5280 Health 2024

Each year brings a new batch of wellness trends, most of which are worthy of an eye roll. Others feel more intuitive. In 2023, for example, Mindbody, a California-based fitness tech company, announced that what nearly half of 20,000 survey respondents really wanted from their wellness routines (besides chiseled abs) was a sense of community—a natural reaction to our increasingly remote lifestyles. Fortunately, Denver is full of opportunities for people seeking to transcend the solo sweat and flex their physical, mental, and social muscles. Pearl Street Fitness This Washington Park outpost has become an icon in the Denver fitness scene not only for its dynamic workouts (focused on strength and conditioning with cardio sprinkled in) but because owner Kerry Audie fosters a Cheers-like atmosphere by encouraging coaches to memorize every…

Dr. Elizabeth Pomfret, chief of the division of transplant surgery at UCHealth, has seen a lot of liquor-addled livers during her 33-year career. In the past, most of them belonged to patients in their late 50s or 60s who had permanently scarred the organ after years of heavy drinking. Recently, however, Pomfret’s patients are trending younger. Decades younger. The culprit? COVID-19 culture, which normalized daytime boozing to cope with the anxiety that accompanied the pandemic. Imagine, Pomfret says, a mom who suddenly finds herself responsible for not only her career and personal life but also her children’s educations—all under the pressing uncertainty of isolation. It’s not surprising that she seeks to unwind with a bottle of wine, especially when she sees everyone else doing the same thing online. “Often,” Pomfret…

1 ASSESS YOUR INTAKE: Begin by taking the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), a screening tool created by the World Health Organization that’s available online. If you score an eight or above, Rollins suggests seeking care at an addiction treatment center. 2 START COUNTING: If you pass the AUDIT but have more than 14 drinks a week for men and seven for women, you fail the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for alcohol consumption. Booze is never good for you, but this level of consumption is associated with more health risks, such as cirrhosis. 3 TRY GOING WITHOUT: Dry January has become a popular trend in recent years, but you don’t have to wait until the New Year to take 31 days off the sauce. By…

The only thing you can expect to dig into this time of year is the snow blanketing your driveway. But if you’re searching for a yearlong resolution to stick to in 2024, tilling the earth as part of a community garden would be a holistic option, according to new science from Jill Litt, a professor of environmental health at the University of Colorado Boulder. Published in the Lancet Planetary Health last year, Litt’s research looked at beginner gardeners who tended one of the nonprofit Denver Urban Gardens’ (DUG) plots for a year. She found that they ate more fiber and were more active than study participants who did not take up gardening—results that you might expect. But those who gardened also experienced a greater decline in perceived stress and anxiety,…

FREEDOM CREATORS CO Talisa Caldwell suffered from eczema and allergies her whole life, but the over-the-counter lotions she bought made her breakouts worse, while prescription medication proved to be a temporary remedy. That drove her to found Colorado Springs–based Freedom Creators Co, which only uses ingredients that won’t irritate your already aching skin. Caldwell’s hottest-selling ointment is the Skin Balm, a moisturizer made with grapeseed oil, which can reduce pain and swelling from eczema, and coconut oil, a natural anti-inflammatory that can help treat acne. Not only does Freedom make your skin feel good, but with Caldwell donating 10 percent of each purchase to a Ugandan orphanage, your conscience is sure to shine, too. Skin Balm, $25 BLACKTRAVELBOX On a trip to Japan, Denverite Orion Brown was unable to find…

When Jude Solano was growing up in Pueblo in the 1970s and’80s, her hometown boasted a thriving multicultural community, many of whom were employed by the local steel mill. But when the price of steel tanked, leading to the bankruptcy of Colorado Fuel and Iron in 1990, the city hit hard times, creating an environment that the opioid crisis exploited to devastating results: In 2016, Pueblo County experienced 38 overdose deaths, the most in the Centennial State. Solano eventually became a registered nurse in Denver and San Francisco before attending graduate school and learning about harm reduction—a public-health strategy that focuses on lessening social (stigma, houselessness, and food insecurity) and physical impacts of drug use. In 2017, Solano returned to Pueblo to put what she’d learned into practice, co-founding the…