Dr Mike has prepared a highly detailed series of articles, news stories and informed opinions aimed at providing anti-aging health tips and programs for any interested individual. With the use of his key steps and tips toward preserving the mind and body as a patient grows older, Dr Mike’s wellness coaching on anti-aging health is perfectly suited to any individual interested in entering old age with health and grace.

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Dr Mike’s Wellness Blog regularly updates its anti-aging health section with the latest information and news on the subject. Readers are frequently provided with up-to-date and cutting-edge breakthroughs in the science of anti-aging health while simultaneously being presented with the tools they require to grow old in good health. This one-stop resource is packed with useful information that assists individuals in learning about proper wellness and health maintenance as the field itself advances. Consistent updates and discussion regarding the medical community’s theories on anti-aging health bring professional medical debate and tips on anti-aging health to the average reader, allowing anyone to increase their education and learn vital methods to help in protecting themselves from negative effects associated with advancing years.

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There are many controversies regarding the subject of health and wellness, everyone having of course a different opinion. As parents, it is only natural that we are concerned with the well-being of our children, wanting them to grow up and develop into fine adults. Natural parenting is not an impossible objective and it can certainly be reached if we turn to help now and then. Where are we to find advice?

You might not think as the Internet to be the perfect place to learn how to be a better parent but it really is. There are several resources available on health and wellness, recommended for the entire family and they probably represent the first step you need to take. Once you discover a website that offers all important tips on natural parenting, stick with it. You will find the information to be highly useful and quite practical. After all, you do not want someone to show you how to be a parent. A few tips should do the trick.

Children are pretty amazing beings. However, they need our guidance and often times, they rely on our maturity. Health and wellness are two important subjects to treat, requiring now only experience but also common sense. Parents can benefit from various articles written either by other parents or specialists in natural parenting. These teach them about the importance of being a good parent, raising your children the right way. Is there a wrong way? Not really, but there are many things we have to learn. Kids go through different development stages, they get sick and probably hurt. We need to know how to respond to such situations properly.

If you have a newborn, then perhaps you are more than scared when it comes to being a parent. What are you to do if the baby catches a cold? And what if he/she gets sick for no apparent reason? Listen to what other people who have gone through similar situations have to say. Go online, read all about child disease and different phases the little ones have go through. When you find the time, compile all the information you have obtained from the Internet into a notebook. The moment you need answers, open your notes on health and wellness, natural parenting and so on. And make sure that you pay a visit on the Internet to discover the latest.

When you think about subjects like health and wellness, you also have to take yourself into consideration. If you want your children to learn all about being healthy, then you have to stay fit and do all the right things. Eat an apple a day. Start exercising and drink plenty of water. Don’t forget your daily dose of green vegetables. These are the things specialists try to teach us. If they work for children, why not try it on us? Natural parenting should be all about being a good parent but also a healthy, in-shape one. Online, you can read all about how to become a runner but also interesting articles on mammograms, skin cancer and vaccines. Be concerned. Be a parent.

As a general conclusion, there are no set rules when it comes to natural parenting. Follow your instinct and make sure that you keep yourself informed. If you do not have the time to buy books on general health and wellness, go on the Internet and browse specialized websites. They can teach you everything you need to know, without occupying too much of your precious time. What you have left, dedicate it to the children. They represent the best part of who we really are.

People with severe and relentless mental illness such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder also bear a greater physical burden; they are at increased risk for obesity and chronic diseases including diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and nicotine dependence. Serious mental illness is an important risk factor for morbidity and mortality; these patients die an average of 25 years earlier than the average individual due to higher rates of medical illness than can lead to premature mortality.

These gloomy statistics inspired Ken Jue, MSW, CEO of Monadnock Family Services in Keene, New Hampshire to start the In SHAPE program. “What we’re trying to do is prevent premature death of persons with serious mental illness,” says Jue.

Research shows that people with schizophrenia and other psychotic and mood disorders who exercise three times a week for approximately 4 months lose weight, gain cardiovascular fitness, and experience less depression and fewer psychiatric symptoms. But few programs exist to help people with SMI maintain healthier lifestyles; for example, fewer than 20% of people with schizophrenia engage in regular exercise, and approximately 40% are completely inactive. In SHAPE is one of the few wellness and prevention program for individuals with SMI that seeks to fill this void.

In SHAPE seeks to improve physical health and quality of life, reduce the risk of preventable diseases, and enhance life expectancy of individuals with SMI. Each participant is teamed up with a trained health mentor to create a Self Health Action Plan for Empowerment (SHAPE) that includes physical activity, healthy eating goals, and attention to medical needs. The program enrolls adults in community wellness activities such as exercise, dance classes, weight loss programs, and smoking cessation activities.

Until 2002, Jue continued to attend a number of funerals of his patients that seemed far too young to be dying. He often looked at his patients’ photographs and noticed that they all looked youthful and active at one time in their lives. Jue started researching information about co-morbid medical illnesses among people with SMI and also interviewed Monadnock staff about patients’ medical conditions. Staff members confirmed that many of their patients had died prematurely or had a number of other chronic health conditions exacerbated by their lifestyle choices and their mental illness. Jue knew something had to be done to help this unique population, and so he outlined key program elements that he would want to see in a program that helped people with SMI improve their physical health.

Instead of relying on formal referrals from mental health providers, Monadnock encouraged voluntary participation and began to form partnerships with hospitals and organizations that would provide exercise, nutrition, and general health services. These partnerships were critical to In SHAPE’s success. The local hospital provided smoking cessation programs, while a large non-profit medical clinic provided primary care services to participants without a medical home at no charge to the patient. The local YMCA and a dance and fitness center also offered up their services to encourage creative forms of physical activity. Graduates from Keene State College Department of Health and Fitness were hired to serve as health mentors. They did not receive formal mental health training so that they would not be influenced to think about and treat the participants as “ill” or “sick” patients.

Participants were not only given the chance to be educated on leading a healthy lifestyle, but they were also given the opportunity to meet other people with similar challenges and to feel included in the community. Fitness assessments were repeated every three months to track progress, and there were regular celebrations during which participants received recognition for their efforts and incentive prizes.

A pilot study was launched with the commencement of the In SHAPE program to gauge participants’ progress in improving their overall health. While Jue only expected 40 people to enroll in the program, he was surprised to see that 65 people had signed up, and more wanted to join but couldn’t due to limited funding. Three months after beginning the program, participants exhibited increased exercise capacity and flexibility, enhanced readiness to change, and improved mental well-being; weight loss was variable across participants. Anecdotal evidence suggests that participants seemed to have greater confidence in social situations, reduction in their waist circumference and blood pressure, and an overall reduction in their depressive symptoms. While
In SHAPE does not promote exercise as a replacement for pharmacotherapy, preliminary results suggest that the exercise and increased health awareness help patients better cope with their mental illness.

Currently, the In SHAPE program is active in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Maine. Jue and his team at Monadnock have strengthened In SHAPE by developing new programs that help address challenges that come with varying populations with SMI. For example, Parents as Teachers is a new initiative developed for mothers with mental illness on Medicaid. Through home visits, mothers are taught on how to grow and develop relationships with their children with greater continuity and less disruption as a result of their mental illness. While the program presents its own challenges for the mothers involved, most participants are deeply committed to the one-year program and strive to make significant changes for themselves and their families.

Jue encourages other associations to support wellness and build partnerships with their local healthcare clinics and organizations with a few caveats:

>> Do not underestimate the insight of people with mental illness: Patients with SMI are likely to readily acknowledge the need to make lifestyle changes to improve their health.
>> Emphasize local inclusion: Involving people with SMI in community activities and exercise centers will ultimately improve their quality of life and reduce local stigma.
>> Seek community partnerships: Programs don’t need to have their own exercise centers or nutrition staff; they should leverage use of community resources by creating mutually beneficial partnerships.
>> Employ a patient centered approach: Encouraging participants to set their own goals will increase the likelihood that goals will be achieved. Participants should understand that they have responsibility for and control of their health.
>> Do not “medicalize” the program: Orient the program as an activity to promote the participant’s health and wellness, not as a response to his or her mental illness or medical comorbidities.

Funding for the In SHAPE program initially came from the New Hampshire Endowment for Health. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation also provided monies for program expansion and a pilot study to test the effectiveness of the program. Enrolled patients also pay a $5 monthly membership fee to access exercise facilities and classes offered by In SHAPE partners. Recently, the state of New Hampshire agreed to reimburse the In SHAPE program under the state’s Medicaid program.

In their desire to make sense out of health information, people often oversimplify the truth. For example, potato chips have long been reputed as a junk food. Actually the quick cooking process of potato chips preserves its nutrients better than mashed, boiled, or baked potatoes. Ounce per ounce, potato chips provide more nutrients than other forms of potatoes. However, because potato chips are cooked in oil, they are high in fat and calories and are not recommended for people trying to lose weight. By being aware that the truth is not simple for most health issues, the tendency to oversimplify and over generalize health information can be thwarted.

Health Discoveries Take Time

Health discoveries often mean media headlines, but a cardinal rule of science is that findings must be replicable. Health information based on a dramatic discovery is not usually valid unless it is confirmed in several follow-up studies or experiments.

Criteria of Valid Reliable Health Information

Health information should be valid and reliable and based on scientifically controlled studies. In health research, validity means truthfulness. If a study is designed and conducted properly, its findings are likely to be valid. For example, it was found that adding vitamin E to human cells in the laboratory stimulated cell division and growth. This was used to support the erroneous conclusion that vitamin E would delay the aging process. This was not a proper generalization because a simple laboratory experiment is not a valid procedure for demonstrating something as complex as aging.

Reliability is another key criterion for evaluating health information and refers to the extent that health claims can be consistently verified. If a claim is reliable, it can be demonstrated to occur consistently in study after study. Researchers speak of findings as statistically significant when they are considered reliable. Statistical significance means that the probability that a study’s findings are due to chance alone is less than 5%. That is, 95 out of 100 times similarly designed studies would yield similar results. Because thousands of studies are performed, however, some studies that yield statistically significant results eventually prove to be wrong. Consequently it takes hundreds of studies, many of them conflicting, to create a consensus on a particular health issue. Any health claim worth considering should be based on numerous studies or experiments conducted over many years.

Health information must also pass scientifically controlled, double-blind studies. The classic study includes at least two groups in which one is an experimental group and receives some form of experimental treatment and the other is a control group and receives no treatment. The double-blind feature of a study means that neither the researcher nor the subjects know who is receiving an experimental treatment. If a researcher wanted to prove, for example, that a particular brand of soap prevents athlete’s foot, two groups would be needed. One would use the experimental soap, and the other would use a placebo or soap substitute. Researchers administering the soap treatment would not know which soap they were using, nor would the subjects in the experimental and control groups. Therefore if the experimental group has significantly fewer cases of athlete’s foot, the results can be attributed to the treatment.

The experimental-control, double-blind requirement of scientific research is a difficult standard to pass. When evaluating new health claims, consumers should inquire about the nature and design of the study behind the claims.

A final consideration of a scientifically controlled study is characteristics of the study population. Scientific studies require random sampling of subjects that represent the racial, religious, gender, and cultural characteristics of the population at large. Medical breakthroughs should not be based on a small number of homogenous, or similar, subjects. Broadly designed human clinical trials that are randomized, placebo controlled, and double blind offer the strongest proof of reliable information. Remember, true breakthroughs in medical research are the exception rather than the rule. Be skeptical of headlines to the contrary.

Even the most advanced wellness consumers, who one might expect to shun any and all elements of the modern medical establishment, are still buying the one thing that symbolizes allopathic medicine to most of us: pills.

Past Hartman Group research has shown that consumers’ movement from periphery to core along the wellness continuum increases their likelihood of using dietary supplements. Some of the triggers that get people started may include nutritional needs, health conditions (such as high cholesterol or arthritis) and aging. The lack of knowledge people have about supplements initially inhibit some consumers from buying supplements. Additional inhibitors include price and the perceived lack of scientific proof of the efficacy of these products.

Consumers continue to purchase and use nutritional supplements, but with less intensity and exploratory nature than what we saw in 2000. Today, mid-level and core consumers appear to have identified key supplements that they use with some regulatory (ranging from three times per week to daily) and have decreased their exploratory shopping for new supplements. We also find new interest in key supplements such as green tea, probiotics and Omegas.

Consumers have dramatically increased the number of phrases and behaviors that define “wellness” to them from 2000 to 2005. Particularly notable is “taking supplements,” which is now seen as the path of wellness by 43% of consumers, nearly double the number in 2000 (23%).

The following language map illustrates the most predominate ways in which consumers think and talk about health and wellness. The map progresses from bottom to top, with the bottom representing consumers who are less involved in health and wellness (periphery wellness consumers) and the top representing those who are most involved in health and wellness (core wellness consumers). This map depicts several interesting shifts and changes from 2000. We find that wellness consumers still begin the journey with the desire to eat well, but with more intention towards living a healthier lifestyle.

The predominant themes of the language being used from periphery to core are represented by the black areas. The grayed “bubbles” represent secondary themes that run throughout the language analysis and support the primary themes. Supporting quotes, thoughts, tactics, activities, examples, etc. to what the primary themes mean to consumers are the white areas.

At the bottom, periphery wellness consumers have little or no brand recognition of supplements and knowledge is very limited. Moving up the ladder, brand awareness and knowledge increases among mid-level wellness consumers, but only moderately. At the top, brand awareness and supplement knowledge is at its zenith among core wellness consumers.

In general, except for the use of vitamins and minerals on an occasional basis, periphery wellness consumers have a much lower involvement with products outside of the traditional food groups.

As one moves towards the core, or top on the language map, the importance of specialty supplements to consumers increases more, relative to the other supplement categories, than the frequency in which consumers use the products. In practical terms this means that consumers use of specialty supplements lags behind vitamins and minerals, and herbal and specialty supplements.

Cultural Preferences to Health Products

Most American consumers address general health concerns (e.g., staying in shape, eating well, eating balanced meals, etc.) with daily, lifestyle routines and practices rather than targeted, acute responses (e.g., taking medication). At this level, most Americans use a vague “watching behavior (e.g., “I watch my sugar intake”) or, if they are more evolved wellness consumers, they incorporate lots of fresh foods into their diet to address current and long-term general health. What they tend not to use is a specific plan of action requiring health products that target a specific health condition.

When consumers are experiencing chronic or acute health problems (allergies, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, osteoporosis, etc.), we find that they definitely shift from more general watching behaviors and high level dietary overhauls (with the requisite focus on avoiding “bad things”) to more proactive and targeted health behaviors. In the case of this proactive set, those with diagnosed chronic conditions generally take medications and, if pushed, also alter their overall diet to avoid ingredients that might exacerbate their condition.

However, most consumers with chronic health conditions, we find, will end up turning to alternative medicine – to different pills. The chart below illustrates consumers’ preferred delivery of functional ingredients when asked which format they preferred vitamins, minerals and nutrients delivered in. Overwhelmingly, respondents chose pills (72%) compared to the next most popular format beverages (26%).

Consumers view dietary supplements as a key symbolic component that they use in their lives to challenge the hold that they view pharmaceutical companies have over them. The most successful dietary supplement products are those that focus on offering up modes of control, including prevention, for which modern medicine offers either poor solutions, last-minute solutions, or no solutions at all. This fits well with what consumers report as the most commonly used supplements including vitamin C, calcium, fiber and vitamins B, E and D. These supplements use levels reflects consumer concerns about and increasing roles for products that offer antioxidants, bone and digestive health, as well as an overall perceived “increase in wellness.”