The Roberts Centre for Integrative Medicine

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Big up!  to the Canadian Naturopathic community – true purveyors of positive change in health care and quality of life.

Check out the Ontario and Canadian Professional associations web sites for information and events.

Natasha Turner ND, a colleague of ours who has developed amazing patient centered techniques to improving health through endless research and hard work, has a number of events and resources (books) to check out.  Here Natasha introduces her technique of finding the proper carbs for your optimal health:  http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/CanadaAM/20120507/carb-sensitivity-program-dr-natasha-turner-canada-am-120507/

Also, here’s her great recipe for a yummy Spicy Lentil Burger:

Ingredients:

• 3 cups cooked black lentils
• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 cup grated carrots
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 5 Tbsp. ground flaxseed
• 1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine lentils, eggs, carrots and salt, and mix for one minute. Stir in onion and turmeric. Add flaxseed, stir, and let sit for a couple of minutes so that the flaxseed absorbs some of the moisture.

In a heavy skillet, heat the oil over medium-low heat.

Form six small patties, place in the skillet, cover, and cook for 7 to 10 minutes, until the bottoms begin to brown. Flip the patties and cook the second side for 7 minutes, or until golden.

Serve with a large mixed green salad or vegetables on the side.

Serves 3.

Enjoy!  …and spread the good news of Naturopathic Medicine  :-)

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It’s velvety smooth, dark, and unbelievably Yummy -  unlike any other before it.

You’ll think you’re cheating on your health diet with this new VEGA sport Chocolate coconut protein bar.

So far, it’s our health product of the year!     (Check out our 2010 & 2011  winners.)

Protein bar wise, we like the clean ingredients of Elev8tme bars,  and they sustain your energy.  The 3 pieces are also handy.

But this new VEGA sport bar is great to throw in the mix, and it’s vegetarian.   Check out the great ingredients:

• Protein Blend (Sprouted Whole Grain Brown Rice Protein, Pea Protein)
• Dark Chocolate Coating (Sugar, Chocolate Liquor, Cocoa Butter, Sunflower Lecithin, Vanilla)
• Dates
• Sorghum Syrup
• EnergySource® trademark of Advanced ingredients Inc.   (Grape Juice, Natural Rice Dextrins)
• Pumpkin Seed Butter
• SaviSeed™ (Sacha Inchi Seeds)
• Cocoa Powder
• Sorghum Crisps (Sorghum, Quinoa, Rice, Tapioca)
• Dried Coconut
• Natural Coconut Flavor

They do have a Chocolate SaviSeed flavor which is alright, again good to throw in the mix as it tastes like peanut butter.

Also of interest from VEGA sport is their ‘Pom berry  electrolyte hydrator’ powder.  We’ll have to try these out.

Check out their site for more info.  http://vegasport.com/recover/protein-bar

We will be carrying their bars at our clinic (and online soon)

…just try and grab one before our staff gobbles them up   :-p

What do you think of the bars?  …Which bars or products do you like (or dis) ??

Looking forward to your comments.

Health & Happiness,   The Roberts Centre health team

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Mom always said  “eat your beets!”

Starting in 2008 a series of studies have measured statistically significant health changes in participants who began drinking beet juice.  Drinking two cups of beet juice lowered blood pressure almost 10 points in healthy volunteers. Drinking beet juice also protected blood vessels from injury and lowered the risk of blood clot formation.    Beet juice improves the way muscles work, increasing their efficiency and allows them to do the same work with less oxygen.    This increased efficiency allows those who drink beet juice to tolerate much higher intensity exercise.    Blood pressures stay lower during intense exercise, putting less strain on the heart.   Drinking beet juice allows people to walk, run or perform other exercises with a lower ‘cost’ in oxygen.  Trained cyclists that drink beet juice improve their performance in time trials, shaving over ten seconds off a ten-kilometer race.

Beetroot is loaded with nitrates.  These nitrates are absorbed into the blood and converted to nitrites that in turn are used to make a chemical called nitric oxide.  Nitric oxide is a potent ‘vasodilator, that is it opens up blood vessels allowing more blood and oxygen to reach its destination in tissues while at the same time lowering blood pressure.  Green leafy vegetables protect against cardiovascular disease because they contained nitrates. British researchers proved that the nitrates in beets are responsible for their cardiovascular benefit in 2010 by comparing the effect of drinking beet juice with swallowing nitrate capsules.

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Mother’s Breath Acts as a Pacemaker for Infant Breathing Patterns.

Re-posted from carlabeharryhomeopathy.com

After writing about maternal heartbeat recordings, a few friends of mine, new mothers, told me about this brilliant research – the potential that co-sleeping can decrease the occurrence of SIDS, as infants “learn” to breathe steadily & consistently by following their mother’s breathing patterns – I thank them for sharing their insights…

A special connection exists between a mother & her infant during sleep sharing: there appears to be a “harmony” in breathing that occurs between the two … A mother’swarm body next to baby acts as a breathing pacemaker; reminding her baby to breathe, until her baby’s self-start mechanisms can handle the job on their own.

In the early weeks of life, much of a baby’s night is spent in active sleep—the state in which babies are most easily aroused … this state is thought to “protect” infants from episodes of lapsed breathing.

From 1 – 6 months of age, however, concern about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) increases, as the % of active sleep decreases & deeper sleep becomes prolonged.

More deep sleep means that babies start to sleep through the night… while this is good news for both mother & baby, a concern exists, that as babies learns to sleep deeper, it is more difficult for them to arouse when there is an apnea episode, and the risk of SIDS increases.

By six months, the baby’s cardiopulmonary regulating system has matured enough that the breathing centers in the brain are better able to restart breathing, even in deep sleep.

But there is a vulnerable period between one and six months when the sleep is deepening, yet the compensatory mechanisms are not yet mature.

Dr. Sears, a well-researched source on infant health, started watching his wife & newborn in their sleep-sharing arrangement…

He notes: “I watched the sleep-sharing pair nestled next to me. I truly began to believe that a special connection occurs between the sleep-sharing pair that has to be good for baby …whether it was brain waves, motion, or just something mysterious in the air that occurs between two people during night-time touch, I couldn’t help feeling there was something good and healthful about this arrangement.”

 “As I watched the sleeping pair, I was intrigued by the harmony in their breathing. When my wife took a deep breath, baby took a deep breath”

 “My wife would often enter a state of light sleep a few seconds before our babies did … they would gravitate toward one another, and my wife, by some internal sensor, would turn toward baby and nurse or touch her, and the pair would peacefully drift back to sleep, often without either member awakening. Also, there seemed to be occasional simultaneous arousal. When mother or baby would stir the other would also move”

His findings are profound:

• Researchers have discovered that the lining of the nose is rich in receptors that may affect breathing – it is proposed that mother’s breath and/or smell stimulates some of these receptors, and thus affects baby’s breathing… one of the main gases in an exhaled breath is carbon dioxide, which acts as a respiratory stimulant.

• Researchers have recently measured the exhaled air coming from a mother’s nose while sleeping with her baby. They confirmed this logical suspicion that the closer baby is to mother’s nose, the higher is the carbon dioxide concentration of the exhaled air, and the concentration of carbon dioxide between the face-to-face pair is possibly just the right amount to stimulate breathing

Perhaps these mutual arousals allow mother and baby to “practice” waking up in response to a potential life-threatening event. (If SIDS is a defect in arousability from sleep, perhaps this practice would help baby’s sleep arousability mature.)

Dr. Sear’s study revealed that babies breathed better when sleeping next to mom than when sleeping alone:

• Infant’s breathing & heart rate were more regular during shared sleep, and there were fewer “dips,” or low points in respiration and blood oxygen from stop-breathing episodes.

• On the nights that babe & mom slept together, there were no dips in baby’s blood oxygen.

• On the nights when babe slept alone, there were 132 dips.

• By 5 months of age, the physiological differences between shared and solo sleep were less.

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Other reasons to consider some type of co-sleeping arrangement

(whether babe is in mom’s bed, or beside her in a co-sleeping bed):

• Many babies need help going back to sleep because of a developmental quirk called object or person permanence. When something or someone is out of sight, it is out of mind. Most babies less than a year old do not have the ability to think of mother as existing somewhere else. When babies awaken alone in a crib, they become frightened and often unable to resettle back into deep sleep. Because of this separation anxiety, they learn that sleep is a fearful state to remain in …

• Babies thrive better: they grow to their full potential, emotionally, physically, and intellectually (whether from extra touch, or extra feedings during co-sleeping)

Your infant trusts that you, his parents, will continually be available during the night, as you are during the day … this is the only logical thinking that makes “sense” to infants … while research and opinions on co-sleeping are varied across the spectrum of alternatives, babies will thrive with parents who use their intuition as to the best arrangement for their particular family…

Further reading on the research of Dr. Sears can be found here:

http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/sleep-problems/co-sleeping-yes-no-sometimes

~

Carla Beharry, DSHM

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Maybe this will motivate you to work out.

Signals to improve muscle tone alter the expression of genes after just one workout.
New research supports the idea that you don’t need to spend hours at the gym everyday for your body to start feeling the positive effects of exercise. In fact, a single session on a stationary bike can affect your very DNA.

Okay, so your actual genetic code won’t morph into that of Conan the Barbarian. But exercise sets signals in motion almost instantly that determine which genes get turned on and off. These what-are-called epigenetic changes signal to the muscles to, well, tone up. The study is in the journal Cell Metabolism. [Romain Barres et al, Acute Exercise Remodels Promoter Methylation in Human Skeletal Muscle]

Researchers recruited 14 men and women in their mid-20s who didn’t usually exercise. After a short but intense spin on a bike, samples of their muscle tissue showed temporary, but big, changes in several types of epigenetic signals. Further tests showed that some of the same effects could be achieved with a jolt of caffeine.

“Collectively, our results provide evidence that acute gene activation is associated with a dynamic change in DNA methylation in skeletal muscle,” the study authors wrote, “and suggest that DNA hypomethylation is an early event in contraction-induced gene activation.”

Alas, black coffee can’t provide all the benefits of your morning workout. But if you get to the nearest coffee shop by running, you’re definitely starting out on the right foot.
The above text is a transcript of this podcast by Katherine Harmon’s pod cast.
Source:  http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=exercise-instantly-affects-dna-12-03-06
Accessed:  March 6, 2012

Also check out our post on Exercise & the obesity gene http://blog.rhealth.ca/?p=620

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These yummy treats are vegan and nut‐free, and pack a wonderful nutritional
punch. Excellent for the lunch boxes of grown‐ups and kids alike!

Once again, thanks to Daryl Cronin for an awesome recipe!
Ingredients: Makes 24 muffins

• two 397g cans of plain pumpkin, or 3 cups fresh pumpkin puree
• 1 cup apple sauce
• 2/3 cup water
• 2/3 cup grape seed or almond oil
• 4 tbsp ground flaxseed
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3 1/3 cup spelt flour
• 1⅔ cup raw sugar or maple syrup
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• 1 cup non‐dairy chocolate chips
• 1 cup hemp seeds

Directions: Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a muffin tin with muffin cups and set aside. Put the pumpkin, apple sauce, water, canola oil, flaxseed and vanilla in a large bowl and mix with a hand mixer until well blended. Set aside.
In a separate large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add the pumpkin mixture and stir until well blended. Fold in the hemp seeds and chocolate chips. Distribute the batter evenly amongst the muffin cups and bake for 35 ‐ 40 minutes, until tops are golden and a toothpick inserted in centre of muffin comes out clean. Let cool for a few minutes in the pan, then remove from pan and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

These are delicious warm, but even better when allowed to sit, refrigerated, over night. This gives the flavours a chance to blend.

Enjoy!

Posted in our Oct 2011 Newsletter  (http://www.rhealth.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/RCIM_Fall-2011_news_letter-size_Sept-27.pdf)

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Here is a really interesting video by Dr. Stuart McGill on how to stabilize the spine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=033ogPH6NNE&fb_source=message

Thanks to Dr. Erika Zippel – Chiropractor for this post.

University of Waterloo kinesiology professor Stuart McGill is one of the world’s foremost experts on spine biomechanics. Here, he discusses several pervasive myths about back injury, exercise, proper lifting, and strengthening the core. Plenty of exercise and movement demonstrations teach you better ways to keep your back healthy for a lifetime.

Those who participate in rHealthChallenge.ca  Assessments  (not only benefit from Posture analysis), but sure some of you probably cringed at the site of the ‘Wooden steps’ for the cardio test in the background of this video !-)

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Have you ever wondered if your organization’s efforts to increase employee engagement are worthwhile? Research carried out in conjunction with Aon Hewitt’s Best Employers in Canada study shows a link between highly engaged employees and improved health and overall well-being.

To analyze the data, organizations were grouped as high-, medium- or low-engagement employers based on their scores in the Best Employers study. Employees at these organizations were surveyed to determine correlation between engagement levels and various measures of health.

Those working at high-engagement organizations reported better physical health—56%, versus 47% for employees at organizations with moderate engagement and 41% at low-engagement organizations. Job stress levels were lower, too: 28% of employees at high-engagement locations reported high job stress, versus 33% at moderate-engagement firms and 39% of those at low-engagement workplaces.

Those at high-engagement workplaces reported an average of 2 days off annually due to emotional, physical or mental fatigue. That number was 2.7 for those at moderate-engagement organizations and 4.3 for employees at low-engagement companies. In addition, high-engagement organizations experienced fewer long-term disability claims and lower workers’ compensation premiums. The cost savings in workers’ compensation alone are significant: an average of $246,000 per year for a 1,000-employee organization.

“Organizations with high engagement scores are also more likely to proactively encourage employee health. Many offer health management tools and resources, including health risk assessments, screening, health coaching and education.“

Additionally, many of the high-engagement companies in the Best Employers in Canada study offer extra perks to promote a healthier workforce. According to an article in Maclean’s, where the 2011 Best Employers list is published, some examples of these are:

• funds for employees to spend on wellness-related expenses, be it on running shoes or ski passes;
• on-site yoga and fitness classes;
• the opportunity to meet with a personal health and wellness consultant on company time;
• healthy cafeteria menus;
• coverage for naturopaths, acupuncture and registered dietitians; and
• lunch-and-learn seminars on health and nutrition topics.

While not all of these initiatives are financially or logistically practical for every organization, the range of activities covers a variety of cost points. And employees are more likely to respond to perks if the employer seems excited about offering them: 65% of employees surveyed at high-engagement organizations indicate that they take full advantage of their organization’s health and wellness initiatives, compared with 53% at low-engagement employers.

But while implementing initiatives to support employee well-being can clearly help to create a healthy, engaged workforce, research reveals that the key ingredient may be the people, not the programs. Findings from employee focus groups conducted subsequent to the study show that caring managers who are tuned in to the health and well-being of their team, and who provide appropriate levels of support and flexibility, really make the difference.

Give us a call 519-746-0770  or drop us a line info@rhealth.ca to learn how we can help your workplace improve health & productivity.

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