Building mental wellness on a foundation of strength
Detox diets and cleanses are quite popular these days, especially if you're of the Goop-y persuasion. And while they might seem to make sense on an intuitive level, from a science perspective, is there anything to actually back that up? The "toxins" Commercial detox products tend to refer vaguely to "toxins" without actually specifying what… Continue reading Do You Need to Detox/Cleanse?
The term adrenal fatigue was first used by chiropractor James Wilson in 1998, and became popular with a book he published in 2001. I've written before about some of the sketchy dabbling of chiropractors outside the neck and back pain issues we commonly associate them with. You can probably guess from that alone where I'm… Continue reading Is Adrenal Fatigue Real?
In the age of COVID-19, everyone keeps talking about flattening or bending the curve. But what the heck kind of curve are they talking about? Epidemiology looks at the patterns of diseases across populations. This is a fundamental part of public health. Epidemiological curves, also known as epidemic curves or epi curves, are used to… Continue reading What’s This Curve We’re Flattening?
Alberta Board of Health/Public Domain It was 102 years ago that the last major global pandemic happened, known as Spanish influenza, and in many ways, COVID-19 pales in comparison. The Spanish influenza pandemic that began in 1918 didn't actually originate in Spain; that's just where it was first publicly reported. Its origins are unclear, although… Continue reading Spanish Influenza: The Last Big Pandemic
Spine Logo vector created by roserodionova - http://www.freepik.com Let's say your back hurts. You go to a chiropractor, over a few visits they crack a few joints, and that's all she wrote, right? That's certainly what I used to think about chiropractic. The thing is, though, there's some modern back cracking practice built on some… Continue reading Is Chiropractic What It Claims To Be?
Note: This post has not been updated since March and thus some of the information contained here may not reflect the current state of knowledge. Please refer to the World Health Organization or your local public health agencies for the most up-to-date information on COVID-19. Coronavirus has caught everyone's attention and emptied store shelves… Continue reading Coronavirus (COVID-19) – The Facts
Image by Elionas2 from Pixabay There are a lot of weird alternative health interventions out there, but colon cleanses, also known as colon hydrotherapy or colonics, have got to be among the weirder ones. Apparently, this has been around since the time of the ancient Egyptians, but it only appeared on my radar a few years back when… Continue reading Are Colon Cleanses Useful?
I'm a big fan of aromatherapy. I have a diffuser and use a number of different essential oil blends, and I'm perfectly happy if they're just a pleasant placebo. Essential oils smell nice and they're a great way to practice self-care. But do they live up to the assorted health claims that are made about… Continue reading Are Essential Oils a Placebo or Something More?
Blogging and other writing take up a huge amount of my life, but I covered those in the last couple of days, so this is the assorted leftovers. I started off the year with two casual nursing jobs. In the spring I started finding that the patient visits I was doing for one of the… Continue reading Year in Review 2019 – Life & Health
One of my major pet peeves is pseudoscience, which Google defines as "a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method." There's a lot of pseudoscience out there in the world that can spread easily and quickly via the internet, and it often astonishes me what people will believe. There's also… Continue reading How to Spot Pseudoscience