We had a great day with our clients, employees, and community liaisons celebrating the holiday season! Thank you to all who stopped by our office in Bay City for the event. This is a day we always look forward to throughout the year, and you are what make it so special!
Thank you to all who have helped 2014 be a great year for our Northern Region! We have continued to grow to the north and look forward to many more years serving Northern Michigan! We had a great turnout for our Holiday Open House on December 12th. Cheers to a fantastic 2015!
We love celebrating Birthdays! Thanks to those who attend and make our Birthday Bash Fun! We love celebrating every two months with our staff and clients! This time around we had a tailgate themed party!
It’s a busy day for the Dobson team! We have an awesome team set and ready for interviews at the Dow Diamond! Come and find out more about a career with Dobson today!
“Miracles come in all shapes and sizes. From someone opening their eyes when asked to after being in a coma, to saying a complete sentence. It’s important to always believe that there is something greater than us and these miracles will happen” – Lee Woodruff, wife of Bob Woodruff, speaking today at the Michigan Brain Injury Annual Conference.
Stop by booth B50 today at the Michigan Brain Injury Association’s Conference at the Lansing Center and say hello to Jami Dobson, President and Owner, and Jenna Schrumpf, Marketing Director. Drop off your card for the wonderful Michigan Wine’s we are giving away!
(CNN) — It may be possible to rewire your brain so that it wants — craves, even — healthier foods.
How? By following a healthy diet.
We know, that wasn’t the quick fix to afternoon ice cream binges you were hoping for. But this research could lead to a more sci-fi solution to the obesity epidemic.
In a pilot study published Monday in the journal Nutrition & Diabetes, scientists say that changing your eating behavior can actually change how your brain reacts to high-calorie and low-calorie foods.
“We don’t start out in life loving french fries and hating, for example, whole wheat pasta,” senior author Susan Roberts, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Energy Metabolism Laboratory, said in a statement. “This conditioning happens over time in response to eating — repeatedly — what is out there in the toxic food environment.”
So it makes sense that the opposite would also hold true.
Scientists divided 13 overweight and obese participants into two groups: a control group and an experimental group. At the beginning of the study, both groups underwent an fMRI to record their brain activity in response to photos of various foods.
The experimental group then participated in a behavioral intervention program, which included portion-controlled menus and support group sessions. The participants were asked to reduce their calorie intake by 500 to 1,000 calories a day and to follow a high-fiber, high-protein diet to prevent hunger and cravings.
After six months, people in the experimental group had lost an average of 14 pounds, while the control group had lost about 5 pounds.
Both groups again underwent an fMRI scan, and researchers showed the study participants photos of low-calorie and high-calorie foods, such as a turkey sandwich on wheat bread and a container of french fries. They looked at how the participants’ brains responded to these photos, particularly in the striatum, a region known to be associated with the brain’s reward system.
Previous studies have shown that high-calorie, fatty, sugary foods trigger the pleasure center of the brain. That’s why you naturally crave these unhealthy foods: You expect to be rewarded with dopamine for eating them.
But people in the experimental group showed a slightly different response to seeing high-calorie foods after participating in the intervention program. Researchers saw less activity in the striatum when participants were shown these foods and more activity when they were shown lower-calorie foods.
The same did not hold true for the control group.
“There is much more research to be done here, involving many more participants, long-term follow-up and investigating more areas of the brain,” Roberts said. “But we are very encouraged that the weight-loss program appears to change what foods are tempting to people.”
(SELF) — With regular sugar taking a nutritional beating and artificial sweeteners unable to shake their sketchy made-in-the-lab connotations, it’s no wonder newcomers like stevia and agave are conquering our morning coffee (and the world of packaged foods).
The new low-cal sweeteners are derived from natural substances rather than synthesized like saccharin and aspartame, so choosing them can make you feel at least somewhat healthy and virtuous. Still, there are concerns.
Are they safe?
Some of these natural sweeteners are relatively new, so they haven’t been studied as extensively as sugar and artificial substitutes have.
And though you would expect natural to mean that a product contains nothing artificial, some new sweeteners may have undergone chemical processing to extract them from their original sources, says Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the school of public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The processing involved may affect their healthfulness, though we can’t be sure since manufacturers provide few details. However, the FDA has reviewed provided data and considers most of them to be generally recognized as safe.
In fact, the food-safety watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest believes this new generation is probably safer than aspartame and saccharin, which it asserts could increase cancer risk. (The FDA and the American Cancer Society dismiss the talk of cancer, because it’s based on older animal studies involving very large amounts of artificial sweeteners.)
There is one new sweetener CSPI has put in its “caution” category: the monk-fruit extract found in products such as Nectresse, which CSPI says has been poorly tested for safety.
“But since it’s derived from a fruit, it is probably safe,” says Michael Jacobson, CSPI’s executive director.
And slimming?
With the exception of agave syrup, the new naturals are very low-calorie or calorie-free, so you would think they’d be a great way to help decrease your daily calorie intake. But it’s complicated — mostly because there’s no research that specifically looks at how these sweeteners affect weight loss.
Existing studies on dieting focus on the older generation of artificial additives. And on that front the evidence is mixed.
“Our research shows that artificial sweeteners do appear to reduce the risk for weight gain when combined with a healthy, well-balanced diet,” Popkin says.
On the other hand, a 2013 study review in Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism found that artificial sweeteners — as little as the amount in one diet soda a day — are associated with an increased likelihood of weight gain and diabetes.
“Sweeteners may be interfering with the physiological responses that help us regulate body weight and control blood sugar,” says the study’s author, Susan Swithers, professor of behavioral neuroscience at Purdue University.
In other words, when we taste something sweet, our bodies expect actual calories to hit our bellies soon afterward. To prepare for that, we release insulin and other hormones to react to the influx and register fullness. But in the absence of actual calories, the insulin and other hormones may not only cause your blood sugar to plunge but could actually make you crave more sweets and overeat.
Though the study focused on artificial low-calorie sweeteners, experts think the effect would hold true for natural ones, too, since mere sweetness jump-starts this chain reaction.
“We would not expect natural low-calorie sweeteners to be any better than artificial sweeteners when it comes to weight management,” says Swithers.
However, you may be able to counter the overeating effect if you consume sweetened foods that contain fiber, like oatmeal. The fiber will help keep insulin levels steady so blood sugar doesn’t plunge, says New York psychologist Stephen Gullo.
The sweet lowdown
One thing’s certain: As a range of new studies continues to show that sugar is a major factor in not only obesity but heart disease, inflammation and other chronic health conditions, many experts now advocate controlling added sugar intake in the diet as much as possible.
“If you have a sweet tooth, consuming sugar substitutes is better for you,” says Cindy Fitch, a registered dietician and director of Families and Health Programs at West Virginia University’s extension service.
- Study finds seniors living in a tight-knit community were less at risk for heart attacks
- Consumer Reports recommends pregnant women skip tuna
- Having a baby puts a lot of stress on moms — and dads, study author says
(CNN) — Here’s a roundup of five medical studies published this week that might give you new insights into your health, mind and body. Remember, correlation is not causation — so if a study finds a connection between two things, it doesn’t mean one causes the other.
Good neighbors are good for your heart
A study published Monday in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health suggests your community matters in matters of the heart.
Researchers tracked the cardiovascular health of more than 5,000 seniors with no known heart problems over four years. In 2006, participants in the Health and Retirements Study were asked how much they felt a part of their neighborhood, if they had neighbors who would help them, whether they trusted people in the area and if their neighbors were friendly.
During the study period, 148 of the participants had a heart attack. Researchers found people who reported feeling more “social cohesion” were less at risk.
Tight-knit local communities may help to reinforce and encourage certain types of behaviors that protect against cardiovascular damage, the study authors say.
Fish good. Mercury, not so much.
In June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued draft recommendations that encourage pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers and young children to eat two to three servings of fish per week to aid fetal and childhood development. This fish should be low in mercury, the FDA said, because mercury can harm the brain and nervous system.
This week food safety experts at Consumer Reports analyzed data from the FDA to find out what kinds of seafood are safe for these populations to eat regularly. They identified 20 types — including salmon, shrimp, domestic crawfish and oysters — that contain low levels of mercury and are safe to eat several times a week.
The experts said pregnant women and children should steer clear of six types of seafood: swordfish, shark, king mackerel, gulf tilefish, marlin and orange roughy. If you are a frequent fish consumer, meaning you eat 24 ounces or more every week, Consumer Reports recommends you avoid those seafood types as well.
Researchers also found that canned tuna contained particularly high levels of mercury, and recommended pregnant women avoid it altogether.
Having a baby could hurt your (mental) health
Many new mothers are made aware of their risk for post-partum depression. But having a baby can put both moms and dads at risk for mental health disorders like anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosis, says Carrie Wendel-Hummell, who presented her study on perinatal mental health disorders at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association this week.
“(Post-partum depression) has been framed so much as being a hormonal disorder, but the evidence there is actually very limited,” Wendel-Hummell said. “Childbirth itself is a life change and a life stressor, so actually there’s far more evidence that those risk factors are the cause.”
The University of Kansas researcher conducted in-depth interviews with 17 new fathers and 30 new mothers. Many said they experienced stress related to their relationships, family-work balance issues, and struggles with poverty.
Wendel-Hummell encourages new parents to accept help from friends, family and the community during the early stages of their child’s life.
Cancer screening doesn’t always help
Data shows that screening people with a limited life expectancy for certain types of cancer doesn’t provide any benefit to their health — and that treating any cancer found in these patients can do more harm than good. But seniors at high risk for death are still being screened frequently, according to a study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Researchers looked at data from the National Health Interview Survey from 2000 to 2010, on more than 27,000 participants over 64. At least a third of participants with the highest mortality risk had received a recent cancer screening, with 55% undergoing prostate cancer screening.
The analysis also showed that screening was common in participants with less than five years to live, the study authors say.
“It is the physician’s responsibility to tailor treatment to the patient and his cancer,” writes Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society. “Many Americans simply cannot accept that there are cancers that do not need treatment.”
Violent video games may depress your fifth grader
Video games have long been a topic of intense debate. But most of these discussions have focused on how video games affect aggression or violent tendencies.
A new study published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking looked instead at video games and depression. Researchers analyzed data from 5,147 fifth-grade students and their caregivers, who participated in another study.
They found students who played high-violence video games for more than two hours a day had significantly more depressive symptoms than those who played low-violence video games for less than two hours a day.
The researchers don’t know if the link between the two is cause-and-effect, meaning the video games cause depression or vice versa. More studies will have to be done to see if the association would last as the students grow older.