Boosting health and wellness can be as easy as sitting less and standing more! Numerous studies prove that taking short breaks throughout the day to stand (or move around a bit) improves health and wellness in previously unimagined ways. Standing and/or engaging in frequent light activity (like walking around your office, standing while talking on the phone, or even just doing chores) improves mood and energy, sharpens mental focus, controls appetite, and dramatically improves blood sugar control. In fact, standing or moving for five minutes every hour may be just as important as a weekly exercise routine for reducing your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic conditions. Research Links Standing with Better Mood, Concentration, and Appetite Control Anyone with a desk job knows that prolonged sitting leads to stiff and painful hips and knees!  However, sitting too much also reduces your ability to concentrate, and can increase mental stress. A study at the University of Colorado found that people who took frequent 5-10 minute standing or walking breaks during a six-hour workday enjoyed improved feelings of alertness and wellbeing, lower stress levels, and even reduced appetite compared to those who sat at their desks for most of the day. Remarkably, for most participants in the study, those regular breaks produced better results than starting the day with a brisk, 30-minute walk. Sitting also contributes to boredom and fatigue, which commonly triggers a search for snacks! Researchers theorize that low energy states, like boredom, trigger your brain to tell you to do something to improve your mood. Eating, even if you are not hungry, does help improve energy and concentration for a short period of time. However, simple, light activity produces the same results, with no added calories!  Sitting Less Improves Blood Sugar, Blood Pressure and Risk of Chronic Disease One of the largest studies to examine the links between sitting and health is the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study. Researchers followed more than 11,000 adults without diabetes and compared the time people spent each day watching television with a number of health markers. As might be expected, glucose and insulin levels, blood pressure, and waist measurements increased with every extra hour people spent watching TV. Researchers were surprised, however, when they discovered that regular, moderate exercise (at least 150 minutes a week) did not improve the health of anyone who spent more than a few hours each day watching television. In other words, thirty minutes or more of concentrated exercise most days of the week did not ameliorate the negative health effects of sitting too much. Other studies show that taking a walk, or simply standing after meals (even just to do the dishes), can significantly lower post-meal blood sugar levels in people with diabetes. In addition, and perhaps most intriguingly, long-term studies also find a decreased risk of death from any cause (including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer), in people who simply sit less during the day and move more.  Standing Burns More Fat and Calories! How does standing more and sitting less improve health? Scientists aren’t exactly sure, but it might have something to do with our ability to use fat as fuel. Muscles that are important for postural support (standing) are quite good at siphoning off fat that is circulating in the bloodstream (as triglycerides and cholesterol), and using it for energy. When we sit too much, those muscles lose some of their ability to use circulating fat for fuel. This could contribute to some of the symptoms of pre-diabetes and metabolic syndrome, including high triglycerides, increased waist circumference and insulin resistance. When we stand or engage in light activity, we also burn more calories. In fact, most people can burn 500-800 additional calories by standing at work; engaging in ‘walking meetings’; taking regular movement breaks; and just not sitting more than a total of six hours a day! Burning more calories helps us achieve a healthier weight, which lowers the risk for many chronic diseases.  Tools to Create New Habits Once you get into the habit, it’s easy to cut back on daily chair time. Numerous online tools are available to remind you to take a break from sitting. Check out Apple’s Stand Up – The Work Break Timer or Google Chrome’s Office Fit for just a few useful apps you can use at work or home. There are also many options out there for converting your work area into a sit/stand/or walk environment. Encourage walking meetings at work, and stand up while working whenever possible. Even walking to talk to someone in your office instead of calling or sending an email will get you out of your chair more often. If you are into playing video games at home, try some of the active options on the Nintendo Wii. Get off the couch during television ads to do chores or walk in place for a while. Even better, watch a lot less TV! Just sit less and stand more. You’ll feel better when you do!   

Anyone who owns a dog or other pet knows the calming effect they can have. When we pet our animal friends, stress and worry often seem to melt away. Scientific studies have now proven this to be true. Pets can lower blood pressure and reduce anxiety. In addition, petting an animal can release endorphins that have a calming effect and can enhance healing. In keeping with our Vision of treating the whole patient — body, mind and spirit — Yavapai Regional Medical Center offers visits from specially trained therapy animals through the Pets Are Warm Support (PAWS) program. YRMC accepts dogs who are certified through Pet Partners, a national organization that evaluates and tests all animals to ensure that their health, skills and aptitude meet rigorous standards. Visits from PAWS pets can reduce boredom, increase socialization and communication, and provide comfort, especially for those patients who are missing their own pets at home. PAWS program volunteer Don Packard brings Sailor, his beautiful Australian Shepherd, to YRMC every Tuesday. “Of course I’m giving back, but there’s more to it than that,” says Packard, “It gives me satisfaction seeing these folks who don’t get to see dogs. It does their heart good, and it does mine too.” Patients aren’t the only people who enjoy the therapy pets at YRMC. The staff looks forward to their regularly scheduled visits as well. “He’s a therapy dog for everybody,” says Packard, “The staff really likes him too. He’s well known. ‘It’s Tuesday and Sailor’s here!’ That’s what they say.” You can take a preliminary quiz to see if your dog may have the right temperament to be a therapy dog at petpartners.org. If you’re a patient at YRMC and would like to arrange a PAWS visit, check with your caregiver first, then call Volunteer Services. In Prescott, the phone number is (928) 771-5678. In Prescott Valley, call (928) 442-8678. YRMC Volunteer Services welcomes inquiries about volunteering for the PAWS program as well as a wide variety of other volunteer opportunities. For more information call: Volunteer Services, YRMC West, Prescott: (928) 771-5678 Volunteer Services, YRMC East, Prescott Valley: (928) 442-8678

As vascular specialists, interventional radiologists target specific illnesses and diseases by using image guidance and small devices, which they guide through blood vessels to reach a part of the body that requires treatment. One such treatment is chemoembolization, a minimally invasive procedure that can shrink or even destroy cancerous liver tumors. “Data from published studies on the procedure show that it is effective in up to 70 percent of patients in preventing disease progression,” said Ben Paxton, MD, Interventional Radiologist, Prescott. Liver cancer can be a primary or a secondary cancer. If it is a primary cancer, the cancer tumor originates in the liver. This type of cancer is typically associated with liver cirrhosis or from Hepatitis B or Hepatitis C infection. If it is a secondary cancer, tumor cells have metastasized—spread—from other organs in the body. Patients with other types of cancer are at risk for developing liver cancer since the liver acts as a holding area for circulating cancer cells. While surgery still offers the best chance of a cure, it may not be possible for as many as two-thirds of primary liver cancer patients and as many as 90 percent of those with secondary liver cancer. “Chemoembolization is a minimally invasive treatment for liver cancer that can be used when there is too much tumor to treat with surgical approaches,” said Dr. Paxton. This type of treatment attacks the cancerous tumor from inside the body, while keeping the surrounding tissues and organs healthy. This is different from systemic chemotherapy that attacks the entire body as well as the cancerous tumor. Chemoembolization delivers a high dose of chemotherapy directly into the organ while blocking, or embolizing, the arteries that supply the tumor with blood and nutrients. Embolizing the arteries that feed the tumor can help to shrink or destroy the tumor. Chemoembolization can be used in combination with systemic chemotherapy, radiation and radiofrequency ablation treatments. These other treatments can be used to treat cancer in other parts of the body while doctors can “utilize chemoembolization to control the cancer in the liver,” according to Iyad Hamarneh, MD, Oncologist, Arizona Oncology Associates in Prescott Valley. An example is a patient who has colon cancer that has spread to the liver. This patient has already undergone surgery and chemotherapy. “Chemoembolization provides another, less invasive option to control their disease that has less morbidity and less mortality and potentially could help control the cancer,” said Dr. Hamarneh. Dr. Hamarneh believes it is important that our community is able to provide top-notch cancer treatment because the financial burden of cancer and the time it takes to treat cancer can be considerable. “It is important to give these patients as normal a quality of life as possible and receiving treatment close to home is an important part of this process,” Dr. Hamarneh said. Dr. Paxton agrees. “It is important to provide this treatment locally in our community so that people don’t have to travel to receive it. They can spend more time in the comfort of their homes and with their families, and more time with their local doctors.” Dr. Paxton’s partner, Interventional Radiologist Matthew Dicker, MD, said, “We work closely with oncologists and their patients to provide minimally invasive options to diagnose and treat or aid in the treatment of cancers.” Dr. Hamarneh looks forward to working more closely with the interventional radiologists who perform chemoembolization in the quad-cities area and indicates that it is absolutely great and important that we can provide these options to our patients here locally. “The decision to perform chemoembolization is a complex one that requires close collaboration between the oncologist and interventional radiologist as it may not be the right choice for every patient with primary or secondary liver cancer,” said Dr. Hamarneh. For more information about chemoembolization, as well as image-guided biopsies, placing long-term IV access for chemotherapy, and other cancer treatment options that interventional radiologists perform, please contact Vascular and Interventional Specialists (VISP) at (928) 771-8477.