Pumpkin Health Benefits. Pregnancy Info. Covid-19 Update

It’s that time of the year.  Pumpkin time.  Pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin coffee, pumpkin beer and most importantly, pumpkin pie. Pumpkins were found in central America over 7,500 years ago.  Oddly enough they were not given their named until 1584, by a French explorer who reported finding “Gros melons,” which was translated into English as the word pompions which over time evolved to pumpkins.  One cup of pumpkin contains more than 200 percent of your recommended daily intake of vitamin A, which is beneficial for your vision and more.  Pumpkin is rich in fiber and contains vitamin C, potassium, riboflavin, copper, and manganese, along with vitamin E, B vitamins, folate, iron, and phosphorus.  Pumpkin has many medicinal properties including helping with high blood pressure and high blood sugars. Pumpkin also has antioxidant, anti-carcinogenic, and anti-inflammatory effects.  With a wide variety of nutrients ranging from magnesium and manganese to copper, protein, and zinc, pumpkin seeds are also beneficial for your health.  You don’t have to resort to canned pumpkin; it’s easy to make pumpkin puree at home from fresh pie pumpkins. You can also think of pumpkin as a squash (which it is).  Take chunks of carved out pumpkin meat and cut into pieces and slices which can be added to soups, stews or a stir fry.  Remember pumpkin by itself does not really have a unique taste or flavor.  The taste of what we commonly think of pumpkin comes from all the spices – cloves, ginger and cinnamon.

Thought for the Week:  It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness

Chiropractic Thought for the Week:  Here is a analogy. Think of how the inside of your body works as if your body was a lightbulb.  The brighter the light, the healthier you are.  Much light equals optimal function, performance and health.  Less light equals poor function, distress and ill health. Chiropractic care, specifically the spinal adjustment would be akin to a light switch.  The adjustment enhances or improves your nerve flow, increasing your inner light allowing your body to function as nature intended it to.

Pregnancy / Prenatal Chiropractic Care:  During pregnancy one of the many hormones released is one called relaxin.  Relaxin is named its name because the effect of the hormone is to relax the ligaments on both sides of the pelvis (the sacro-illiac joints from the back and the pubic bones in the front).  The hormone reduces the stability of the joints and changes how the muscles work.  This is a good thing for pregnancy as these areas reposition for the baby to have an easy exit. The issue is that during pregnancy, this doesn’t always happen evenly. The imbalance of the ligaments and muscles can create uneven shifts in pelvic alignment which can create instabilities that can cause discomfort and also lead to less space in the uterus for the baby to move. Chiropractic prenatal care addresses these pregnancy concerns by working on the soft tissue areas of the round ligaments and bringing stability back to the sacro-illiac and pubic bone joints through pelvic and pubic bone adjustments.

Covid-19 Update:  In a recent editorial for the LaCross Tribune, the education commissioner wrote an interesting article on his opinion on Covid-19: Why not work on getting healthy to fight COVID?  “It’s not an anti-vaccination statement to say, vaccinating Americans will not make Americans healthy,” Frank Edelblut begins. He then cites studies showing that COVID patients with a range of comorbidities are more at risk for both getting COVID and having a severe case of it, and even dying. And, he adds, most of the comorbidities are diseases directly connected with poor lifestyle choices, beginning with obesity, which he says is “the top health condition to death with a 30% higher chance of death, and diabetes with complications with a 26% higher chance of death.”  All of the health choices are ones that support focusing on getting healthy to fight COVID, Edelblut says: “If ever you needed a reason to make a commitment to get healthy, a global pandemic could be just the ticket.”

Atlantic County, NJ and Covid-19:  Atlantic County has 1,613 new cases of Covid-19 over the last two week period, down from 1,622 cases the prior 2 weeks. Our 7 day average cases reported per day is 115 cases per day. Atlantic County has had 13 deaths in the last two week period, up from 12 the prior two week period.    On 9/26/2021, there were a total of 1,068 people admitted in all of New Jersey’s hospitals for care of Covid-19 infections, down from 1,137 a week ago.  In the USA, 389 million doses of the vaccine have been given out.  182.5 million people are fully vaccinated. 43 million people have contracted the Covid-19 virus in the USA.

Vaccine Informed Consent Information:   Informed consent means that the person to be vaccinated has to be informed about all the risks, the risk benefit ratios, the potential dangers and what is known about side effects. For example, informed consent takes place in all drug advertising.  The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded one-year supplemental grants totaling $1.67 million to five institutions to explore potential links between COVID vaccines and menstrual changes, after thousands of women reported menstrual irregularities after vaccination. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System data released 9/17/21 by the CDC showed a total of 720,000 reports of adverse reactions from all age groups following COVID vaccines, including 15, 386 deaths. Serious injuries reported in this time period totaled 99,410 between Dec. 14, 2020 and September 17, 2021. According to the CDC, as of September 17th 2021,   This week’s data for 12- to 17-year-olds show 20,238 total adverse events, including 1,213 rated as serious and 21 reported deaths among 12- to 17-year-olds.  3,058 cases of anaphylaxis, 502 reports of myocarditis and 108 reports of blood clotting disorders in the 12-17 year old age group. This week’s data for pregnancy /prenatal vaccination shows pregnant women had 3,726 adverse events reported including 1,099 reports of miscarriage or premature birth.  VAERS is the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database contains information on unverified reports of adverse events following immunization. Reports are accepted from anyone and can be submitted electronically.

Author

Dr J. Zimmerman, Chiropractor Dr. Zimmerman is a practicing chiropractor from Galloway, NJ with 30 years of chiropractic practice.