique (ALDT) showed a good to excellent correlation in measuring scoliosis patients during bracing therapy or surgery and in subsequent follow-ups, according to the abstract.

Two independent radiologists calculated the correction rate after either consecutive bracing therapy or surgery of 57 patients with scoliosis using both methods based on 171 perioperative X-rays, according to the abstract. The calculations were done before surgery, during the bracing therapy or surgery and after the final follow-up.

The ADLT showed no significant difference between either of the radiologists when calculating the correction rate or rate of correction loss during or after treatment. The ALDT measured the preoperative lateral deviations of the apical vertebrae as 31 ± 14 mm and also during and after treatment, which were 16 mm ± 8 mm and 20 mm ± 8 mm, respectively.

In contrast, the researchers differed significantly in their intraoperative calculations when using the Cobb method, though their calculation of the correction rate and rate of correction loss were not affected. Cobb angles were calculated at 34° ± 14°, 19° ± 7° and 22° ± 6° at preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative time periods, according to the abstract.

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

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Diet Might Help Those Immobilized by Knee Osteoarthritis

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 21 (HealthDay News) -- A diet consisting of eight weeks of protein shakes and soup followed by adding low-calorie, high-protein foods can help people with knee osteoarthritis lose weight, which may lessen joint pain and improve their quality of life, a new study finds.

This diet might also help people whose obesity makes it impossible to exercise, the researchers added.

"Obese individuals with knee osteoarthritis should be urged to lose weight," said lead researcherRobin Christensen, head of the Musculoskeletal Statistics Unit at The Parker Institute at Copenhagen University Hospital at Frederiksberg in Denmark.

Samantha Heller, a dietitian and clinical nutrition coordinator at the Center for Cancer Care at Griffin Hospital in Derby, Conn., said that "the question this study brings up is whether the participants can maintain the weight loss they achieved on a formula-based, very low-calorie, supervised diet, in real life, with real food."

For the study, Christensen's team followed 175 obese people suffering from knee osteoarthritis. During the first eight weeks, the participants had only the formula diet, called the Cambridge Weight Plan, which includes soups and shakes and was limited to 800 calories a day. The participants stayed on this diet for eight weeks.

Following this diet, the patients lost a lot of weight, but also increased their bone mineral density, Christensen said.

During the next eight weeks, the participants continued the diet, but increased their calories to 1,200 a day with one formula meal replaced by low-fat, high-protein foods plus some carbohydrates.

Dieticians supervised the participants, Christensen noted.

During the first eight weeks, people lost an average of 26 pounds, according to the study.

"This is achievable for all people with knee osteoarthritis, because 91 percent of all the people who started the trial completed 16 weeks of the trial, so it's feasible," he said.

The findings appear in the Dec. 21 issue of the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

While the study's main funding came from two Norwegian foundations, it was funded in part by the makers of the Cambridge Weight Plan. Study co-author Dr. Anthony Leeds is the medical director of the program. The company paid for the dieticians and donated their products, Christensen said.

The diets included the recommended daily intake of amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals, the researchers said. It also increased levels of vitamin D, which is essential for bone growth. Levels of vitamin B12 were also boosted, to improve nervous-system functioning of the nervous system and blood production.

Losing weight helped more than 60 percent of the participants reduce their knee pain and improved their ability to walk, the researchers found.

Osteoarthritis results in degradation of joints causing joint pain, tenderness, stiffness and locking. According to Christensen, many weight-loss diets decrease bone mineral density, which can weaken bones, especially among people who can't exercise.

The researchers have followed these patients for a year to see if they have maintained their weight loss and whether their osteoarthritis has improved, Christensen said. "The results are looking good," he said.

Maintaining weight loss over time is the challenge, Heller said.

Without learning strategies for managing life's daily obstacle course of stressors, frustrations, temptations and social interactions, it is highly likely that people who lose weight on a formula diet will regain the weight they lost when they stop the program, she said.

"Losing weight is difficult at best, and for people who are overweight or obese the struggle is complex and involves environmental, physiological, psychological and health issues," Heller said.

"People who are motivated to make lifestyle changes should work with trained, accredited, health professionals such as a registered dietitian and their physician," she added.

More information

For more on osteoarthritis, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 21 (HealthDay News) -- A diet consisting of eight weeks of protein shakes and soup followed by adding low-calorie, high-protein foods can help people with knee osteoarthritis lose weight, which may lessen joint pain and improve their quality of life, a new study finds.

This diet might also help people whose obesity makes it impossible to exercise, the researchers added.

"Obese individuals with knee osteoarthritis should be urged to lose weight," said lead researcherRobin Christensen, head of the Musculoskeletal Statistics Unit at The Parker Institute at Copenhagen University Hospital at Frederiksberg in Denmark.

Samantha Heller, a dietitian and clinical nutrition coordinator at the Center for Cancer Care at Griffin Hospital in Derby, Conn., said that "the question this study brings up is whether the participants can maintain the weight loss they achieved on a formula-based, very low-calorie, supervised diet, in real life, with real food."

For the study, Christensen's team followed 175 obese people suffering from knee osteoarthritis. During the first eight weeks, the participants had only the formula diet, called the Cambridge Weight Plan, which includes soups and shakes and was limited to 800 calories a day. The participants stayed on this diet for eight weeks.

Following this diet, the patients lost a lot of weight, but also increased their bone mineral density, Christensen said.

During the next eight weeks, the participants continued the diet, but increased their calories to 1,200 a day with one formula meal replaced by low-fat, high-protein foods plus some carbohydrates.

Dieticians supervised the participants, Christensen noted.

During the first eight weeks, people lost an average of 26 pounds, according to the study.

"This is achievable for all people with knee osteoarthritis, because 91 percent of all the people who started the trial completed 16 weeks of the trial, so it's feasible," he said.

The findings appear in the Dec. 21 issue of the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

While the study's main funding came from two Norwegian foundations, it was funded in part by the makers of the Cambridge Weight Plan. Study co-author Dr. Anthony Leeds is the medical director of the program. The company paid for the dieticians and donated their products, Christensen said.

The diets included the recommended daily intake of amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals, the researchers said. It also increased levels of vitamin D, which is essential for bone growth. Levels of vitamin B12 were also boosted, to improve nervous-system functioning of the nervous system and blood production.

Losing weight helped more than 60 percent of the participants reduce their knee pain and improved their ability to walk, the researchers found.

Osteoarthritis results in degradation of joints causing joint pain, tenderness, stiffness and locking. According to Christensen, many weight-loss diets decrease bone mineral density, which can weaken bones, especially among people who can't exercise.

The researchers have followed these patients for a year to see if they have maintained their weight loss and whether their osteoarthritis has improved, Christensen said. "The results are looking good," he said.

Maintaining weight loss over time is the challenge, Heller said.

Without learning strategies for managing life's daily obstacle course of stressors, frustrations, temptations and social interactions, it is highly likely that people who lose weight on a formula diet will regain the weight they lost when they stop the program, she said.

"Losing weight is difficult at best, and for people who are overweight or obese the struggle is complex and involves environmental, physiological, psychological and health issues," Heller said.

"People who are motivated to make lifestyle changes should work with trained, accredited, health professionals such as a registered dietitian and their physician," she added.

More information

For more on osteoarthritis, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

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No Deaths from Vitamins America's Largest Database Confirms Supplement Safety

(OMNS, Dec 28, 2011) There was not even one death caused by a vitamin supplement in 2010, according to the most recent information collected by the U.S. National Poison Data System.

The new 203-page annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers, published online athttp://www.aapcc.org/dnn/Portals/0/2010%20NPDS%20Annual%20Report.pdf, shows zero deaths from multiple vitamins; zero deaths from any of the B vitamins; zero deaths from vitamins A, C, D, or E; and zero deaths from any other vitamin.

Additionally, there were no deaths whatsoever from any amino acid or dietary mineral supplement.

Three people died from non-supplement mineral poisoning: two from medical use of sodium and one from non-supplemental iron. On page 131, the AAPCC report specifically indicates that the iron fatality was not from a nutritional supplement.

Fifty-seven poison centers provide coast-to-coast data for the National Poison Data System, "one of the few real-time national surveillance systems in existence, providing a model public health surveillance system for all types of exposures, public health event identification, resilience response and situational awareness tracking."

Well over half of the U.S. population takes daily nutritional supplements. Even if each of those people took only one single tablet daily, that makes 165,000,000 individual doses per day, for a total of over 60 billion doses annually. Since many persons take far more than just one single vitamin or mineral tablet, actual consumption is considerably higher, and the safety of nutritional supplements is all the more remarkable.

Over 60 billion doses of vitamin and mineral supplements per year in the USA, and not a single fatality. Not one.

If vitamin and mineral supplements are allegedly so "dangerous," as the FDA and news media so often claim, then where are the bodies?

Reference:

Bronstein AC, Spyker DA, Cantilena LR Jr, Green JL, Rumack BH, Dart RC. 2010 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers' National Poison Data System (NPDS): 28th Annual Report. The full text article is available for free download athttp://www.aapcc.org/dnn/Portals/0/2010%20NPDS%20Annual%20Report.pdf

The data mentioned above are found in Table 22B. Mineral data on page 131; vitamin data on pages 137-139 .

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

(OMNS, Dec 28, 2011) There was not even one death caused by a vitamin supplement in 2010, according to the most recent information collected by the U.S. National Poison Data System.

The new 203-page annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers, published online athttp://www.aapcc.org/dnn/Portals/0/2010%20NPDS%20Annual%20Report.pdf, shows zero deaths from multiple vitamins; zero deaths from any of the B vitamins; zero deaths from vitamins A, C, D, or E; and zero deaths from any other vitamin.

Additionally, there were no deaths whatsoever from any amino acid or dietary mineral supplement.

Three people died from non-supplement mineral poisoning: two from medical use of sodium and one from non-supplemental iron. On page 131, the AAPCC report specifically indicates that the iron fatality was not from a nutritional supplement.

Fifty-seven poison centers provide coast-to-coast data for the National Poison Data System, "one of the few real-time national surveillance systems in existence, providing a model public health surveillance system for all types of exposures, public health event identification, resilience response and situational awareness tracking."

Well over half of the U.S. population takes daily nutritional supplements. Even if each of those people took only one single tablet daily, that makes 165,000,000 individual doses per day, for a total of over 60 billion doses annually. Since many persons take far more than just one single vitamin or mineral tablet, actual consumption is considerably higher, and the safety of nutritional supplements is all the more remarkable.

Over 60 billion doses of vitamin and mineral supplements per year in the USA, and not a single fatality. Not one.

If vitamin and mineral supplements are allegedly so "dangerous," as the FDA and news media so often claim, then where are the bodies?

Reference:

Bronstein AC, Spyker DA, Cantilena LR Jr, Green JL, Rumack BH, Dart RC. 2010 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers' National Poison Data System (NPDS): 28th Annual Report. The full text article is available for free download athttp://www.aapcc.org/dnn/Portals/0/2010%20NPDS%20Annual%20Report.pdf

The data mentioned above are found in Table 22B. Mineral data on page 131; vitamin data on pages 137-139 .

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

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Almost 68% of Women over 40 Have Fallen for This Trap

By Dr. Mercola

Mammograms are widely promoted as a "life-saving" tool for helping women detect breast cancer in its earliest stages. 

The message has so thoroughly saturated the public mind that nearly 68 percent of women over the age of 40 have had a mammogram in the past two years -- and most of these women believe doing so will help them avoid dying from breast cancer.

Unfortunately, women have largely been sold a false bill of goods, as the science tells a very different story about the ability of mammograms to save lives.

In Most Cases, Mammograms Don't Save Lives

Considering that mammograms are regarded as the "gold standard" for breast cancer prevention in the conventional medical establishment, you may haveassumed they save lives.

Well, researchers from Dartmouth College had a novel idea -- they decided to determine how often lives were actually saved by mammography screening vs. breast cancer industry generated statistics and their marketing propaganda.

And what they found should make even the staunchest mammography proponent give pause.

Using breast cancer data from The National Cancer Institute and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers calculated a 50-year-old woman's likelihood of developing breast cancer in the next 10 years, the odds the cancer would be detected by mammography, and her risk of dying from the cancer over 20 years.

They found that a mammogram has, at best, only a 13 percent probability of saving her life, and that the probability may actually be as low as 3 percent. No matter what analyses they used, including considering women of different ages, the probability of a mammogram saving a life remained below 25 percent.

Researchers concluded:

"Most women with screen-detected breast cancer have not had their life saved by screening. They are instead either diagnosed early (with no effect on their mortality) or overdiagnosed."

This bears repeating:

Mammograms often diagnose tumors that may never threaten a woman's life. They also often result in false positives that lead to over-treatment, i.e. misdiagnosed women often undergo unnecessary mastectomies, lumpectomies, radiation treatments and chemotherapy, which can have a devastating effect on both the quality and length of their lives.

Up to 50 Percent of Breast Cancer "Diagnoses" are Not Actually Cancer

As Sayer Ji, founder of GreenMedInfo.com, explained in a recent article, between 30-50% of new breast cancer diagnoses obtained through mammography screenings are classified as Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS), which may not be cancer at all.

DCIS refers to the abnormal growth of cells within the milk ducts of the breast forming a calcified lesion commonly between 1-1.5 cm in diameter, and is considered non-invasive or "stage zero breast cancer" -- with some experts arguing for its complete re-classification as a non-cancerous condition.

Many conventional physicians view DCIS as "pre-cancerous" and argue that, because it could cause harm if left untreated it should be treated in the same aggressive manner as invasive cancer; however the rate at which DCIS progresses to invasive cancer is still largely unknown, with the weight of evidence suggesting it is significantly less than 50% -- perhaps as low as 2-4%. 

Amazingly, there are no diagnostic standards for DCIS, and there are no requirements that the pathologists doing the readings have specialized expertise.

Dr. Shahla Masood, the head of pathology at The University of Florida College of Medicine in Jacksonville, told the New York Times:

"There are studies that show that diagnosing these borderline breast lesions occasionally comes down to the flip of a coin."

The New York Times also reported on several other concerning findings about the frequency of misdiagnosis of DCIS:

• A 2006 study funded by Susan G. Komen for the Cure estimated that in 90,000 cases where women were diagnosed with DCIS or invasive breast cancer, they either did not have the disease or they received an unnecessary treatment due to a pathologist's error.
• A 2002 study at Northwestern University Medical Center found that nearly 8 percent of 340 breast cancer cases "had errors serious enough to change plans for surgery."
• Dr. Lagios, a pathologist at St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco, reviewed nearly 600 breast cases in 2007 and 2008 and found discrepancies in 141 of them.

The Times stated, "Dr. Lagios says that based on his experience, microscopic core needle biopsies of low-grade D.C.I.S. and benign lesions, called atypical ductal hyperplasia, or A.D.H., may be misread 20 percent of the time."

So, if you are a woman considering going in for a mammogram, you need to be aware of the fact that mammograms often detect breast abnormalities (lesions) that -- while being diagnosed as "early cancer" and treated as if aggressive, invasive cancers -- will often never progress to actual cancer if left to run their natural course.

In fact, groundbreaking new research published in The Lancet Oncology shows that many actually invasive breast cancersspontaneously regress when left underdiagnosed and untreated. The authors of the study concluded:

We believe that many invasive breast cancers detected by repeated mammography screening do not persist to be detected by screening at the end of 6 years, suggesting that the natural course of many of the screen-detected invasive breast cancers is to spontaneously regress.

When you consider that mammography screenings often result in the diagnosis of what may be an inherently benign breast lesion, DCIS, and that the diagnosis itself may come down to a "coin's flip" worth of certainty – and then, you add in the fact that even so-called 'invasive breast cancer' may "spontaneously regress," the entire justification for mammography screening seems to fall apart. 

After all, is exposing the breast to carcinogenic radiation once a year really a wise decision, given that the screening process itself is so obviously inaccurate and misleading? Also, considering that self-examination, examination by a trained professional and screening with radiation-free thermography provide sound alternatives, it is important that women at least be provided with an informed choice.

Annual Mammograms Increase Your Risk of False Positives, Unnecessary Biopsies

Research funded by the National Cancer Institute and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine revealed that getting an annual mammogram leads to an increased risk of false-positive results and unnecessary biopsies compared to getting a mammogram every other year.

After analyzing more than 386,000 mammograms from close to 170,000 women over a 10-year period, the study found 61 percent of those who received annual mammograms would be called back in for a follow-up, at least once, when in fact they did not have cancer. An additional 7-9 percent would receive an unnecessary biopsy. This is compared to 42 percent and 5-6 percent of the women, respectively, who had a mammogram every other year.

Furthermore, the research showed that annual mammograms were not more effective at identifying late-stage cancers compared to the every-other-year group. The overall results led lead researcher Rebecca Hubbard to say that false positives are simply "part of the process of screening mammography."

Unfortunately, this also means many women are exposed to increased stress as well as potentially invasive and potentially harmful treatments for absolutely no reason.

Even still, The American Cancer Society (ACS) advises women age 40 and older to undergo a mammogram screening every year, and continue to do so for as long as they are in good health, despite updated guidelines set forth by The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which state that women in their 40s should NOT get routine mammograms for early detection of breast cancer.

ACS' role in the promotion of mammography is far from altruistic, of course, as they have numerous ties to the mammography industryitself.

Mammograms Expose You to Serious Cancer-Causing Radiation

False positives, lack of life-saving results and overdiagnosis aside, there's yet another reason why you may want to carefully analyze your decision to receive a mammogram, and that is the serious health risks associated with diagnostic radiation exposure.

A mammogram uses ionizing radiation which, in and of itself, can contribute to the development of breast cancer. In fact, mammograms expose your body to doses of radiation that can be 1,000 times greater than that from a chest x-ray, which we know poses a cancer risk.

What is so confusing is that the type of X-rays used in mammography are called "low-energy," radiating at around 30 Peak kilovoltage (kVp) vs. 200 kVp and above for "high-energy" radiation. 

Commonsense would seem to dictate that "low-energy" means lower harm. Indeed, It has become conventional wisdom within radiobiology and radiology that the "lower energy" rays used in x-ray mammography are far less dangerous to DNA than those associated with the spectrum of radiation released by atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki – so-called "high energy" X-rays.  Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

An accumulating body of clinical evidence indicates that the 30 kVp range of "low-energy" radiation used in breast screenings is up to 400% more damaging to the DNA – and therefore 400% more carcinogenic – than the "high energy" radiation it is often compared to.

Making Sense of All the Radiation Numbers

What this means is a potential sea change for the breast screening industry, which will no longer be able to justify its already horrible track record of "early detection" and "saving lives," nor its industry-friendly and highly skewed risk-benefit analyses -- based as they are on a completely inaccurate radiation risk model which minimizes the risk at the expense of women's health.

Keep in mind that The Cochrane Database Review determined in 2009 that for every woman whose life is prolonged through mammography screening diagnosis 10 women are "unnecessarily treated," i.e. their life is shortened.

What is so tragic is that this does not take into account the fact that the "low-energy" radiation being used in x-ray mammography, is planting the genetic seed for invasive breast cancer in countless women who would not have otherwise developed cancer, had they not been exposed to the radiation through screening in the first place. 

It is already commonly accepted by the medical establishment that x-ray mammography screenings do cause breast cancer – they just do not realize, or are not willing to admit, how severe the problem is.

For example, research published in The Journal Radiology showed that annual mammography screening of 100,000 women from age 40-55, and biennial screening after that to age 74, would cause 86 radiation-induced cancers, including 11 fatalities and 136 life years lost.  If we adjust for the new radiation risk model, required by acknowledging the difference between "low" and "high" energy radiation, we must multiply the harms caused by a factor of four to get a more realistic estimate of the iatrogenic damage: namely, 344 radiation-induced cancers, including 44 fatalities and 544 life years lost.

And remember, research has already been performed clearly showing that adding an annual mammogram to a careful physical examination of the breasts does not improve breast cancer survival rates over getting the examination alone.

So it comes down to an assessment of risk versus benefit, and even the mainstream press is beginning to report researchers' sentiments that:

"It's generally a really close call."

As Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, a professor of medicine at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, told TIME:

"Women need to understand their trade-offs here. The reason to be screened isn't because you've heard a lot of survivor stories. Some of those women have not benefited [from screening]."

And, as was revealed by a study in the Cochrane Database of Systemic Reviews, breast cancer screening using x-ray mammography led to 30 percent overdiagnosis and overtreatment, or an absolute risk increase of 0.5 percent!

What Really Will Reduce Your Risk of Dying from Breast Cancer?

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among U.S. women, and one in eight will be diagnosed with it during their lifetime. Unfortunately, the aggressive push for mammography has many women equating actual preventive measures (e.g.  lifestyle, diet and nutrition changes, as well as avoiding chemical exposures) with annual breast screenings, which do nothing to prevent cancer, and may actually contribute to it.

Unfortunately, medical organizations like The American Cancer Society do very little to spread the word about the many ways women can help prevent breast cancer in the first place.

A healthy diet, regular physical exercise, and an effective way to manage your emotional health are the cornerstones of just about any cancer prevention program, including breast cancer.

The following lifestyle strategies will also help to further lower your risk:

• Radically reduce your sugar/fructose intake. Normalizing your insulin levels by avoiding sugar and fructose is one of the most powerful physical actions you can take to lower your risk of cancer. Unfortunately, very few oncologists appreciate or apply this knowledge today. The Cancer Centers of America is one of the few exceptions, where strict dietary measures are included in their cancer treatment program. Fructose is especially dangerous, as research shows it actually speeds up cancer growth.
• Optimize your vitamin D level. Ideally it should be over 50 ng/ml, but levels from 60-80 ng/ml will radically reduce your cancer risk. Safe sun exposure is the most effective way to increase your levels, followed by safe tanning beds and then oral vitamin D3 supplementation as a last resort if no other option is available.
• Maintain a healthy body weight. This will come naturally when you begin eating right for your nutritional type and exercising using high-intensity burst-type activities like Peak Fitness. It’s important to lose excess weight because estrogen, a hormone produced excessively in fat tissue, may trigger and/or feed breast cancer.
• Get plenty of high quality animal-based omega-3 fats, such as those from krill oil. Omega-3 deficiency is a common underlying factor for cancer.
• Avoid drinking alcohol, or limit your drinks to one a day for women.
• Breastfeed exclusively for at least six months. Research shows this will reduce your breast cancer risk.
• Watch out for excessive iron levels. This is actually very common once women stop menstruating. The extra iron actually works as a powerful oxidant, increasing free radicals and raising your risk of cancer. So if you are a post-menopausal woman or have breast cancer you will certainly want to have your Ferritin levels drawn. Ferritin is the iron transport protein and should not be above 80. If it is elevated you can simply donate your blood to reduce it.
• Avoid charring your meats. Charcoal or flame broiled meat is linked with increased breast cancer risk. Acrylamide—a carcinogen created when starchy foods are baked, roasted or fried—has been found to increase breast cancer risk as well.
• Avoid unfermented soy products. Unfermented soy is high in plant estrogens, or phytoestrogens, also known as isoflavones. In some studies, soy appears to work in concert with human estrogen to increase breast cell proliferation.

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

By Dr. Mercola

Mammograms are widely promoted as a "life-saving" tool for helping women detect breast cancer in its earliest stages. 

The message has so thoroughly saturated the public mind that nearly 68 percent of women over the age of 40 have had a mammogram in the past two years -- and most of these women believe doing so will help them avoid dying from breast cancer.

Unfortunately, women have largely been sold a false bill of goods, as the science tells a very different story about the ability of mammograms to save lives.

In Most Cases, Mammograms Don't Save Lives

Considering that mammograms are regarded as the "gold standard" for breast cancer prevention in the conventional medical establishment, you may haveassumed they save lives.

Well, researchers from Dartmouth College had a novel idea -- they decided to determine how often lives were actually saved by mammography screening vs. breast cancer industry generated statistics and their marketing propaganda.

And what they found should make even the staunchest mammography proponent give pause.

Using breast cancer data from The National Cancer Institute and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers calculated a 50-year-old woman's likelihood of developing breast cancer in the next 10 years, the odds the cancer would be detected by mammography, and her risk of dying from the cancer over 20 years.

They found that a mammogram has, at best, only a 13 percent probability of saving her life, and that the probability may actually be as low as 3 percent. No matter what analyses they used, including considering women of different ages, the probability of a mammogram saving a life remained below 25 percent.

Researchers concluded:

"Most women with screen-detected breast cancer have not had their life saved by screening. They are instead either diagnosed early (with no effect on their mortality) or overdiagnosed."

This bears repeating:

Mammograms often diagnose tumors that may never threaten a woman's life. They also often result in false positives that lead to over-treatment, i.e. misdiagnosed women often undergo unnecessary mastectomies, lumpectomies, radiation treatments and chemotherapy, which can have a devastating effect on both the quality and length of their lives.

Up to 50 Percent of Breast Cancer "Diagnoses" are Not Actually Cancer

As Sayer Ji, founder of GreenMedInfo.com, explained in a recent article, between 30-50% of new breast cancer diagnoses obtained through mammography screenings are classified as Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS), which may not be cancer at all.

DCIS refers to the abnormal growth of cells within the milk ducts of the breast forming a calcified lesion commonly between 1-1.5 cm in diameter, and is considered non-invasive or "stage zero breast cancer" -- with some experts arguing for its complete re-classification as a non-cancerous condition.

Many conventional physicians view DCIS as "pre-cancerous" and argue that, because it could cause harm if left untreated it should be treated in the same aggressive manner as invasive cancer; however the rate at which DCIS progresses to invasive cancer is still largely unknown, with the weight of evidence suggesting it is significantly less than 50% -- perhaps as low as 2-4%. 

Amazingly, there are no diagnostic standards for DCIS, and there are no requirements that the pathologists doing the readings have specialized expertise.

Dr. Shahla Masood, the head of pathology at The University of Florida College of Medicine in Jacksonville, told the New York Times:

"There are studies that show that diagnosing these borderline breast lesions occasionally comes down to the flip of a coin."

The New York Times also reported on several other concerning findings about the frequency of misdiagnosis of DCIS:

• A 2006 study funded by Susan G. Komen for the Cure estimated that in 90,000 cases where women were diagnosed with DCIS or invasive breast cancer, they either did not have the disease or they received an unnecessary treatment due to a pathologist's error.
• A 2002 study at Northwestern University Medical Center found that nearly 8 percent of 340 breast cancer cases "had errors serious enough to change plans for surgery."
• Dr. Lagios, a pathologist at St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco, reviewed nearly 600 breast cases in 2007 and 2008 and found discrepancies in 141 of them.

The Times stated, "Dr. Lagios says that based on his experience, microscopic core needle biopsies of low-grade D.C.I.S. and benign lesions, called atypical ductal hyperplasia, or A.D.H., may be misread 20 percent of the time."

So, if you are a woman considering going in for a mammogram, you need to be aware of the fact that mammograms often detect breast abnormalities (lesions) that -- while being diagnosed as "early cancer" and treated as if aggressive, invasive cancers -- will often never progress to actual cancer if left to run their natural course.

In fact, groundbreaking new research published in The Lancet Oncology shows that many actually invasive breast cancersspontaneously regress when left underdiagnosed and untreated. The authors of the study concluded:

We believe that many invasive breast cancers detected by repeated mammography screening do not persist to be detected by screening at the end of 6 years, suggesting that the natural course of many of the screen-detected invasive breast cancers is to spontaneously regress.

When you consider that mammography screenings often result in the diagnosis of what may be an inherently benign breast lesion, DCIS, and that the diagnosis itself may come down to a "coin's flip" worth of certainty – and then, you add in the fact that even so-called 'invasive breast cancer' may "spontaneously regress," the entire justification for mammography screening seems to fall apart. 

After all, is exposing the breast to carcinogenic radiation once a year really a wise decision, given that the screening process itself is so obviously inaccurate and misleading? Also, considering that self-examination, examination by a trained professional and screening with radiation-free thermography provide sound alternatives, it is important that women at least be provided with an informed choice.

Annual Mammograms Increase Your Risk of False Positives, Unnecessary Biopsies

Research funded by the National Cancer Institute and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine revealed that getting an annual mammogram leads to an increased risk of false-positive results and unnecessary biopsies compared to getting a mammogram every other year.

After analyzing more than 386,000 mammograms from close to 170,000 women over a 10-year period, the study found 61 percent of those who received annual mammograms would be called back in for a follow-up, at least once, when in fact they did not have cancer. An additional 7-9 percent would receive an unnecessary biopsy. This is compared to 42 percent and 5-6 percent of the women, respectively, who had a mammogram every other year.

Furthermore, the research showed that annual mammograms were not more effective at identifying late-stage cancers compared to the every-other-year group. The overall results led lead researcher Rebecca Hubbard to say that false positives are simply "part of the process of screening mammography."

Unfortunately, this also means many women are exposed to increased stress as well as potentially invasive and potentially harmful treatments for absolutely no reason.

Even still, The American Cancer Society (ACS) advises women age 40 and older to undergo a mammogram screening every year, and continue to do so for as long as they are in good health, despite updated guidelines set forth by The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which state that women in their 40s should NOT get routine mammograms for early detection of breast cancer.

ACS' role in the promotion of mammography is far from altruistic, of course, as they have numerous ties to the mammography industryitself.

Mammograms Expose You to Serious Cancer-Causing Radiation

False positives, lack of life-saving results and overdiagnosis aside, there's yet another reason why you may want to carefully analyze your decision to receive a mammogram, and that is the serious health risks associated with diagnostic radiation exposure.

A mammogram uses ionizing radiation which, in and of itself, can contribute to the development of breast cancer. In fact, mammograms expose your body to doses of radiation that can be 1,000 times greater than that from a chest x-ray, which we know poses a cancer risk.

What is so confusing is that the type of X-rays used in mammography are called "low-energy," radiating at around 30 Peak kilovoltage (kVp) vs. 200 kVp and above for "high-energy" radiation. 

Commonsense would seem to dictate that "low-energy" means lower harm. Indeed, It has become conventional wisdom within radiobiology and radiology that the "lower energy" rays used in x-ray mammography are far less dangerous to DNA than those associated with the spectrum of radiation released by atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki – so-called "high energy" X-rays.  Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

An accumulating body of clinical evidence indicates that the 30 kVp range of "low-energy" radiation used in breast screenings is up to 400% more damaging to the DNA – and therefore 400% more carcinogenic – than the "high energy" radiation it is often compared to.

Making Sense of All the Radiation Numbers

What this means is a potential sea change for the breast screening industry, which will no longer be able to justify its already horrible track record of "early detection" and "saving lives," nor its industry-friendly and highly skewed risk-benefit analyses -- based as they are on a completely inaccurate radiation risk model which minimizes the risk at the expense of women's health.

Keep in mind that The Cochrane Database Review determined in 2009 that for every woman whose life is prolonged through mammography screening diagnosis 10 women are "unnecessarily treated," i.e. their life is shortened.

What is so tragic is that this does not take into account the fact that the "low-energy" radiation being used in x-ray mammography, is planting the genetic seed for invasive breast cancer in countless women who would not have otherwise developed cancer, had they not been exposed to the radiation through screening in the first place. 

It is already commonly accepted by the medical establishment that x-ray mammography screenings do cause breast cancer – they just do not realize, or are not willing to admit, how severe the problem is.

For example, research published in The Journal Radiology showed that annual mammography screening of 100,000 women from age 40-55, and biennial screening after that to age 74, would cause 86 radiation-induced cancers, including 11 fatalities and 136 life years lost.  If we adjust for the new radiation risk model, required by acknowledging the difference between "low" and "high" energy radiation, we must multiply the harms caused by a factor of four to get a more realistic estimate of the iatrogenic damage: namely, 344 radiation-induced cancers, including 44 fatalities and 544 life years lost.

And remember, research has already been performed clearly showing that adding an annual mammogram to a careful physical examination of the breasts does not improve breast cancer survival rates over getting the examination alone.

So it comes down to an assessment of risk versus benefit, and even the mainstream press is beginning to report researchers' sentiments that:

"It's generally a really close call."

As Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, a professor of medicine at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, told TIME:

"Women need to understand their trade-offs here. The reason to be screened isn't because you've heard a lot of survivor stories. Some of those women have not benefited [from screening]."

And, as was revealed by a study in the Cochrane Database of Systemic Reviews, breast cancer screening using x-ray mammography led to 30 percent overdiagnosis and overtreatment, or an absolute risk increase of 0.5 percent!

What Really Will Reduce Your Risk of Dying from Breast Cancer?

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among U.S. women, and one in eight will be diagnosed with it during their lifetime. Unfortunately, the aggressive push for mammography has many women equating actual preventive measures (e.g.  lifestyle, diet and nutrition changes, as well as avoiding chemical exposures) with annual breast screenings, which do nothing to prevent cancer, and may actually contribute to it.

Unfortunately, medical organizations like The American Cancer Society do very little to spread the word about the many ways women can help prevent breast cancer in the first place.

A healthy diet, regular physical exercise, and an effective way to manage your emotional health are the cornerstones of just about any cancer prevention program, including breast cancer.

The following lifestyle strategies will also help to further lower your risk:

• Radically reduce your sugar/fructose intake. Normalizing your insulin levels by avoiding sugar and fructose is one of the most powerful physical actions you can take to lower your risk of cancer. Unfortunately, very few oncologists appreciate or apply this knowledge today. The Cancer Centers of America is one of the few exceptions, where strict dietary measures are included in their cancer treatment program. Fructose is especially dangerous, as research shows it actually speeds up cancer growth.
• Optimize your vitamin D level. Ideally it should be over 50 ng/ml, but levels from 60-80 ng/ml will radically reduce your cancer risk. Safe sun exposure is the most effective way to increase your levels, followed by safe tanning beds and then oral vitamin D3 supplementation as a last resort if no other option is available.
• Maintain a healthy body weight. This will come naturally when you begin eating right for your nutritional type and exercising using high-intensity burst-type activities like Peak Fitness. It’s important to lose excess weight because estrogen, a hormone produced excessively in fat tissue, may trigger and/or feed breast cancer.
• Get plenty of high quality animal-based omega-3 fats, such as those from krill oil. Omega-3 deficiency is a common underlying factor for cancer.
• Avoid drinking alcohol, or limit your drinks to one a day for women.
• Breastfeed exclusively for at least six months. Research shows this will reduce your breast cancer risk.
• Watch out for excessive iron levels. This is actually very common once women stop menstruating. The extra iron actually works as a powerful oxidant, increasing free radicals and raising your risk of cancer. So if you are a post-menopausal woman or have breast cancer you will certainly want to have your Ferritin levels drawn. Ferritin is the iron transport protein and should not be above 80. If it is elevated you can simply donate your blood to reduce it.
• Avoid charring your meats. Charcoal or flame broiled meat is linked with increased breast cancer risk. Acrylamide—a carcinogen created when starchy foods are baked, roasted or fried—has been found to increase breast cancer risk as well.
• Avoid unfermented soy products. Unfermented soy is high in plant estrogens, or phytoestrogens, also known as isoflavones. In some studies, soy appears to work in concert with human estrogen to increase breast cell proliferation.

About Dr Kevin Lau

Dr Kevin Lau DC is the founder of Health In Your Hands, a series of tools for Scoliosis prevention and treatment. The set includes his book Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment, a companion Scoliosis Exercises for Prevention and Correction DVD and the innovative new iPhone application ScolioTrack. Dr Kevin Lau D.C. is a graduate in Doctor of Chiropractic from RMIT University in Melbourne Australia and Masters in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health in USA. In 2006 I was awarded the "Best Health-care Provider Awards" by the largest Newspaper publication in Singapore on October 18 2006 as well as being interviewed on Primetime Channel News Asia as well as other TV and Radio. For more information on Dr Kevin Lau, watch his interviews or get a free sneak peek of his book, go to: http://www.hiyh.info.

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