Newsletter - March 2016


March 2016

We are back to our Regular Office Hours. Thank you for your patience during the recovery period:

Monday               8:30 to 5:30

Tuesday              9:00 to 4:30 – By appointment

Wednesday        8:30 to 5:30

Thursdays           9:00 to 4:30 – By appointment

Fridays               8:30 to 5:30

With a lunch break somewhere between noon and 2. 

If you didn’t get our previous Newsletter - when you call on Mondays, Wednesdays or Fridays, you will most likely get to talk with Kristi. It is nice to such excellent help and she does a good job of keeping me in line.


Spring is Coming!
Be Safe


As the weather begins to warm (eventually) we will start getting more active: gardening, pulling weeds, some odd jobs around the house, get out for a hike, head to the lake. During the first few weeks keep in mind to pace yourself back to your activities. Often, it is only later when you feel you over-did it. To protect your back keep your attention on your technique: avoid repetitive forward bending; lift with your chest up and looking up; twist with your hips rather than your trunk; and, above all, eliminate twisting while bending forward (even a little bit).
Have Fun, Be Safe.


Sunshine and You
A Word About Sunscreens


With Spring just around the corner, we will be spending more time outside. This means fresh air and sunshine. The sun helps us produce Vitamin D, an important part of how we utilize calcium. Vitamin D also plays an important role as an anti-inflammatory. On the other side, too much sun can be damaging to our skin. This damage can accumulate over the years and lead to serious skin problems including various skin cancers. Simply put, there is no such thing as a “healthy tan.” Researchers believe that increased UV exposure may have caused the marked increase in melanoma incidence noted among women born after 1965. Tanning parlors expose the skin to as much as 15 times more UV radiation than the sun and likely contribute to the melanoma increase.1

Avoidance and protection are the keys to avoiding these potential problems. Reducing the intensity of the sun by choosing mornings and evenings for your outside activities, keeping to the shade, wearing sun blocking clothes and hats, wearing sun glasses, and using sunscreen on the window side of your face while in the car, can greatly improve your risks. And, of course, protecting your skin with sunscreen can mitigate the damage when you are playing in the sun. However, not all sunscreens are created equal. According to the Environmental Work Group (EWG)1, an independent group of scientists who evaluate sunscreens based on current scientific literature, there are ingredients in sunscreens that are less favorable:

  • Vitamin A (retinyl palmitate). Government data show that tumors and lesions develop sooner on skin coated with creams laced with retinyl palmitate. However, more recent research has shown that retinol and retinaldehyde slows certain tumors such as melanomas. (Shapiro 2013) The research currently seems to favor of retinol in topical applications.
  • Oxybenzone and Octinoxate: Synthetic estrogen compounds that penetrate the skin and can disrupt the hormone system. Instead, look for zinc oxide, 3% avobenzone or Mexoryl SX. They protect skin from harmful UVA radiation.
  • Reapply cream often. Sunscreen chemicals will degrade in the sun, wash off or rub off on towels and clothing.
  • High SPF Labels: Don’t fall for high SPF labels. Anything higher than SPF 50+ can tempt you to stay in the sun too long. Stick to SPFs between 15 and 50. Reapply often.

References
1.     //www.ewg.org/2015sunscre...
 2.    Read More: A Word About Sunscreens