Innholdsfortegnelse for 2021 i 5280 Health

Not too long ago, Beverly Grant visited a yoga studio in the Five Points neighborhood of Denver. “I immediately got pissed going in there, with the way I was received,” Grant says. “The way they were looking at me.” To Grant, the message was clear: The Front Range yoga community was white. At best, she was different; at worst, she was unwelcome. Lakshmi Nair knows the feeling all too well. After moving to Denver in 2004, the veteran yoga instructor spent a decade searching for a studio where she felt comfortable. “I didn’t see a lot of people of color teaching yoga,” Nair says. “Not even practicing.” So, in 2018, Nair started Satya Yoga Cooperative, a Denver-based network of teachers focused on healing Black and brown bodies and minds. The…

Years ago, Dr. David Schneider was driving to the hospital, where a woman who’d suffered a gruesome foot injury—a bone was protruding from her ankle—awaited his scalpel. The Denver orthopedic surgeon was preparing himself to deliver dreadful news. She’d be lucky to keep the leg. But before he could, the patient relayed her own demands: I want to play softball this summer; I want my leg to work perfectly; and I don’t want to see scars. Schneider made all three wishes come true. The incident, however, spurred him to tell his assistant that no one appreciated how far surgery had come. “She said, ‘You should write a book,’” recalls Schneider, now 54. So he did. The Invention of Surgery was published in March 2020 and drew acclaim from the Wall…

At some point in your life, a doctor has probably advised you that to “be healthier” you should eat more veggies. Swap sweets for fruit. Drink less soda. While you may have believed her (and even had the best of intentions to improve your dietary habits), such vague missives aren’t exactly motivating. What if she told you, however, that trading your weekly burger for a grilled chicken breast could dramatically reduce your pharmacy bill—and even add years to your life? That’s exactly the message coming from piles of research showing that food is a central element in preventing, or even reversing, chronic disease. “I tell my patients every day: What we eat is a huge factor in our health,” says Dr. Marc Cornier, who teaches within the Division of Endocrinology,…

Dr. Larry Cohen had always eaten his vegetables—as long as they arrived on top of a burger. “And the tomato had to be in the form of ketchup,” says the emergency room physician at UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central in Colorado Springs. Then, in 1999, five-foot-six Cohen hit 197 pounds. His vanity wounded, Cohen joined a gym, went on a calorie-restricted diet, and lost 50 pounds. Nevertheless, a few years later Cohen began experiencing heart problems while training for a triathlon. A angiogram revealed arterial plaque, buildup that bypass surgery couldn’t completely clear. So, Cohen researched plaque-eradicating foods and adopted a whole-foods, plantbased diet with no added oils or fats and less than 10 percent of daily calories from fat. A year later, the blockage was gone. Convinced that food is…

Perhaps chamomile tea calms you, or you’ve noticed that after you eat oysters, you feel happier. Once you start paying attention, it’s not difficult to sense the connection between your stomach and your emotions. In fact, according to Boulder-based Stephanie Small, a licensed clinical social worker and nutritionist with a certificate in mental health nutrition and nutrition education, you may notice the changes almost immediately. “If you intentionally eat a certain way, you could alter your biochemistry and feel significantly different in one day,” Small says. One reason? Something called the brain-gut connection: the bidirectional highway running between our central nervous system and our gastrointestinal tract that helps the two organs communicate with each other. Researchers are still exploring the possibilities (and limitations) of this nascent field of study, but…

ADAM CAYTON-HOLLAND Member of local comedy trio the Grawlix “My comedy cohorts, Ben Roy and Andrew Orvedahl, and I started a podcast in January called The Grawlix Saves the World, where we try to better the world around us by bettering ourselves. [Editors’ note: Episodes have focused on hot yoga, jiujitsu, and other wellness practices.] Then the pandemic hit, and it was like, Oh, what timing. We need self-care more than ever! The things I’ve done [on the show] that have helped the most are taking long breaks from social media and meditating—basically, taking 30 minutes to try and just focus on my breathing. Those have been huge for staying calm amidst the madness.” KALI FAJARDO-ANSTINE Author of National Book Award finalist Sabrina & Corina, a collection of short stories…

This past March, about a week before Healthier Colorado was set to sign a lease for its Colorado’s Health Capitol project (a joint space for wellness nonprofits intended to spark collaboration through proximity), COVID-19 shuttered offices across the country. “We had to ask ourselves: Is this the best time to bring people together indoors?” says Jake Williams, executive director of Healthier Colorado, which advocates for anything that boosts the well-being of Coloradans. “We decided we could design a space that keeps people safe.” At press time, Colorado’s Health Capitol was slated to launch in December—welcoming tenants such as the Bell Policy Center and One Colorado—and as more offices begin to reopen in 2021, we asked Williams to walk us through the design elements intended to keep the facility pandemic-resistant. 1.…

It’s one thing to know you should eat to protect your health. It’s another thing to choose, buy, and cook the good stuff. That’s where the University of Colorado Anschutz Health and Wellness Center at the Anschutz Medical Campus comes in: The interdisciplinary center offers all kinds of programs (fitness, weight loss, mind-body therapy, and even a series of dietician-led virtual cooking classes for $6 per lesson) for patients, people in the community, and medical professionals at Anschutz. But it’s up to registered dietician and manager of campus and community initiatives Lisa Wingrove to use the latest research about nutrition to inform easy-to-execute meals and recipes. “We can’t assume that people just know how to prepare food that’s good for them and appealing to them,” she says. “We have to…

Intermittent fasting (IF) might sound like the latest weight-loss trend—and it is. But emerging research reveals that restricting eating can also help treat everything from high blood pressure to aging. Here, Dr. Christine Maren, a Broomfield-based functional medicine physician, helps us translate a few promising IF studies into easily digestible takeaways. CELL SERVICE Researchers, including a neuroscientist from Johns Hopkins University, released a study in 2017 indicating that IF can counteract and improve outcomes for a spectrum of age-related disorders, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancers, as well as neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. The theory is that IF essentially mitigates the effects of getting older by bolstering the health of mitochondria (the power plants, or energy sources, of cells), DNA’s ability to repair itself, and autophagy…

The only problem I have with dinner is that it comes every night. Every 24 hours, my husband and I have to prepare a meal that four people—including our two children, 11-year-old Hadley and eight-year-old Harrison—will eat. We typically serve a protein, a starch, and vegetables…and then take turns prompting the kids to eat “a few more bites.” This, of course, dissolves the magic of dinner conversation as they obediently but joylessly shove morsels of broccoli into their mouths before skipping away. I want them to be “good eaters,” but I wondered: Is there a better way? According to the latest research and local experts, the answer is yes. “I look at this from two perspectives: What is the outcome of the nutrition that a child takes in? And, What’s…

BUTTONED UP Company: BioIntelliSense, est. 2018 Find It: biointellisense.com Firm Profile: From its headquarters in Golden, this medical-grade device company develops tech for the continuous monitoring of vital signs, physiological biometrics, and symptomatic events. Breakout Product: In January 2020, BioIntelliSense debuted the BioSticker (pictured), the world’s first device that can be put on like a Band-Aid and remotely monitor a patient’s vital signs with the same accuracy as traditional tools in the intensive care unit. When COVID-19 came along, the company fast-tracked the development of the BioButton, a little brother device it rolled out in May that watches for signs of infection, like elevated body temperature. (Both are sold primarily business-to-business, at undisclosed rates.) In Layman’s Terms: The BioSticker and the BioButton are single-use devices that adhere to the skin…

Travis Plakke doesn’t dawdle in the grocery store. There’s no perusing the aisles or bantering with the cashier. He aims to be in and out in 15 minutes. It’s not because Plakke has an aversion to picking out produce and canned goods. Rather, the space itself has a visceral effect on the 49-year-old: The flickering fluorescent lights are so distracting, he has to wear a hat pulled down low. When another shopper gets too close, Plakke’s skin begins to crawl, and his brain sometimes feels like it’s filled with static electricity. Just talking about the experience makes him sweaty and anxious. “I always say, Do everything with intent. Everything I do, I’ve got a reason for. I’ve thought about it,” Plakke says. He applies this philosophy not just to the…

NOTE: Each listing includes the physician’s name, the hospitals at which the physician has privileges, the doctor’s office, clinic, or hospital address, and the best phone number to call for an appointment. Full listings, including information about how many years each physician has been on the Top Doctors list, are available at directory.5280.com/doctors. ADDICTION MEDICINE Susan Calcaterra UNIVERSITY 1635 Aurora Court, Sixth Floor Aurora 80045 720-848-2300 Alexis Carrington-Ford UNIVERSITY 1693 N. Quentin St. Aurora 80045 877-999-0538 Kaylin Klie DENVER HEALTH 667 Bannock St., Pavilion K Denver 80204 303-436-6000 Dale Terasaki DENVER HEALTH 723 Delaware St., Pavilion M Denver 80204 303-436-6000 ADDICTION PSYCHIATRY Joseph P. Cannavo ST. JOSEPH, GOOD SAMARITAN, LUTHERAN 10350 E. Dakota Ave. Denver 80247 303-338-4545 Christian Thurstone DENVER HEALTH 667 Bannock St., Pavilion K Denver 80204 303-436-6000 ADOLESCENT…

THE PROCESS How we come up with the Top Dentists list. This list is pulled from the 2020 topDentists database, which is created using peer evaluations and includes listings for more than 900 dentists and specialists in Colorado. To create its list, topDentists asked dentists and specialists a personal question: “If you had a patient in need of a dentist, which dentist would you refer him or her to?” The nomination pool comprised all active dentists listed online with the American Dental Association as well as with dental academies and societies. (Dentists could also nominate others who may not be on those lists.) Respondents were asked to consider experience, continuing education, manner with patients, use of new techniques and technologies, and physical results. After the responses were compiled, dentists were…