Why Has Nothing Changed in Healthcare?

Why has nothing changed? Because we need to change.
This principle applies both on a small scale, as far as day to day treatments with patients, encouraging them to take their preventative health into their own hands with daily lifestyle choices. And also a larger scale of our current Healthcare crisis in America.

Not-so-fun facts from the United States Center for Disease Control

Doctors wrote more than 250 million prescriptions for antidepressants during 2010.

Approximately 750,000 people a year are rushed to emergency rooms in the United States because of adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs.

The 11 largest drug companies combined raked in approximately $85,000,000,000 (trillion) in profits in 2012.

The current debate in America about healthcare is invalid. Instead of discussing who is going to pay and how much, what we should be looking at is what true healthcare should be. Instead, we are severely misplacing our time, energy and money by discussing where the money is going to come from and who is going to be covered, and public and private sectors; WHO CARES?! The bottom line is that chronic disease currently costs over the $8 million per minute. We will never be able to afford that! Why should be try to fund a healthcare system that is so severely flawed? The current protocol is to begin treating people once they have already become sick, and to intervene with a drug or surgery that doesn’t get them well. The only way out of this mess, is to decrease the number of people who ARE sick. As I mentioned on our last show together, 80% of our healthcare challenges are due to lifestyle choices- decisions and habits that we make every day.

A paradigm shift in how we view our health needs to occur. To be truly healthy is not simply the absence of disease. Right now, if you are not in any pain or discomfort, and you do not have any symptomatic complaints and you couldn’t possibly think of any reason to go see your doctor. I’m sorry to break it to you, but this does not necessarily mean you are healthy. The rule is: If you’re not growing, you’re dying. You are either getting better or getting worse. There is no staying the same. I’m sorry. You may feel very comfortable in your health right now- like you are coasting along, drifting steadily, or idle somewhere between sickness and health. You are either getting healthier or getting sicker. So there it is. There is the challenge you face everyday. With your daily habits of food and drink choices, exercises and activities, rest and sleep, prayer and meditation, and chiropractic adjustments, you are choosing sickness or you are choosing health. There is no limbo here.

But this is not all doom and gloom. The change is happening right now. I get very excited when I see this paradigm shift in what it is to practice preventative healthcare. I have seen it happen in patients and friends and family. When the person begins to understand that a majority of the food products that people are consuming are not providing proper nutrients to the body. They learn how to navigate this world each day by avoiding processed foods and instead adopt a whole food diet. It becomes so easy for them to avoid junk foods because they develop a keen body awareness and quickly feel how the choices they make affect their mood, symptoms, energy and happiness. They start to reflect on their activity levels and develop healthy exercise habits. They simply choose water to truly quench thirst and avoid soft drinks as if they are poisonous, because they are poisonous. When painful or uncomfortable symptoms do arise in their lives, they seek and try conservative treatment options before moving on to more invasive medications and surgeries. This is such a beautiful thing to witness in others and feel for yourself. This mindset and practice is the heart of what true healthcare is and needs to be. Not only will this practice greatly improve the health and quality of life of many, but at the very same time, drastically reduce healthcare costs and take the strain off of that $8 million/minute cost of chronic disease.

Why has nothing changed? Because we need to change.
Kelly Baltuska, DC

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Food In Pill Form: Why Fish Oil?

Fish Oil

Fish Oil

Without any required conscious effort, every cell in the human body is constantly performing an elegant balancing act to manage inflammation. The food that we eat can encourage this balance in favor of either ant-inflammatory or pro-inflammatory states.
The Standard American Diet or the SAD diet is far too high in Omega-6 fatty acids. These are found in poultry, eggs, nuts, cereals, whole grains, and vegetable oils. O6 FA’s encourage a pro-inflammatory process in our cells. This is required for life but detrimental when not at a healthy balance with Omega-3 fatty acids. O3 FA’s are anti-inflammatory and are often insufficient in the SAD diet. These are found mainly in fish and seeds. The key is to have a healthy balance of both O6 and O3 FA’s. The ideal ratio is 1:1. Unfortunately, the typical American is inflamed, with something more like a 6:1 ratio. This causes any biochemical disruption, big or small, to become blown out of proportion or to become more of a problem than it should be. Let’s balance this equation nutritionally, so that we can become better suited to handle life’s biochemical disruptions.
The easiest and most affordable way to do this is by supplementing with fish oil, which is full of 03 FA’s. A daily supplement can have a profound impact on balancing this equation while providing numerous benefits including: improved cardiovascular system and healthy blood pressure, clearer skin, decreased stress, anxiety and depression, anti-cancer effects as well as calming symptoms of many chronic pathologies such as: Parkinson’s, Lupus, and Psoriasis etc. Omega-3 Fatty Acids are a must if pregnant as the benefits to a growing fetus are endless. It is also safe and extremely beneficial for kids. There are three powerful scientific studies published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that correlate increased Omega-3 Fatty Acid intake with reduced risk of death from ALL CAUSES!

How Much Fish Oil?

For the average adult, depending upon body weight, it is safe to consume up to 8 grams of fish oil each day. The FDA recommends limiting intake to less than 10 grams a day. The most commonly noted side effect is a burp that tastes fishy (not such a terrible problem when considering just one of the side effects on many medications is death). This can be easily overcome by freezing your fish oil pearls before consuming.
Patients are commonly shocked when they hear me ask them to take so many fish oil pills every day. This might be because they are used to taking small quantities of powerful prescription drugs. But with fish oil capsules, there is no highly concentrated chemical that was created in a laboratory as is the case with medication. It is just fish oil; a food. There is no reason to worry about such an increased intake. If you think of it this way, like a food, then maybe it will be easier for you to consider consuming a larger amount.

Is That Safe?

The only major concern that I have about consuming too much fish oil daily would be for people with specific conditions or current medication regiments that involve thinning of blood. It has been reported that high intake is associated with thinning blood. For this reason, those who are hemophiliacs or have other blood conditions, at high risk of stroke, taking blood thinning medications, or planning to have a major surgery etc. should err on the side of caution by sticking with a lower intake. The FDA says it is safe to take up to 3000 mg of omega-3 per day. (This is not the same as 3000 mg of fish oil. A 1000 mg pill typically has only 300 mg of omega-3; 10 such pills would equal 3000 mg of omega-3.) Healthy Greenland Eskimos have been known to safely consume an average intake of 5700 mg of omega-3 EPA per day!

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Benefits of Running and Tips to Avoid Injury

Kelly Baltuska, DC KC 1/2 Marathon, October 2013

Dr. Baltuska Running the KC 1/2 Marathon, October 2013

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. ”
-Hebrews 12:1

 

 

 

 

The Benefits of Running
Did you know habitual runners can benefit from an average of an extra 6 years of life? Some other great benefits of running include:

  • Improved mental health- with that runners high and euphoric feeling you get after a good run.
  • Running lowers the effect of Asthma by strengthening lungs and bronchi. Unfortunately a lot of people avoid running because of their asthma and this should be the exact opposite.
  • It expands the arteries and helps people in maintaining their blood pressure.
  • Boosts up your immune system and helps to combat illness and other diseases. Our lymphatic systems rely on muscle movement and plyometric activities to circulate body fluids.
  • Individuals can burn around 700 to 800 calories by running for one hour.
  • Improves your physical strength by strengthening tendons and ligaments.
  • Increases bone density.
  • Helps people in maintaining their blood sugar level. How wonderful is this? Sugar is now in the spotlight for being a major culprit for our top killers. The latest discoveries about heart disease is that it is not the fats in our diet but instead the poorly controlled blood sugar levels. Cancer thrives with abundant sugar intake and wastes away when sugar is removed.

Running Tips to Avoid Injury

  • Shorter stride length
  • Increased cadence
  • Forefoot strike
  • Quiet, smooth & graceful
  • Arms close to core
  • Loose and relaxed fists and jaw
  • Head up and eyes toward the horizon
  • Maintain rhythm and effort uphill
  • Speed up and lengthen stride downhill

Chiropractic Perspective on Running Posture
I’d like to share a chiropractic perspective on running posture and tips to avoid running injuries. It is good practice to keep a short stride length when running. This is the distance each foot is traveling forward with each step. By keeping the steps short and close together, we can really lessen the impact of the gravitational forces that send shock-waves up our bodies and stress our musculoskeletal systems. With closer steps you will notice an increased cadence. This is in increased rate of steps per minute- so you are going to feel quick-footed. Another tip is to avoid heel strikes. The structure of the arches of our feet are amazing shock absorbers, and we completely nullify this function when clod-hopping around the block with our heels hitting the ground first. Instead, we need to shift our center of gravity forward and focus on a forefoot strike with each step. You will feel very ninja-like when doing this right. As if you are trying to sneak around without making much sound. Sound is a great way to know if you are running with good form. Running should be quiet and smooth and graceful. Arms should be bent at 90 degrees and close to your core without crossing the mid-line of your body during each motion. Loose and relaxed fists, and jaw is also important. Eyes and head should be straightforward and toward the horizon as opposed to down at the ground in front of you. When running uphill, maintain your rhythm and the same level of effort but shorten your stride and slow down as you climb. You should never try to maintain or increase your speed when hill climbing. When running downhill, let gravity work for you and speed up just a bit, but stay in control. Your stride will naturally lengthen. Try to avoid fighting gravity by forcefully leaning your weight back and resisting with strong quadriceps muscle contraction. Find your natural rhythm and then get lost in the graceful rocking motion of a long run. When you find this feeling, you are going to be hooked. You are going to be a runner for life and realize that you were in fact born to run.

Run for health,

Kelly Baltuska, DC

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March Madness Fitness Challenge

MMFCbasketballJoin us as we keep our preventative healthcare a top priority throughout the spring season. During the basketball tournament, Chad Austin and Dr. Kelly Baltuska will be working hard to keep you motivated and accountable to improving all aspects of your health.

The following paragraph is from Chad Austin:

“I love this time of year!   I start looking forward to March Madness the moment the Super Bowl is over.  I love filling out a few brackets, cheering for my favorite teams, and watching all of the surprise small school Cinderella teams try to shock the world!  If you’re like me then most of the last two weeks of March are spent watching basketball.  If I’m working, I will still be checking the scores obsessively and might even be sneaking out early to watch some games at the sports bar with quality HD sports coverage!  During the awesome 3-week span from selection Sunday to the national championship game, it can be pretty easy to forget all about our fitness plan!  Isn’t it a little ironic that while we are watching these players burn well over a thousand calories per game, that we are probably consuming about that many while we sit and watch them? By the time the tournament is over we have fallen way out of our workout routine, and probably gained weight in the process!  This year I wanted to find a way to help people keep their fitness goals a priority during the tournament”

The March Madness Fitness Challenge is a two-part challenge. The first part is the bracket challenge! Let’s face it. We can’t do a March madness event without including a bracket challenge! That would be crazy! I have created a bracket pool on Yahoos Tourney Pick’em. Here is the link: Fill out bracket now! Just go to the link and create your team in the Be Fit…For Life pool! There is no money involved in the bracket challenge this year, so there is no cost to join the pool. We do plan to make this an annual event though, so we made up the stakes a bit next year!

The second part of this challenge is the most important one! The challenge is to keep fitness a top priority during all of this basketball madness! From selection Sunday (March 16th) to the national championship game (April 7th), we are going to bombard you with lots of great workouts, health and fitness tips, motivational speeches, seminars, and live group workouts! Every day we will do our part to keep you on track! We had a lot of fun putting this together, and I am sure we will add more to it as we work our way through the grand finale of basketball season! There is absolutely no cost to take part in this fun fitness challenge! Here is a link to the Event on Facebook: March Madness Fitness Challenge Event on Facebook

If you’d like to sign up for our March Madness Fitness Challenge, you can do so by sending an email to: [email protected]m or [email protected]

Game on for good health!

Kelly Baltuska, DC

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How to Prepare Kefir with Dr. Kelly Baltuska, DC

KefirInviteIt is time for another Kefir class! Everyone is welcome to this FREE event on Saturday, March 22nd at 10:00am. This event will be held at Boyer Chiropractic 9770 Quivira Rd Lenexa KS, 66215.

I am very pleased to have received such great feedback from past guests about the many ways that this superfood is helping multiple body systems. The health of my family and friends has improved so much since we have began consuming this natural, affordable and delicious probiotic that I cannot help but to share it with everyone.

I will provide a “how to” packet of information to take with you and even share some Kefir grains with those eager enough to get started right away. Here is a link to the information packet if you are interested but will not be able to attend the event: Kefir Packet

Please RSVP by either joining the event on facebook, emailing me at [email protected], or call the office: 913-492-9290. Please invite your friends and family to this FREE event! I look forward to seeing you there and sharing this wonderful, functional super food with you!

You can read more about the power of a healthy gut in my newsletter at this link: Food Is Medicine

This event is part of the “March Madness Fitness Challenge”. During the basketball tournament, Chad Austin and I will be working hard to keep you motivated and accountable to improving all aspects of your health. More information at this link: March Madness Fitness Challenge

I hope to see you all there,
Kelly Baltuska, DC
www.baltuska.com
Office: 913-492-9290

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