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If you are just joining us, we are in the middle of a blog series about living longer through having a stronger butt. Though that may sound kind of weird, there really is science to back it up! In week one, we referenced a study that showed your ability to go from standing to sitting down on the floor and back up again with the least amount of touches or support could predict your likelihood of death. More importantly, it showed that improving your ability by just a small amount could pay big dividends on reducing your mortality risk. Last week, we started breaking down the process of strength...

We started off the blog series Getting Out of A Chair last time by reviewing an interesting study about the Sit To Rise Test. This test related the risk of dying to how easy you could lower yourself from standing to the floor and back up again. Essentially, you scored a perfect 10 if you could do the whole maneuver without using any assistance (touching anything) and you lost points for how much assistance you needed. The lower your score, the more likely you were to die sooner. One of the interesting things about the study was the difference between scoring a 7 and an 8 (this is literally the...

Over the next few weeks, we are going to be talking about how to improve the mobility and strength of your hip and pelvis. In today's post, we will look at a few reasons why you might want to do that.

Ask most people why they should have a strong lower back and hips, and they will probably tell you it does the following: prevents injury, helps avoid pain and makes you look good in jeans! Now, there is definitely truth to that statement - the preventing pain and injury part. A lot of the patients I see have a weak back, tight hips, and no butt muscle. This is the perfect "Trifecta" for how to i...

We have spent the last month looking at some different eating styles and plans:

• The Standard American Diet
• The Mediterranean Diet
• The New Nordic Diet
• The Okinawan Diet
• And just for fun: how a 127-year old French woman ate!

It is fascinating to me that people groups located so far from each other in very different climates and cultures can have basic principles and practices in common among their healthiest members. I guess it shouldn't be surprising - God made us all and equips our environments, regardless of how different they may seem, to allow us to live well if we choose!

So far, we have been to America and reviewed the Standard American Diet (SAD), Southern France to visit Madam Jeanne Calment and the Mediterranean Diet and Norway to visit some reindeer and check out the New Nordic Diet. The last stop on our world tour is Okinawa, Japan.

Okinawans are another group of people who are known for living a really long time. Okinawa is an island about 400 miles south of mainland Japan and is considered to have a sub-tropical climate.

According to Wikipedia, there are 34 centenarians (people living to 100) per 100,000 people - more than three times the rate of mainla...

In this week's blog post, we are going to look at something called the New Nordic Diet. The New Nordic Diet is actually relatively recent (thus the word "new" in the title!). It was developed to incorporate foods found in the Nordic Regions into a healthy eating plan.

Research into this type of eating/diet has shown improvement in:

• Blood lipid panels (risk of heart disease)
• Improved insulin sensitivity (risk of diabetes)
• Blood pressure
• Weight loss

The easiest way to think of the New Nordic Diet is to take the Mediterranean Diet and move it 1200 miles north! Now, obviously some thi...

The Mediterranean Diet is named, well, because it reflects what the people in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea eat!

According to the Mayo Clinic, the Mediterranean Diet emphasizes the following:

• Plant-based foods (fruits and vegetables)
• Whole grains, legumes and nuts
• Olive oil and canola oil, instead of butter and margarine
• Herbs and spices instead of salt
• Eat more fish and poultry, less red meat and "sausage"

Interestingly enough, it isn't all about what you eat! It may also be about other lifestyle factors - namely, getting a lot of exercise and eating with ot...

The oldest person ever documented was a French woman who was 122 years old when she passed! Her name was Jeanne Calment. She was born in February 1875 and died in August 1997. She remembered the Eiffel Tower being built and she actually met Vincent Van Gogh! Almost as fascinating as how long she lived was her lifestyle:

• At 85, she took up fencing.
• She rode her bike until she was 100.
• She continued to walk until she was 110.
• She smoked two cigarettes a day until she was 117.
• She used a lot of olive oil.
• She drank Port wine.
• She ate two pounds of chocolate per week.

So, ...

If you read last week's blog, you know that we just began a summer series on Nutritional Transformation. This week, we are going to look at the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.). This will lay the ground work for looking at four templates on how to approach healthy eating.

Does food really "evolve"?

Much of today's scientific literature, including the field of nutrition, assumes that humans have been around for 50,000 years or longer. It is not the intention of this blog to debate evolution versus creation (there are much wiser minds than mine that have done that). I personally am a Christian wh...

This week's post is going to introduce you to our summer blog series on transforming your nutrition (and possibly your life)! A tall order for sure!

Attention to nutrition has been a part of my (Dr. Doug) life since I was about 13. One day, my mom came home (it was just her and I in the house at the time), and said it was time to get healthy and start eating better. In one fell swoop, she replaced my Trix with granola, hamburgers with chicken, white bread with wheat bread.. and hey, what happened to the chips and ice cream? I wasn't worried about what we ate; I was just fine with all the food ...