October 30, 2010: Happy Halloween!

Spiderman on the job! — from Halloween in Harlem by Amy Stein

Oh, the places you can go…

Welcome to the first of what I hope is many newsletters/blogs regarding the remarkable amount of things there are to do in New York City that address the health of the body, mind, and spirit, in many cases without overly-stressing the wallet.  

I determined that these postings would be of great use, because in my office, you can regularly hear me advising the following to my patients:

“The mission is to keep the body free of nervous system interference.  The way to do that is to optimize the following:

Pleasure – Get out or go inward and bathe yourself in physical, emotional, spiritual, and environmental pleasures.

Natural Living – Natural food, fuel, health and beauty aids, cleaning supplies, home/office construction.

Exercise/Stretching – without professional guidance, at least 30 minutes of aerobic activity, 30 minutes of weight bearing, 30 minutes of stretching a day.  There are professionals who can help you curb these numbers, too!

Meditation/Prayer – Twenty minutes twice a day can dramatically improve your health!

Correct Supplementation – not all “nutritional” supplements are alike!

Rest – 6 ½  – 7 ½ hours of sleep a night. If necessary, take a power nap instead of a sugar snack or a Red Bull!

Proper Posture – Proper posture supports the structure and function of your body.

Connection with Others – Hug your family and friends often!  It’s good for you!

Chiropractic – Keep your nervous system clear of interference with regular chiropractic adjustments. 

We need all of these.  Without them, we are a wreck to our friends, families, and ourselves and a heart attack or cancer victim waiting to happen.  You know it as well as I.

Unfortunately, I usually get half-smiles and nods in return as if they are telling me, “Yeah, Doc – I’ll be running right across town to wait three hours on line at Trader Joe’s and sign up for indoor rock-climbing at Chelsea Piers just as soon as my boss lets me out of that project at 9:00 tonight.  I can barely make it to see you for a quick adjustment!”

I got to thinking that putting ideas of fun, easy to do things in our neighborhood in a fun, easy-to-read blog would be helpful.  For those who have taken an interest in this, please let me know if you know of any events and places that we can all visit. 

For now, I’ll start out with my favorite haunt every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings:  Green Gourmet on Lexington Avenue.

Places to Go:

Green Gourmet

790 Lexington Ave.

New York, NY 10065

212-759-7811

This wonderful little treasure opened just around the corner from my office in March of 2010.  Before, it housed a typical New York convenience deli where you go to get bagels and coffee in the morning (if you didn’t already make yourself a healthy breakfast before you left the house, of course) – as well as sandwiches and typical groceries that you can get in a conventional grocery store.  In other words, I ever hardly went there.

When Susy took over the premises last spring, she recognized a screaming gap in the New York Convenience deli experience in our neighborhood of Lexington and 61^st Street.  She put her vision to work: a New York convenience deli with a healthy twist: a heavy emphasis on natural, organic, and high-end products.

She renovated the entire store front and modeled it to make it attractive to the local residents as well as the masses of people walking Lexington Ave. between the 63^rd Street F train and the 4,5,6,N,Q,R transfer at 60^th Street.  It has everything a local deli should have: impressive breakfast and lunch choices, a wide beverage selection, quick-munch power bars and quality chocolates, not to mention great organic coffee and teas.  It also boasts an impressive selection of organic produce and grocery choices one can usually find only at Fairway, Whole Foods, Gourmet Garage.  The prices are on par with those will find at the natural mega stores (save Trader Joe’s), which works just fine because you definitely save in convenience and travel expense.  She has also begun incorporating a natural health, bath and beauty selection that is expanding weekly with new and varied choices.

What’s more, they provide catering services to local businesses and families who need wonderful natural dishes that they can trust to be flavorful and lovingly prepared.  Although they are all tremendously camera shy, Susy and her staff are very friendly and knowledgeable.  Everyone there knows that this is a special place, and everyone takes pride in its offerings.  If they don’t have it, ask and they will probably know where to get it…fast.

Whenever my patients need something quick to eat, I send them immediately to Green Gourmet.  Without fail, they come back wide-eyed at the brilliant little gem I have right around the corner.

I have become particularly addicted to their yogurt cocktail made fresh daily, with Greek yogurt, strawberries, blueberries, almond granola and a layer of yummy honey on the bottom for $2.99 a 12 oz serving.  You will see me almost every working morning between 8-9 a.m. grabbing one of these delectable concoctions and running back to my office around the corner to start my day.

No longer do we workers and business owners have to jog to 2^nd and 1^st Avenue to replenish our organic household grocery supplies, get a delicious soy candle or haunt a Starbucks clone for fresh organic coffee. Visit Susy and company at Green Gourmet and let her know what a nice little place she has.  It’s her special baby, and she’ll be very pleased you noticed.

People to See:

Ana Nieto, Health Mentor

Super Slow Studio at Transform Fitness

133 E 58^th Street, Suite 902

New York, NY  10022

646.286.6264

http://www.superslowstudio.com

info@superslowstudio.com

Ana Nieto is used to New Yorkers telling her she hasn’t much time to transform them.  Located on the 9^th floor of the bustling 133 E 58^th Street business high rise, she is very well aware that the people who live and work in her neighborhood do not have time to work out….which is primarily why they come to her.

Ana is a personal trainer in a style of workout called Super Slow^TM – a high-intensity, 30-minute workout that builds your core strength and maximizes lean muscle development in one workout for the entire week!  That’s right, folks…you too can increase your testosterone levels, give yourself anti-aging benefits, help your cardiovascular system and strengthen your bone density in just one 30-minute workout a week.

I’m sure you’ve heard about this method.  It became very hot about three years ago; that’s when a few of my patients came to tell me they had found this remarkable method of strength training.  I was dubious at first, but when I got a look at the research and met a few of the personal trainers, like Ana, who specialize in this superbly-urban form of workout, I was sold on recommending it for my busiest patients.

Ana herself began teaching this method of training in 2000.  She moved to Transform Fitness in 2004 and has a thriving client base.  Ana has a penchant for clients with medical issues, and her style of workout is very good for people with low back pain issues.  She is especially adept at working with post-surgical clients as well as keeping pregnant women and new mothers fit.  She also goes out of her way to cultivate relationships with health care professionals so she can make certain her clients get the most effective care along with their strength training.

When I asked Ana what her favorite part of her job was, her reply was that she enjoys seeing people achieve the results they desire in less time than they expected.  She recounted a particular client who had excruciating pain from a herniated disc –pre and post surgery.  With Ana’s help, she was able to regain most of her range of motion and is virtually pain free at this point (to learn more, read the testimonial on the web site listed above).

I asked her what her clients could generally expect to gain from these once-a-week workouts.  She hesitates to make sweeping claims as to results, but she said that people usually lose a clothing size within 12 sessions.  She usually advises people, instead of scale-watching, gauge the way your clothes fit your body.  Fat is four times as bulky as the same weight in muscle.  It’s lean muscle you want, more than arbitrary weight loss.

Ana is at her E 58^th Street location Tuesdays and Thursdays, and at her Sag Harbor, Long Island location Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  If you e-mail her, she will happily offer you a free 15-minute consultation.  Take her up on it.  She’s very knowledgeable and skilled, and you know you need to work out…at least one time a week!

Things to Do:

All Souls at Sundown – An Evening Meditation of Jazz and Poetry

6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m., First Sunday of the month, from October to April

All Souls Church

1157 Lexington Ave. (@80^th St)

New York, NY 10075-0495

(212) 535-5530

http://www.allsoulsatsundown.org

info@allsoulsatsundown.org

I can’t say enough to encourage you to attend these free events.  You don’t have to belong to All Souls Unitarian Church, nor be of any particular faith system (or any faith system, for that matter), to fully appreciate the beauty and calming quintessence of combining some of the world’s best poetry with the musical stylings of some of the city’s most impressive jazz musicians.   

Reverend Galen Guengerich conducts these sermons on the first Sunday of each month from Fall to Spring, at 6:00 p.m.  It is the perfect way to end the weekend and start the week – full of moving contemplation and warm fellowship.  If you need any one event to remind you what makes living in this city wonderful, it is this one – walking in the winter streetlights past the upper east-side bakeries and candy stores to enter a grand edifice of a New York church for sweet refreshments, great music and poetry, good company and inspiring meditation.

I remember when I first attended one of these services last December, frazzled and annoyed because I still had not gotten done what I needed to get done for the week ahead, and it was Sunday evening already.  I had promised myself that I would go and see what this thing was about.  I was so glad I got myself out of my apartment to attend.

I sat in the pew of All Souls, completely taken in with the gorgeous architecture and lighting of the sanctuary.  Rev. Galen read from the work of Billy Collins while Ben Williams and Aaron Goldberg soothed us with jazz piano and base.  I enjoyed some non-alcoholic sparkling cider and refreshments afterward with others attendees, met the musicians, had a nice chat with Rev. Galen, and felt like I had actually done something wonderful for myself.

I don’t remember the nonsense that I “had to get done,” but I remember the beautiful hour I had there.  That’s what makes doing things for yourself so important: when it gets right down to it, the minutiae of life drags your experience of time the way barnacles slow down a boat.  If you don’t make certain to take time, how will you ever have time?

Be in the Know: Why is Doing Any of this Important?

When it comes right down to it, natural methods of health and wellness are unquestionably the best choice.  Find the simplest solution to a problem first.  Turning to artificial methods before trying natural methods is, at best, counterintuitive; at worst, dangerous.  As in all things, you are your own best advocate.  There are professionals – myself included – that you can go to for direction.  We will give you the best we have to give; however, our best of intentions is never as good as your own intentions for you.  No one is going to care about you the way you care about yourself (certain mothers excluded!). 

Case in point: the following article is reprinted from The New York Times

When Drugs Cause Problems They Are Supposed to Prevent ~ News Analysis

By GINA KOLATA

Published: October 16, 2010

New York Times

In the past month, the Food and Drug Administration has concluded that in some cases two types of drugs that were supposed to be preventing serious medical problems were, in fact, causing them.

One is bisphosphonates, which is widely used to prevent the fractures, especially of the hip and spine, that are common in people with osteoporosis. Those drugs, like Fosamax, Actonel and Boniva, will now have to carry labels saying they can lead to rare fractures of the thigh bone, a surprising new discovery that came after another surprise — that they can cause a rare degeneration of the jawbone.

The other is Avandia, which is widely prescribed for diabetics, whose disease puts them at risk for heart attacks and heart failure. Two-thirds of diabetics die of heart problems, and a main reason for taking drugs like Avandia is to protect them from that.

But now the F.D.A. and drug regulators in Europe are restricting Avandia’s use because it appears to increase heart risks.

In the case of bisphosphonates, the benefits for people with osteoporosis still outweigh the risk, bone experts say. And no one has restricted their use.

But the fact remains that with decades of using drugs to treat chronic diseases, the unexpected can occur.

Something new is happening, said Daniel Carpenter, a government professor at Harvard who is an expert on the drug agency. The population is aging, many have chronic diseases. And companies are going after giant markets, huge parts of the population, heavily advertising drugs that are to be taken for a lifetime.

And the way drugs are evaluated, with the emphasis on shorter-term studies before marketing, is not helping, Dr. Carpenter said.

“Here is a wide-scale institutional failure,” he said. “We have placed far more resources and requirements upon premarket assessment of drugs than on postmarket.”

Dr. Jason Karlawish, a University of Pennsylvania ethicist who studies the ways new treatments are developed and disseminated, expressed a similar concern.

“The point is not that the drugs are bad, but that drugs for these chronic diseases present a novel set of challenges about how to assess their safety,” he said.

But such discussions make Dr. Ethel Siris, an osteoporosis expert at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, nervous. Bisphosphonates have been extensively studied, she said, and the thigh fractures from bisphosphonates — while surprising — are very rare. Dr. Siris’s fear is that people who really need the drugs will turn away from them.

It is not clear how the nation should respond to the new era of widespread drug use for chronic diseases.

“The basic underlying theme is that we don’t have good long-term safety indices for common chronic diseases that we are treating with major drugs,” said Dr. Clifford J. Rosen, director of the Maine Center for Osteoporosis Research. Dr. Rosen, in addition to studying osteoporosis, was on an advisory committee of the drug agency that examined the evidence that Avandia was linked to heart risks.

The difficulty is in figuring out how to assess the safety of drugs that will be taken for decades, when the clinical trials last at most a few years.

Today’s system, which largely consists of asking doctors to report adverse reactions and of researchers’ attempts to look at patient experiences in a variety of diverse databases, like records of large health plans, is ineffective, medical experts agree.

“There has to be a better system,” Dr. Rosen said.

Congress recently gave the drug agency the power to require studies after drug approval, but the agency has used it sparingly.

Some, like Dr. Rosen and Dr. Carpenter, would like large clinical trials after a drug is approved and continuing for years, even for drugs that met all the premarket requirements.

Dr. Karlawish questions whether this is practical. Once a drug is approved, it can be difficult to persuade doctors to assign their patients randomly to one approved treatment or another, and the sort of studies being suggested would go on for many years, making them difficult.

He favors something different — the development of a national electronic drug database that would reveal drug use and complications. In the meantime, Dr. Karlawish said, he could not help marveling at the paradox of drugs causing what they were supposed to prevent.

“This is priceless,” he said.

Have a safe, fun Halloween!

Read Full Post »

Sully Gives Us Hope…And So Does Holtman. We Give Ourselves Faith in the Human Animal

Last week, I began a blog entry concerning an heroic act from a women’s baseball team in Washington that I held onto for several days in order to reread it before release. In the interim, a fantastic event occurred here in NYC – an event involving a career pilot, a decision made from years of preparation and professional approach, 155 lives saved, and – miracle of miracles – a hardened, cynical, disaster-addicted news culture adhering to the story of Flight 1549.

I have not seen this kind of coverage of a good-news event covered to universally since…well, since…can you think of a time when good news was covered so thoroughly?

From ABC to the Hindustan Times, reporters around the globe were shouting praises to Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III and copilot Jeffrey Skiles for skillfully landing the US Airways flight to Charlotte from LGA on the Hudson River and saving the lives of every passenger on board.

A collective tear comes to all of our eyes when we think of Capt. Skiles following the exiting passengers with floatation equipment that they had forgotten, and Sully (sorry, Capt. Sullenberger III, but you’re an American icon now…you’ve got to become friendly with “Sully”) walking the plane twice to make certain there were no passengers left behind.

Let us not forget to tip our hats to the fine ferry conductors and staff, volunteers, and emergency rescue workers in New York City who were instrumental in the survival of the passengers of Flight 1549.

What an opportunity for all of our news providers to finally cover a story that inspires us in strong and noble thought! What an undeniable accomplishment to inspire not only quick, decisive, elegant action that saves lives based on a career of honing skill and perfection, but also the average American to buy a copy of a newspaper and turn on advertising-laden news programming.

If only it could be everyday.

That was the point of my original blog entry. You might wonder what the heroes of Flight 1549 have in common with a relatively simple sacrificial act of players in a woman’s softball team in Washington.

The answer is: something bigger than obligation fed these individuals and drove their heroic actions. What drove them was knowing, innately, the right thing to do — and in so doing, made the world a better place by their gracious, noble actions. Please honor the women of Washington for just a few moments and read my original blog entry.

————————–

In these times, it is often difficult to come across news articles that engender honorable thought and action. Indeed, it took me over half a year to become aware of the singularly sacrificial and noble action taken by a team of softball players in Ellensburg, Washington last April. I’m not a huge follower of sports stories, but this story crosses cultural lines.

This is from the New York Times, via The Seattle Times – April 30, 2008

By George Vecsey http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/collegesports/2004381880_vecsey30.html

“The moment of grace came after Sara Tucholsky, a diminutive senior for Western Oregon, hit what looked like a three-run homer against Central Washington. Never in her 21 years had Tucholsky propelled a ball over a fence, so she did not have her home run trot in order, gazing in awe, missing first base. When she turned back to touch the bag, her right knee buckled, and she went down, crying and crawling back to first base.

“…The Western Oregon coach made sure no teammates touched Tucholsky, which would have automatically made her unable to advance. The umpires ruled that if Tucholsky could not make it around the bases, two runs would score but she would be credited with only a single.

“Then Mallory Holtman, the powerful first baseman for Central Washington, said words that brought a chill to everybody who heard them:

“‘Excuse me, would it be OK if we carried her around and she touched each bag?’”

The umpires said there was no rule against it, so Holtman and another player from Central Washington, Liz Wallace, picked up Tucholsky and physically touched her good leg to each base. Tucholsky was credited with a three-base home run. This was an away-game for Western Oregon. The act left the stands in tears, and aided Western Oregon to win the double-header against Central Washington.

Holtman and Wallace, and the rest of the Central Washington team, didn’t know Tucholsky from Adam. They just knew the right thing to do. “She hit it over the fence,” Holtman said. “She deserved it. Anybody would have done it. I just beat them to it.”

The question is: would anyone have done it?

The second, and possibly more pertinent question is: Why isn’t this story on the front page of every national and international newspaper? Why isn’t this story presented on every news station as a shining example of what Americans are capable of? Why did I have to hear about it third-hand from a coaching CD made for chiropractors (thank you to Bob Hoffman, D.C., of The Master’s Circle Master Talk – August ’08, by the way) nine month’s later?

The fact is, I believe we all have an innate sense of right and fairness, but we are rarely presented with that face in our present media-driven environment. Because we are not, we rarely give ourselves the chance to answer the first question: Would anyone have done it?

Most of us would certainly like to think so. We would all like to see ourselves as the noble hero that gives of ourselves for something bigger than who we think we are – that we ultimately stand for what is right, and act from what is the right thing to do.

However, we are rarely presented with such wonderful people in our media…such individuals who suddenly come shining through and present themselves as the wonderful inner heroes we would like to be ourselves.

Instead, we are fed daily courses of horror, violence and subhuman actions until we think that this is the way people are. Because of cynical representations of all class structures in our movies, and violence-driven news coverage in our media, we have created a culture in which American parents, myself included, have left us simultaneously with a horrible suspicion of the neighbors in our immediate environment and the dreadful, overwhelming certainty that there is not a thing we can do about the state of affairs – that it seems just too big a problem.

We need stories like Tucholsky’s experience with Western Oregon’s women’s baseball team, and all stores that present tangible examples of strong and noble action, to be at least as prominent as all the stories of terror, murder, and unfortunate circumstance in all aspects of our lives.

—————————

Ironically, in the best sense, Captains Sully and Skiles came along to support my position on strong and noble thought and action. Hats off to the ladies and gents of America who stand for right action and living a life of honor.

It is our environment that governs our physiology and psychology. As a doctor, I am prescribing that, until the media and popular entertainment culture understand the value of boosting the moral of our citizenry, we all curtail our intake of news stories to the bare-bones necessity level – not to turn on our TV with the morning coffee or to switch it off right before we go to bed – until there are clear indications that the news is covering stories of kindness and generosity, honor and strength at least as often as they cover the terror and sadness that seems to sell papers.

We collectively, with our fear and our cynicism, add to the fire in which we find ourselves. If we make a point to cooperatively remind ourselves that, basically, we all are trying to live our lives as the best people we can be, our parasympathetic levels will rise at once and we will show mercy and goodness for no other reason than that it is the right thing to do. This will translate into a more fertile physical and spiritual environment in which our children and we can develop aspects that are downright godlike with compassion.

We can start with a phone call to our news media, an e-mail to their web sites, or a web commentary each time we see an act of goodness and kindness. Let our media know we care about the good things! One by one, let’s let them know that good news is of interest, and could quite possibly be as profitable, if not more, as war and misery.

It is up to us whether or not we live in fear or fascination – horror or humble gratefulness. Let’s make our environment fertile with celebration so that we can express ourselves to our fullest.

I love you all.

Dr. Claire Fitzpatrick

Read Full Post »

The Body Electric

I was watching “The Twilight Zone” marathon on the Sci Fi channel this evening with my daughter.  An episode came on that tugged at my memory and heart:  “I Sing the Body Electric.”

I wasn’t much concerned with the episode, which is not giving as much credit to Ray Bradbury’s writings as I would otherwise like.  Rather, it was the Walt Whitman poem I hadn’t thought about in years, not since my undergraduate years as an English  major at UNCW:

(from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman)

I SING the Body electric;

The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them;

They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,

And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves;

And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?

And if the body does not do as much as the Soul?

And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul?

Whitman had on the nose in 1855 what we as a scientific body and society are only beginning to embrace now: that the body is not an object to be defiled.  It is, in fact, an energetic expression of our soul’s mission here — and if we defile our body, we defile our souls.

Whitman was not talking about baseless morality — rather, a denial of the wonders of the natural world starting with appreciation of the one and only apparatus that will carry us through our life experience this time around.

When we look in a mirror and say to ourselves, “ugh, I’m so flabby…I’m so old…I’m so plain-looking,” that is the very definition of defiling.  When we stuff ourselves with pseudo-food and ply our symptoms of illness with artificial chemical compounds, we are defiling ourselves.  When we refuse to  correct the subluxations we collect in our spines and bodies with senseless excuses like, “‘Chiropractic doesn’t work.” or, ” My doctor told me chiropractic wasn’t a real science, that it wouldn’t help me,” or, “I don’t like to go to anyone for help,” we are defiling ourselves.

I sing the body electric!  I’ve made it my life’s mission to sing the body electric!  I am called to arms by my brothers and sisters to never leave them alone until I help them undefile themselves through the art, science and intelligence of chiropractic!

If any thing is sacred, the human body is sacred,

And the glory and sweet of a man, is the token of manhood untainted;

And in man or woman, a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is beautiful as the most beautiful face.

Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body?

For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.

O my Body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you;

I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the Soul, (and that they are the Soul…)

It is my firm belief that the body is the temple in which the soul comes to worship life.  I believe we are in the midst of an exxagerated corruption cycle, in which we are pushing the very limits of nature with our contempt of ourselves.

As a planetary body, we have nothing but contempt for our environment.  We exhaust the earth in our quest for her resources, we terrorize the countryside with war machines of our own making, we throw sophisticated waste into the belly and bloodstream of our mother, stuffing her with chemicals she never intended to create and has no means of digesting…we treat the earth the way we treat ourselves!

I am a chiropactor on a mission, and it is a very personal mission.  I want this planet’s hospitable habitat to exist for my child and her children.  I order to make that happen, I have to do everything in my power to help us embrace the body of the earth the way we embrace our own bodies.

The way I see it, we don’t do the latter any better than we do the former.

Enough!  We must all sing the body electric!  We must all embrace the sacred truth of our lives and our connection with the earth and all our creature brethren.  We must stop the psychotic hatred and contempt of ourselves, of our species, of other species, of our planet, of our very existence!

And it starts hand by hand.  One pair of hands on another’s body, to help them clear themselves of the interference they have collected in their lives, to clear themselves of the pain of living so they can appreciate the ecstatic pleasure of life!

I have started this blog as a cry of pain and a cry of love.  I will be sharing with you the symptoms of our dis-ease in our world, and the underlying causes of our dis-ease.  I will be sharing the Truth of healing, and the beauty of the reconnection with the divine through connection with each other and our world.

Enjoy!  For the love of the gods, for your children, and for yourselves, enjoy!

The curious sympathy one feels, when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,

The circling rivers, the breath, and breathing it in and out,

The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,

The thin red jellies within you, or within me—the bones, and the marrow in the bones,

The exquisite realization of health;

O I say, these are not the parts and poems of the Body only, but of the Soul,

O I say now these are the Soul!

Read Full Post »