Spinal Decompression is a non-invasive, non-surgical technology where a patient is placed onto an instrument which belts them in and separates their lower body from their upper body. This allows for pressure to be relieved on certain joints and structures in either the lumbar or cervical regions of the spine. The treatment lasts about 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the type of device being used. Patients are usually placed on a protocol that is software driven. (Read more about What is Spinal Decompression Therapy?)

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Treating and preventing chronic neck pain can often be successfully accomplished by something as simple as adopting correct posture while waking and sleeping.

While the pain sufferer can treat the symptoms of frequent neck "cricks" with neck stretch exercises, painkillers or ice applications, the symptoms' root causes must be dealt with differently. These root causes often involve some kind of poor posture, says Dr. Brian Bruel, an assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation on the one hand, and anesthesiology and pain management on the other, at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Posture violators might crouch over a desk all day long, slouch on a sofa while watching TV, or contort themselves while reading. (Read more about One Simple Solution to Neck Pain: Good Posture)

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Two pilot studies show that a new non-surgical spinal decompression treatment has a beneficial effect on lower back pain, and that it seems to benefit the morphology of the spine by increasing disc height.

One study, authored by Dr. John Leslie of the Mayo Clinic and others, found that clinical use of a spinal decompression system led to an 88.9 percent reduction in pain scores over the course of six weeks, as well as improvement in Oswestry disability scores and a drop in consumption of pain medications. (Read more about Preliminary Data a Boon for New Spinal Decompression Treatment)

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Current clinical practice guidelines state that 90% of acute lower back pain patients will recover within four to six weeks, with or without treatment. However, new research published in The British Medical Journal has found that recovery from low back pain is much slower than previously thought.

Australian researchers from The George Insitute studied patients with acute low back pain for a year. The results from the study found that even with treatment, after two months only half of the patients had recovered from the original episode of pain. After about one year, 40% were still reporting that their back was still causing them pain. (Read more about Low Back Pain Recovery Slow and Uncertain)

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During this fall, the Institute of Medicine is expected to start gathering scientific evidence to support how much weight pregnant women should gain. The current guidelines, which were announced in 1990, recommends that women with low body mass index scores should gain 40 pounds, women with normal scores should gain 25-35 pounds, and obese women should gain 15 pounds. In 2003, around 25% of pregnant women in the U.S gained more than 40 pounds during pregnancy. (Read more about Pregnancy Weight Gain Recommendation Expected to Change)

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“I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to see my children grow up and my grandchild grow, you get this really scary feeling inside,” says Rosamond Stallings. When 45 year old Rosamond Stallings was diagnosed with breast cancer 2 years ago, doctors urged her to immediately have a mastectomy. “They found like six malignant tumors,” says Rosamond.
Recent studies have shown that 30 percent or more of breast cancer patients fail to receive complete treatment, and that African American women are as much as 10 percent less likely than white women to receive optimal therapy. But now, supported by a $10 million grant from the Department of Defense, a study, led by a team of doctors at Columbia University Medical Center, will look at possible reasons for the disparity. (Read more about African American Women and Breast Cancer)

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The National Institute For Health and Clinical Excellence (or NICE) recently claims that pregnant women can drink up to 1.5 units of alcohol (or one and a half small glasses of wine) without harming the unborn child. This comes after the Department of Health advises that expectant mothers should abstain from drinking entirely. So between these contradicting sets of advice, where is the truth? (Read more about Is It Safe to Drink Small Amounts of Alcohol During Pregnancy?)

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A recent study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute suggests that there is a link between a low fat diet high in fruits, vegetables, and grains and a reduced risk of ovarian cancer. The discovery came from the Women's Health Initiative Dietary Modification Randomized Controlled Trial over 8 years. The trial assigned 20,000 women to the diet change group and had 30,000 women maintain their current diet. The diet change group limited their fat intake to only 20 percent of their total calories and had to eat 5 or more daily servings of fruits and vegetables in addition to 6 or more servings of grains. (Read more about Low Fat Diet Linked to Reduced Risk of Ovarian Cancer)

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A recent study by Kaiser Permanente Researchers has found that the effects of alcohol on breast cancer are the same, regardless of whether a woman drinks wine, beer, or liquor. The ethyl alcohol found in those drinks and the quantity consumed are the factors that weigh heavily on breast cancer risk. Researchers believe the increased risk from three or more drinks a day is similar to the increased breast cancer risk from smoking a pack of cigarettes a day or more. They claim that "Population studies have consistently linked drinking alcohol to an increased risk of female breast cancer, but until now there has been little data, most of it conflicting, about an independant role played by the choice of beverage type." (Read more about All Types of Alcohol Linked to Breast Cancer Risk)

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A Review in The Lancet reveals the importance of healthy lifestyle choices to reduce stressors related to cardiovascular risk factors. Researchers from John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore examined records between 1990 to 2006. They observed how stress affects the sympathetic nervous system, impacts physiology, and the effect it has on the cardiovascular system. Lead author, Daniel Brotman, claims "Acute physical stressors such as sugery, trauma, and intense physical exertion are well known triggers of cardiovascular events. Emotional stressors are increasingly recognized as precipitants of such events." (Read more about Reducing Stress Lowers Risk of Cardiovascular Problems)

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