Happy New Year! I came across this blog post by one of my favorite authors Seth Godin.  In his latest post he talks about The Chance of a Lifetime which is a great way to start off 2012.

A friend asked me the other day, “…given the sorry state of so much in the world, what’s possible to look forward to?”

The state isn’t sorry. It’s wide open.

Interest rates are super low, violence is close to an all time low, industries are being remade and there’s more leverage for the insurgent outsider than ever before in history.

The status quo is taking a beating, there’s no question about it. That’s what makes it a revolution.

I said this nine years ago and I stand by it. In the years since I wrote this essay, people have started social movements, built billion dollar companies, toppled dictators, found new jobs, learned new skills and generally made a ruckus.

Go!

Hindsight is 20/20. People are already looking back on the 1990s and wishing that they had had more courage. When you look back on the 2000s, what will you have to say for yourself? [The following is reprinted from 9 years ago].

Here’s a question that you should clip out and tape to your bathroom mirror. It might save you some angst 15 years from now. The question is, What did you do back when interest rates were at their lowest in 50 years, crime was close to zero, great employees were looking for good jobs, computers made product development and marketing easier than ever, and there was almost no competition for good news about great ideas?

Many people will have to answer that question by saying, “I spent my time waiting, whining, worrying, and wishing.” Because that’s what seems to be going around these days. Fortunately, though, not everyone will have to confess to having made such a bad choice.

While your company has been waiting for the economy to rebound, Reebok has launched Travel Trainers, a very cool-looking lightweight sneaker for travelers. They are selling out in Japan — from vending machines in airports!

While Detroit’s car companies have been whining about gas prices and bad publicity for SUVs (SUVs are among their most profitable products), Honda has been busy building cars that look like SUVs but get twice the gas mileage. The Honda Pilot was so popular, it had a waiting list.

While Africa’s economic plight gets a fair amount of worry, a little startup called ApproTEC is actually doing something about it. The new income that its products generate accounts for 0.5% of the entire GDP of Kenya. How? It manufactures a $75 device that looks a lot like a StairMaster. But it’s not for exercise. Instead, ApproTEC sells the machine to subsistence farmers, who use its stair-stepping feature to irrigate their land. People who buy it can move from subsistence farming to selling the additional produce that their land yields — and triple their annual income in the first year of using the product.

While you’ve been wishing for the inspiration to start something great, thousands of entrepreneurs have used the prevailing sense of uncertainty to start truly remarkable companies. Lucrative Web businesses, successful tool catalogs, fast-growing PR firms — all have started on a shoestring, and all have been profitable ahead of schedule. The Web is dead, right? Well, try telling that to Meetup.com, a new Web site that helps organize meetings anywhere and on any topic. It has 200,000 registered users — and counting.

Maybe you already have a clipping on your mirror that asks you what you did during the 1990s. What’s your biggest regret about that decade? Do you wish that you had started, joined, invested in, or built something? Are you left wishing that you’d at least had the courage to try? In hindsight, the 1990s were the good old days. Yet so many people missed out. Why? Because it’s always possible to find a reason to stay put, to skip an opportunity, or to decline an offer. And yet, in retrospect, it’s hard to remember why we said no and easy to wish that we had said yes.

The thing is, we still live in a world that’s filled with opportunity. In fact, we have more than an opportunity — we have an obligation. An obligation to spend our time doing great things. To find ideas that matter and to share them. To push ourselves and the people around us to demonstrate gratitude, insight, and inspiration. To take risks and to make the world better by being amazing.

Are these crazy times? You bet they are. But so were the days when we were doing duck-and-cover air-raid drills in school, or going through the scares of Three Mile Island and Love Canal. There will always be crazy times.

So stop thinking about how crazy the times are, and start thinking about what the crazy times demand. There has never been a worse time for business as usual. Business as usual is sure to fail, sure to disappoint, sure to numb our dreams. That’s why there has never been a better time for the new. Your competitors are too afraid to spend money on new productivity tools. Your bankers have no idea where they can safely invest. Your potential employees are desperately looking for something exciting, something they feel passionate about, something they can genuinely engage in and engage with.

You get to make a choice. You can remake that choice every day, in fact. It’s never too late to choose optimism, to choose action, to choose excellence. The best thing is that it only takes a moment — just one second — to decide.

Before you finish this paragraph, you have the power to change everything that’s to come. And you can do that by asking yourself (and your colleagues) the one question that every organization and every individual needs to ask today: Why not be great?

From everyone at NOVA Chiropractic & Wellness Center, I wish you a happy and healthy 2012.  Live Life.

WEEKLY HEALTH UPDATE
Dr. Todd P. Sullivan
(703) 912-7822
www.NovaChiroWellness.com

Mental Attitude: Attention & Self-Control. You’re trying to decide what to eat for dinner. Should it be the chicken and broccoli or the super-sized fast-food burger? Making that choice is a complex neurological exercise that can be influenced by a simple shifting of attention toward the healthy side of life. When you decide what to eat, not only does your brain need to figure out how it feels about a food’s taste versus its health benefits versus its size or even its packaging, but it needs to decide the importance of each of those attributes relative to the others… and it needs to do all of this more-or-less instantaneously. When thinking about healthiness, people were less likely to eat unhealthy foods, whether or not they deemed them to be tasty, and more likely to eat healthy-untasty foods. Being asked to think about healthiness led subjects to say “no” to foods more often than they did when asked to make decisions naturally. Journal of Neuroscience, July 2011

Health Alert: Pharmaceutical Ads Do Not Follow FDA Guidelines. A survey of 192 pharmaceutical ads in biomedical journals found that only 18% were compliant with FDA guidelines; 57.8 % failed to quantify serious risks, including death; 48.2% lacked verifiable references; and 28.9% failed to present adequate efficacy quantification. Public Library of Science, Aug 2011

Diet: Increase In Food Allergies. 8% of children have food allergies, with almost 40% reporting severe reactions, an increase of 18% from 10 years ago. Peanut allergies among children have tripled, going from 1 in 250 in 1997 to 1 in 70 in 2008. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011

Exercise: Good Reasons. Exercise assists in efforts to stop smoking, helps you to relax, can help improve short-term memory in older individuals, and helps relieve many of the common discomforts of pregnancy (backache, heartburn, constipation, etc.). Surgeon General’s Report on Physical Activity and Health, 1996

Chiropractic: Backpack Pains? Backpacks that are too heavy or used improperly can pull on ligaments and muscles, causing aches and pains in the neck and back, resulting in acute or chronic back pain. Things to look for in a backpack: Wide, padded, and adjustable shoulder straps; two straps; padded back; lightweight with a lot of compartments. University of Medicine New Jersey, Sept 2011

Wellness/Prevention: Wash Your Hands! Healthcare workers wash their hands about a third to a half of the time they come into contact with patients and germs. This study used 2 signs: 1. “hand hygiene prevents you from catching diseases.” 2. “hand hygiene prevents patients from catching diseases.” The patient sign increased soap use by 33%, and workers were 10% more likely to wash their hands. The sign about personal risks did no good. Psychological Science, Sept 2011

WEEKLY HEALTH UPDATE
Dr. Todd P. Sullivan
(703) 912-7822
www.NovaChiroWellness.com

Mental Attitude: Lost And Found. A new study shows the neural networks in the brains of the middle-aged and elderly have weaker connections and fire less robustly than in the young. As people age, they tend to forget things more often, are more easily distracted and disrupted by interference, and have greater difficulty with executive functions. While these age-related deficits have been known for many years, the cellular basis for these common cognitive difficulties has not been understood. Nature, July 2011

Health Alert: Patents About To Expire. By the end of 2012, 7 of the 20 top selling medications will lose their patent protection. This is a huge concern for the pharmaceutical industry since a generic drug can cost up to 80% less than the brand name version. $225 billions’ worth of annual global sales of drugs will go off patent by the end of 2015. Patients, taxpayers, businesses and health insurance companies will save billions. FDA, August 2011

Diet: Where To Eat? The percentage of calories eaten away from home increased from 23-34% from 1977-2006. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, August 2011

Exercise: Good Reasons To Exercise. Exercise reduces the risk of developing hypertension (high blood pressure), increases the density and breaking strength of bones, improves your physical appearance, and increases circulating levels of HDL (good) cholesterol.
Surgeon General’s Report on Physical Activity and Health, 1996

Chiropractic: Interesting. “Better than 90 percent of the energy output of the brain is used in relating to the physical body in its gravitational field. The more mechanically distorted a person is, the less energy available for thinking, metabolism and healing.”
~ Roger Sperry, PhD. Medical Nobel Prize for brain research, 1981

Wellness/Prevention: Watch This! People who watch TV for 2 hours a day have a 20% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a 15% higher risk of developing fatal or nonfatal cardiovascular disease, and a 13% greater risk of dying early from any cause. Watching TV alters energy expenditure by displacing time spent on physical activities, and is associated with unhealthy eating (more fried foods, processed meats, sugary drinks and less fruits, vegetables, whole grains). On average, Americans watch TV 5 hours a day.
Journal of the American Medical Association, 2011

WEEKLY HEALTH UPDATE
Dr. Todd P. Sullivan
(703) 912-7822
www.NovaChiroWellness.com

Mental Attitude: Fat and Happiness. Humans have an intimate relationship between their emotional state and what they eat. In this study, researchers found the levels of sadness among the subjects who received fatty acids were 50% lower than those who had not. Eating fat appears to be a mood-lifter.
Journal of Clinical Investigation, July 2011

Health Alert: Rising Health Costs. The United States spent $2.3 trillion on health care in 2008, more than three times the $714 billion spent in 1990, and over eight times the $253 billion spent in 1980.
Kaiser Family Foundation, March 2010

Diet: Blueberries and Cancer. Blueberries are full of antioxidants, flavonoids and other vitamins that help reduce free radicals in cells. Free radicals can cause cellular damage, one of the factors in the development of cancer. Blueberries are rich in vitamin C, which helps the immune system and helps the body absorb iron. Blueberry juice and other products may be nutritious but often contain less fiber than the whole fruit, and added sugar or corn syrup may decrease their nutritional value.
University of Alabama at Birmingham, July 2011

Exercise: Eating Before Swimming? A review of 536 autopsies revealed 79.4% of those who had accidentally drowned had visible stomach contents. It’s suspected there may be a link between eating before swimming and drowning as blood is diverted to the intestine during digestion, possibly causing circulation problems while the individual is swimming. This may reduce blood flow to the brain, resulting in loss of consciousness and potentially drowning the swimmer.
Medicine, Science and the Law, July 2011

Chiropractic: Effective For Whiplash. 26 of 28 patients (93%) with chronic whiplash syndrome improved following chiropractic treatment. According to the authors, before the publication of this article, no conventional treatment was proven to be effective. Injury, November 1996

Wellness/Prevention: Investing With Prevention. Preventing heart disease before it starts is a good long-term investment in the nation’s health. Every dollar spent on building trails for walking or biking saves $3 in medical costs. Companies that invest in workers’ health with comprehensive worksite wellness programs and healthy work environments have less absenteeism, greater productivity and lower healthcare costs.
American Heart Association, July 2011

WEEKLY HEALTH UPDATE
Dr. Todd P. Sullivan
(703) 912-7822
www.NovaChiroWellness.com

Mental Attitude: Sleep Well.
People who sleep 6-9 hours per night had higher self-reported scores for quality of life and lower scores for depression severity when compared to short (<6 hours per night) and long sleepers (>9 hours per night). Researchers were surprised that both sleeping less than 6 hours and more than 9 hours was associated with a similar decrease in quality of life and increase in depressive symptoms.
American Academy of Sleep Medicine, August 2011

Health Alert: Depressing Statistics.
Depression can affect a person’s ability to work, their ability to form relationships, and it can also destroy their quality of life. 15% of the population from high-income countries (compared to 11% for low/middle-income countries) is likely to become depressed at some point in life. Women are twice as likely to suffer depression as men, and the loss of a partner, whether from death, divorce or separation, was a main contributing factor.
BMC Medicine, July 2011

Diet: Breastfeed Babies.
Babies fed only on breast milk up to the age of 6 months have a lower risk of developing asthma-related symptoms in early childhood. Compared to children who were breastfed for 6 months or more, children who had never received breast milk had an increased risk of wheezing, shortness of breath, dry cough and persistent phlegm in their first 4 years.
European Lung Foundation, July 2011

Exercise: Muscle Mass and Type 2 Diabetes Risk.
Higher muscle mass, relative to one’s body size, is closely linked to superior insulin sensitivity and a lower risk of developing pre-diabetes or full diabetes type 2.
Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, July 2011

Chiropractic: Cost Effective.
A review of treatments endorsed in American Pain Society and American College of Physicians guidelines found spinal manipulation was cost-effective for subacute and chronic low back pain.
European Spine Journal, January 2011

Wellness/Prevention: Sleep Well.
Interrupted sleep impairs memory, as a minimum amount of continuous sleep is crucial for memory consolidation. Researchers found memory was unaffected if the average duration of sleep was maintained at 62-73% of normal.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, July 2011

WEEKLY HEALTH UPDATE
Dr. Todd P. Sullivan
(703) 912-7822
www.NovaChiroWellness.com

Mental Attitude: Money Can’t Buy Happiness.
Once a point of being able to meet basic needs is reached, the effect of money on happiness levels off. More money leads to marginal gains (at best) or even less well-being as people worry about “keeping up with the Joneses.”
American Psychological Association, July 2011

Health Alert: Medical Bills And Bankruptcy?
Most people who are driven into bankruptcy by illness and medical bills actually have coverage, but it’s such inadequate coverage that it doesn’t keep them from financial ruin. They face huge premiums, co-payments, deductibles and things that aren’t covered by their insurance.
Minnesota News Connection

Diet: Food Labeling.
A recently enacted law requires restaurant chains with at least 15 locations to provide calorie data on menus and menu boards. At McDonalds, there was a 5.3% drop in average calories per purchase, and at KFC, a 6.4% drop.
British Medical Journal, August 2011

Exercise: Exercise For The Brain.
Aerobic exercise and strength training plays a vital role in maintaining brain and cognitive health throughout life. A review of 111 recent articles suggests aerobic exercise is important for getting a head start during childhood on cognitive abilities. Physical inactivity is associated with poorer academic performance and results on standard neuropsychological tests, while exercise programs appear to improve memory, attention, and decision-making. These effects also extend to young and elderly adults, with solid evidence for aerobic training benefiting executive functions, including multi-tasking, planning, and inhibition, and increasing the volume of brain structures important for memory.
Journal of Applied Physiology, July 2011

Chiropractic: Chiropractic Patients Most Satisfied.
With regards to patient satisfaction, a survey of more than 14,000 consumers rated chiropractic #1 among all health care providers.
Consumer Reports, May 2009

Wellness/Prevention: Are Vacations Worth the Effort?
Each year we save up for them, but do they do us any good? According to Dutch psychologist Jessica de Bloom, holidays help us recharge our batteries and perform at a high level.
The Psychologist, August 2011

WEEKLY HEALTH UPDATE
Dr. Todd P. Sullivan
(703) 912-7822
www.NovaChiroWellness.com

Mental Attitude: Do You Believe In Magic? Being overweight is associated with negative health consequences and social stigmas. To cope with these pressures and expectations, consumers engage in various forms of “magical thinking.” They describe weight loss as being influenced by mysterious forces; a body that “conspires” against them or food that “seduces” them. They hope good deeds will be rewarded (like eating chips after eating cabbage soup all day) and resort to “magical solutions” like fad diets. Journal of Consumer Research, May 2011

Health Alert: How Long Will You Live? While the world’s leading industrialized nations report considerable increases in life expectancy annually, the majority of US counties do not. Despite the fact that the US spends more on healthcare per capita than any other nation, 80% of US counties have fallen further behind the life expectancy average of the top ten countries in the world. High obesity rates, smoking status and other preventable risk factors are key factors in America’s poor life expectancy figures, rather than the size of the country, economics or racial diversity. Top 5 In Life Expectancy:1. Iceland, 2. Switzerland, 3. Sweden, 4. Japan, 5. Australia, 37. USA.
Population Health Metrics, 2011

Diet: Watch What Your Kids Eat. 8% of US children have some kind of food allergy, 38.7% of those have a history of severe reactions, while 30.4% are allergic to several foods. Symptoms in a severe reaction may include wheezing and anaphylaxis, when the patient finds it hard to breathe and has an abrupt drop in blood pressure. The most common allergens for children were found to be peanuts, milk and shellfish. Pediatrics, June 2011

Exercise: Stay Fit! A person 70 pounds overweight will spend $30,000 extra in their lifetime for health care!
Scientific American, March 2011

Chiropractic: Recommended To Treat Headaches. This study compared the effects of spinal manipulation and pharmaceutical treatments for chronic tension headaches. Four weeks following the cessation of treatment, the pharmaceutical group demonstrated no improvement from the baseline. In the spinal manipulation group, headache intensity dropped 32 percent; frequency dropped 42 percent; and there was an overall improvement of 16 percent in functional health status. Journal of Manipulative Physiotherapy, 1995

Wellness/Prevention: Soda Consumption. Sweet drinks are linked to higher rates of: obesity, Type 2 diabetes, dental decay and low consumption of essential nutrients (malnutrition). Soft drinks with caffeine can cause anxiety and sleep disruption, and soft drinks with sodium benzoate can lead to hyperactivity and DNA damage. Soda consumption per person per year: 1. US: 216 liters, 2. Ireland: 126 liters, 3. Canada: 119.8 liters, 16. Italy: 50.2 liters, 17. France: 37.2 liters, 18. Japan: 21.6 liters. A 12oz can of soda contains 150 calories, an average adult needs to walk for about 23 minutes non-stop to burn those calories. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, June 2011

WEEKLY HEALTH UPDATE
Dr. Todd P. Sullivan

http://www.NovaChiroWellness.com

Mental Attitude: Memory Restoration. Scientists have developed a way to turn memories on and off – literallywith the flip of a switch. Using an electronic system that duplicates the neural signals associated with memory, they managed to replicate the brain function in rats associated with long-term, learned behavior. Researchers also showed that if a prosthetic device and its associated electrodes were implanted in animals with a normal, functioning hippocampus, the device could actually strengthen the memory being generated internally in the brain and enhance the memory capability of normal rats. The goal is to eventually create a prosthesis that might help Alzheimer’s disease, stroke or injury sufferers recover function. Journal of Neural Engineering, June 2011

Health Alert: Inaccurate Medical Claims! Claims-processing errors have increased by 2% over the last year to a 19.3% rate, wasting $17 billion annually. United Healthcare was best with a 90.2% accuracy rating. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, was lowest with an accuracy rating of 61.1%.  American Medical Association 4th annual National Health Insurer Report Card

Diet: Big Time Snacking. Snacking continues to increase among Americans, accounting for 25% of daily caloric intake. The average person “snacks” an extra 580 calories each day. Between 2006 and 2008, time spent eating primary meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner – remained consistent at 70 minutes. However, secondary eating doubled from 15 minutes each day in 2006 to nearly 30 minutes in 2008, and secondary drinking jumped nearly 90% from 45-85 minutes. Beverages account for 50% the calories consumed through snacking. Most people don’t equate beverages with calorie intake and are less likely to offset or take these calories into account. Institute of Food Technologists, June 2011

Exercise: Muscle Up. How important is it to exercise your muscles? The human body has over 600 muscles accounting for 40% of the body’s weight. When exercised regularly, muscles are your primary mechanism of maintaining your metabolism, thus burning fat. Maintaining the flexibility of your joints and surrounding soft tissues allows muscles to function at their highest level. Gray’s Anatomy

Chiropractic: Simple Analogy. Spinal problems are like a cavity in your tooth: 1. They occur slowly over time. 2. Typically, they are without symptoms for some time. 3. They continue to progress. 4. They don’t go away on their own. 5. They eventually cause pain. 6. They can lead to more significant problems.

Wellness/Prevention: Smoking Raises Risk. Smokers had a higher risk of dying from prostate cancer, cardiovascular disease, cancer-recurrence, or from any cause compared to lifetime non-smokers. The longer the patient smoked, the higher his risk of dying from prostate cancer or cardiovascular disease. Men who had given up smoking for ten years had similar prostate cancer mortality risks as lifetime non-smokers.  Journal of the American Medical Association, May 2011

WEEKLY HEALTH UPDATE
Dr. Todd P. Sullivan

http://www.NovaChiroWellness.com

Mental Attitude: Testing Improves Memory. A study found with retrieval practice (in this case, recalling a word in English and its Lithuanian equivalent), every aspect of memory gets substantially better including “target memory” – specific recognition; “cue memory” – the stimulus that evinces the memory; and “associative memory” – the relationship between things. Association for Psychological Science, June 2011

Health Alert: Social Factors And Death. Social factors can be linked to death as readily as can patho-physiological and behavioral causes. These social factors contribute substantially to the burden of disease in the US: education, poverty, health insurance status, employment status and job stress, social support, racism or discrimination, housing conditions and early childhood stressors. Area-level social factors included area-level poverty, income inequality, deteriorating infrastructure, crime and violence, social capital and availability of open or green spaces. The numbers: 245,000 deaths in the US are attributable to low education, 162,000 to low social support, 133,000 to individual-level poverty, 119,000 to income inequality and 39,000 to area-level poverty.
American Journal of Public Health, June 2011

Diet: Olive Oil! Consuming olive oil may help prevent strokes in older people. After considering diet, physical activity, body mass index and other risk factors for stroke, the study found those who regularly used olive oil for both cooking and as a salad dressing had a 41 percent lower risk of stroke. Olive oil has been associated with protective effects against many cardiovascular risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity. American Academy of Neurology, June 2011

Exercise: High Blood Pressure In Young People? 20% of young American adults may have high blood pressure. People with high blood pressure have a much higher risk of stroke and heart disease, the leading cause of death among adults in the US. It is also a condition that often shows no signs or symptoms, and many otherwise healthy people who have it first find out when a health professional measures their blood pressure. The findings are significant because they indicate many young adults are at risk of developing heart disease, but are unaware they have hypertension. Epidemiology, May 2011

Chiropractic: Chiropractic First For Back Pain. “For patients with low back pain in whom manipulation is not contraindicated, chiropractic almost certainly confers worthwhile, long-term benefits in comparison with hospital outpatient management.” British Medical Journal, 1990

Wellness/Prevention: Watch Your Weight At 18. Men who had the highest Body Mass Indices (being overweight or obese) at age 18 were 35% more likely to die from cancer later in life. The link is apparent even if they reduce their weight during middle age. Medical Research Council, June 2011

Weekly Health Update

Dr. Todd P. Sullivan

(703) 912-7822

Chiropractor in Springfield, VA

Mental Attitude: Cheer Up! 10% of middle-aged Europeans took antidepressants in 2010. The probability of taking an antidepressant is greatest among those middle-aged, female, unemployed, with low levels of education, and divorced or separated. This pattern is consistent with the recent finding across the world that happiness and mental health follow an approximate U-shape through life (mid-life crisis). University of Warwick, June 2011

Health Alert: No Safe Amount! The blood-alcohol limit may be 0.08% when driving, but no amount of alcohol seems to be safe. This study examined official data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System. The researchers used FARS because it is nationally comprehensive, covering all US counties, all days of the week and all times of day, and reports on blood-alcohol content in increments of 0.01. Accidents are 36.6% more severe even when alcohol was barely detectable in a driver’s blood. Even with a BAC of 0.01, there are 4.33 serious injuries for every non-serious injury versus 3.17 for sober drivers. Fatality Analysis Reporting System, 2011

Diet: Slow Gains? An average adult gains one pound per year. Small changes in diet, consumption of beverages, physical activity, watching TV, and sleep duration were most strongly linked to long-term weight gain. The idea of “eat less and exercise more” may be too simplistic a weight-loss strategy, as it is the quality of food that matters most and making a handful of small, targeted changes is likely to be most effective.
New England Journal of Medicine, June 2011

Exercise: Kids Not Making Grade! Only a small percentage of youth meet the objective for aerobic and muscle-strengthening activities as outlined in the Healthy People 2020 physical activity guidelines. The data revealed 15.3% of students met the aerobic objective, 51% met the muscle-strengthening objective, and only 12.2% met both objectives. US Centers For Disease Control And Prevention
Chiropractic: Safe For Neck Pain? For the treatment of neck pain, cervical manipulation is much safer than the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) – which are often used as the ‘conventional’ first-line treatment for similar musculoskeletal conditions – by “a factor of several hundred times.”
Journal of Manipulative Physiotherapy, 1996

Wellness/Prevention: Bone Up With Blueberries. Compounds in blueberries might have a powerful effect on the formation of strong, healthy bones. Studies with rats suggest polyphenols, the compounds that give blueberries their blue, purple, and red coloration, might aid in building strong bones. Animals fed rations containing 10% freeze-dried blueberry powder had significantly more bone mass than their counterparts whose rations were blueberry-free.
Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, 2010