The United States witnessed a significant increase in life expectancy over the 20th century with much of the improvement attributed to improved sanitation, vaccinations, medications, and access to healthcare. In addition, significant improvements in lifestyle factors were also noted including nutrition, smoking cessation, and exercise. Exercise plays a unique role in aging due to its’...
Team and individual athletes are always looking for an edge prior to their competition or race. The preceding days variable’s including rest, nutrition, training, and exercise are dialed in to create an optimal environment on game or race day. Most Physical Therapists and sports medicine professionals encourage an active dynamic warm up in the hour...
Americans who are overweight are at a higher risk of many diseases including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and some cancers. Thankfully many of these risk factors improve as an individual returns to a healthy weight through changes in their nutrition and exercise habits. Patients often ask if weight loss is the key factor in this...
The CDC reports over 2/3 of Americans are either overweight or obese with less than 1/3 reaching the recommended 150 minutes of exercise each week (21 minutes per day). Weight loss is a complicated, multifactorial process but many researchers recommend the combination of diet and exercise to reduce body mass. Diet has the greatest impact...
It is hard to walk through any health food aisle in the grocery store without coming across another food, drink, or supplement claiming to provide anti oxidants. These products’ effects claim to target free radicals or the naturally occurring unstable molecules, due to changes in electrons, which are created through our body’s cellular metabolism. If...
Our immune system is one of the amazing cellular networks in our body. This system has come into direct focus as we face the COVID pandemic and try to improve our immunity to this virus through vaccinations. In addition to avoiding exposure through social distancing individuals often search for ways to boost their immune response....
Sleep is an essential part of your day and makes up one of the 4 (sleep, stress management, nutrition, and exercise) easy, but effective components of daily health. In our Boulder Physical Therapy practice, sleep is often left out of these 4 essential elements of daily health. While researchers have identified some individuals who can...
Chronic or persistent pain is defined by pain that extends beyond 12 weeks or the normal healing time for a given injury/diagnosis despite treatment. Our medical system does a great job treating new or acute pain, but has struggled to be as effective with patients dealing with chronic pain. It is estimated 1 in 4...
Nutrition, stress management, and sleep are the overlooked components of a patient’s recovery in our Boulder Physical Therapy and Lafayette Physical Therapy practices. These low hanging fruits are often easier to control and improve than the injured tissue’s path to recovery. Inherently we know nutrition is important and food that is fresher is more nutritious...
Nutrition is a key component of health and recovery from injury and disease. Due to strong evidence on this link health care practitioners, including Physical Therapists, are being to prescribe adequate portions of fruits and vegetables in patients diets. In a previous blog post we described the beneficial effects of a lower processed diet compared...
