Dear Friends of Quest,
I hope that this monthly installment of our newsletter finds you happy and healthy! I hope that you are all gearing up to have a wonderful Halloween tomorrow! For Quest, we have been having a great Fall Quarter group with our kids as this week some of our kids will start filming their Quest movie and others our working on their social skills driven video game they are creating. Beyond that this quarter, we have focused time on friendship skills, bullying, diversity, and just having fun together so it has been a great quarter so far!
This issue of our newsletter is focused on some recent research regarding good health behaviors. At Quest, we are proud to provide an innovative treatment program through our therapeutic summer camp and school year therapy groups that have been proven to reduce problem behaviors not only at camp, but in school, at home, and in everyday life. We hope that our newsletter will be a source of support and applicable information to improve the lives of the amazing children and families in our community.
Sincerely,
Jodie Knott, Ph.D.
Director and Licensed Psychologist
Quest Therapeutic Camps of Southern California
Recent Findings Regarding Good Health Otherwise Known as Get Up and Jump Around
A couple of weeks ago Dr. Martha Klassen and I attended a great talk given by Dr. Sharon Orrange regarding the latest findings regarding good health. Dr. Orrange is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine for the Department of General Internal Medicine for the Keck Medical Center of USC . For those of you who have attended Quest Camp you may remember Dr. Klassen since she is my Psychological Assistant and provides many psychological interventions at camp. I don't know if it has been the same for her this past week, but I can't stop talking about some of the topics Dr. Orrange shared about so I wanted to share some of the information she presented in the newsletter this month.
Some of the Research Presented by Dr. Orrange:
1. Eating a mediterranean diet with either nuts or extra virgin olive oil can increase brain function in amazing ways!
Dr. Orrange reported that people who ate a Mediterranean diet with either nuts or extra virgin olive oil showed better cognitive functioning than they had years before. This meant that for these groups that people eating this way, their diet not only kept memory functioning from declining, but actually improved memory functioning. [1] Researchers found evidence that switching to a Mediterranean diet can actually improve cognition. Currently, there is no effective delay to halt the progression of dementia and this study gives evidence that those that were on Mediterranean diets have better global cognitive performance after 6.5 years. In 2030, the prevalence of dementia is expected to reach 65.7 million. In 2050 it is expected to reach 115.4 million. Diet change, specifically, a change to a Mediterranean diet can slow this process. A Mediterranean diet includes extra virgin olive oil as the main culinary fat and a high consumption of plant-based foods such as fruits, nuts, vegetables, legumes and minimally processed cereals as well as the consumption of fish and seafood, with a low consumption of dairy products and meat products. [2]
2. "Our chairs our killing us"
Dr. Orrange cited studies that remarked about how even if you exercised regularly that our bodies are not meant to sit as many hours as we do. She noted that by dropping the amount of hours in a chair at work from 40 to 32 by doing things like walking around or standing at a desk while working instead of sitting a person can have amazing health gains. [3] Dr. Levine, Director of the Mayo-Clinic states that sitting is more dangerous than smoking and that sitting is to blame for several ailments including obesity. [4]
3. It is important to be outside and be barefoot in the grass for good health
Dr. Orrange cited research that talked about the importance of how our feet are not meant to be in many different types of shoes due to their structure, but regardless of this it is restorative to be barefoot in the grass. This was not a surprise to me as my mom has been reading about the "grounding" and healing aspects of being barefoot in nature for years. [5]
4. Jumping is good for you and your bones
Dr. Orrange cited some studies regarding the importance of bone health and how doing activities that create pressure such as jumping are great for your bones. [6]
So basically....
Get up out of your chair and go walk around barefoot while eating some nuts and then after you have chewed up the nuts jump around some! Then you will be happy and healthy and many years from now you will be around, have good bones and will even remember what you did!!!
[1, 3, 5, 6] Presentation by Dr. Sharon Orrange. "Fight On." October 21, 2015. Jonathan Club.
[2] http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Estefania_Toledo/publication/236740643_Mediterranean_diet_improves_cognition_the_PREDIMED-NAVARRA_randomised_trial/links/0046351a4621ee6261000000.pdf
[4] Are our chairs killing us? Get up and get moving, scientist urges August 6, 2014 by Mary Macvean, Los Angeles Times http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-08-chairs-scientist-urges.html
