Sommaire pour 2024 de 5280 Health

Community Building

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…

Community Building
Feeding Your Soul

Feeding Your Soul

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,…

INSIDE THE CENTER

FOOD/GROCERY WING “Those who can’t access fresh food shouldn’t have to turn to the cheap, processed stuff,” Solano says. She hopes to partner with a grocer to supply organic produce to an on-site market, which will sit adjacent to a demo kitchen so patrons can learn how to make healthy meals with the grains and greens they’ve picked up. “We’ll also have a rooftop garden, where we’ll show people how to grow and harvest food,” she says. HEALTH CARE WING Elevate Healthcare and Front Range Clinic will provide medication, such as methadone for those battling opioid dependence, while Care on Location will provide telehealth services. “Cleanliness is a part of health, too,” Solano adds. “We have free showers and locker rooms, a laundromat, and fresh clothing.” EDUCATION WING “Holistic wellness…

Take Action

1 Don’t flush expired medications down the drain. Instead, find a takeback location through the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment (CDPHE), which maintains a list of safe disposal sites. 2 Mix your own cleaning supplies using ingredients like vinegar and baking soda instead of relying on chemical blends that will eventually need to be removed at a treatment plant. Bonus: It’s also a money saver. 3 Take your Subaru to the car wash. When you clean the muck off at home, you not only waste treated water, but all that grime runs into the storm drains and can negatively affect watersheds. Car washes generally recycle their dirty water.…

Take Action

Bad Pipes

From our building materials to our automobiles, lead mined from underground helped fuel America’s growth during the first half of the 20th century. Only later did we confront how toxic the substance is: Exposure to the metal can harm brain development and cause anemia and fertility issues. For that reason, the EPA requires corrective action when the amount of lead in public drinking water exceeds 15 parts per billion (ppb)—and in 2012, Denver Water discovered that 10 percent of samples taken for lead testing topped that. The culprit? Customer-owned service lines, from which lead was leaching into the treated water as it moved from the utility’s mains and into homes. After years of research and wrangling with the state health department, Denver Water launched a Lead Reduction Program in 2020…

Bad Pipes

Contaminated Supply

THREAT LEVEL Not all water is created equal. For decades, residents of southeast Colorado (specifically, the rural towns that stretch east from Pueblo to Lamar) have contended with dangerous radionuclides in their groundwater. These radioactive materials—think: radium and uranium—are naturally present in the Earth’s crust and were tapped into via the deep wells that provide drinking water to the area. (Most major metros, such as Denver, use surface water from reservoirs). National data shows that, of 50,000 water systems, six of the 10 worst radium levels can be found in the Centennial State. When consumed over extended periods, radium can fracture teeth, lead to birth defects, and increase cancer risk. “No one should have to drink that quality of water,” says Chris Woodka, senior policy and issues manager for the…

Contaminated Supply

Wells Met

About seven percent of Colorado’s population relies on private well water that can contain naturally occurring minerals such as iron and manganese, which are not health threats, and contaminants such as arsenic, radium, and nitrates, which are. Testing of these wells in mobile home parks was not mandated by the state or through the Safe Drinking Water Act—until last year. That’s when Colorado legislators approved a bill that outlines the creation of a CDPHE-funded water testing program specifically for mobile home parks. It requires site owners to cover the cost of remediation when issues are discovered (grants are available) and provide residents with safe water via filters or another approved method while those fixes are in progress.…

Wells Met

DENVER’S TOP DENTISTS 2023

DENTAL ANESTHESIOLOGY BROOMFIELD Rebecca Rees MILE HIGH DENTAL ANESTHESIA 11001 W. 120th Ave., Suite 400 720-315-1319 milehighda.com DENVER Taylor R. Gordon ALTITUDE ANESTHESIA GROUP 5600 W. 44th Ave., Suite 200 720-500-3504 altitudeanesthesia.com  Shaheen Moezzi ALTITUDE ANESTHESIA GROUP 5600 W. 44th Ave., Suite 200 720-500-3504 altitudeanesthesia.com LONE TREE Russell Yancey  MOUNTAIN DENTAL ANESTHESIA 9233 Park Meadows Drive 720-263-6177 mountainda.com ENDODONTICS ARVADA Matthew Kiebish AVOS DENTAL SPECIALISTS 14769 W. 87th Parkway 720-798-1200 avosds.com Emmanuel D. Paguio ART OF ENDODONTICS 9950 W. 80th Ave., Suite 21 303-422-0607 artofendo.com Ryan K. Stratton CLEAR CREEK ENDODONTICS 7375 W. 52nd Ave., Suite 330 303-432-3636 clearcreekendo.com AURORA David J. Holtzmann ENDODONTICS OF COLORADO 11200 E. Mississippi Ave. 303-696-1919 endoofco.com Benjamin Ricketts ALTITUDE ENDODONTICS 6240 S. Main St., Suite 285 303-627-5420 altitudeendo.com  Hesham A. Youssef AURORA ENDODONTICS 13741…

DENVER’S TOP DENTISTS 2023
DETACHING FROM DIGITAL

DETACHING FROM DIGITAL

After years of doomscrolling through Twitter, Facebook, and other apps for hours at a time, Jose Briones felt like the world had smacked him in the face. Literally: The 28-year-old Littleton pastor began suffering from eye strain and headaches, and after a little research, he discovered he wasn’t alone. Not only does excessive smartphone use affect memory and attention span and increase anxiety and stress, but it also causes the exact kind of pain he was experiencing. Briones gradually cut back on his phone time, launched a YouTube channel in 2019 where he talks about digital minimalism and slower tech, and published his first book, Low Tech Life, this past year. 5280 Health caught up with Briones to find out his five secrets for a digital-lite life. 1 DIVVY UP DEVICES…

Ill Effects

Ill Effects

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…

Better Balms

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…

Better Balms
A Different Me

A Different Me

When a gunman killed eight people, six of whom were women of Asian descent, at three spas in the Atlanta area on March 16, 2021, something shifted deep inside of me. I still looked like the same woman on the outside—a dark-haired, brown-skinned, 34-year-old woman—but I felt exposed, keenly aware of and self-conscious about the color of my skin. I was suddenly Asian. As the daughter of a Thai father and Chinese mother, I’ve always been aware of my heritage, but like many second-generation Americans who were brought up in mostly Caucasian communities, I strove to assimilate in white spaces. In public, I found solace in not drawing attention to my roots, in letting my ancestry be a quiet part of my identity in order to fit in with the…

Forests To Faucets

CONTAMINANTS As rain and snowmelt gather and flow through the South Platte, Blue, and Fraser rivers, the water picks up naturally occurring salts and metals such as aluminum and uranium. TREATMENT Step 1: Flocculation. Positively charged coagulants (typically, a metallic salt) are added to the raw water. They connect with the negatively charged particles—like dirt—and form heavy clumps, which drop down to the bottom of the basin. That sludge is pumped to outdoor drying beds; once dried, it’s either blended into a topsoil or shipped off to a landfill. DISTRIBUTION Around 3,000 miles of water mains deliver the now-potable water to customers. To ensure contaminants aren’t leaching into the pipes post-treatment, Denver Water has placed monitors throughout the distribution system to continuously check the product.…

Forests To Faucets

Always, Forever?

Last year, environmental groups monitoring Suncor Energy revealed that its Commerce City oil refinery was dumping PFAS—also known as “forever chemicals” — into Sand Creek at rates thousands of times higher than the EPA’s updated drinking water guidelines. With the waterway feeding into the South Platte River, a source of water for thousands of Coloradans, the news alarmed many people, who were left to wonder: What exactly are PFAS and how dangerous are they? We have your answers. What are PFAS? PFAS, or per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been around since the 1930s (hello, Teflon). The human-made chemical compounds—there are more than 12,000 types—repel water, grease, and oil. They were also seen as a boon to the manufacturing of carpets, food packaging, water-repellent clothing, nonstick cookware, firefighting foam, and even dental…

Always, Forever?

Blowing In The Wind

In May, the nonprofit Environment Colorado Research & Policy Center released some troubling findings from its study of 16 Front Range bodies of water: Microplastics were present in all of them. The teeny-weeny, smaller-than-a-pencil-tip pieces of plastic wash off our clothes, drift into rivers from landfills, or fall in raindrops. Research is still ongoing, but microplastics have been found to suffocate animals who ingest them. Water treatment plants stop most microplastics from entering our drinking water; still, the minute plastics have been found in people, and plastic waste is generally on the rise in the United States. Few federal health advisories or regulatory standards exist yet when it comes to microplastics in drinking water. But some efforts are underway: On January 1, for instance, statewide legislation kicked in that phases…

Blowing In The Wind

COLORADO’S TOP DOCTORS 2024

More than 800 of the state’s best physicians. For over 30 years, 5280 Publishing Inc. has been providing the must-have list of the best doctors in the Denver metro area. Recently, we partnered with Castle Connolly, a health care research and information company, to create a list of Colorado’s top physicians, specifically for 5280 Health. While some of the medical specialties represented will be different than they have been in the past, by working with Castle Connolly, 5280 Health is able to deliver a larger, statewide list of physicians, which we hope better serves our readers. Each listing provides the doctor’s name, hospital affiliations, employer or practice name, address, and phone number. ABOUT CASTLE CONNOLLY With more than 30 years’ experience researching, reviewing, and selecting top doctors, Castle Connolly is…

COLORADO’S TOP DOCTORS 2024

THE PROCESS

This list is pulled from the 2023 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 checked against state dental boards for disciplinary actions to make sure…

KNOW YOUR LIMITS

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…

Do No Harm

Do No Harm

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…

UNTAPPED

UNTAPPED

For a landlocked state, Colorado is wild about water. We swim in it, paddle in it, and (when it’s cold enough) ski on it. Plus, our H2O is delicious. Last year, one ranking of the best-tasting water in the United States and Canada gave Grand Junction the silver medal, while another list hailed Eldorado Springs as having the fifth-best municipal water worldwide. “We’re really fortunate to have pristine water sources coming out of the mountains,” says Nicole Poncelet, Denver Water’s director of water quality and treatment. “We’re largely a first user of raw water coming off the snowpack and the streams.” But as much as we would like to believe that the precious resource flows straight from the mountains to our mouths, it takes a lot of work to make…

The Kids Will Be Alright

Lead is known to be particularly harmful to kids and babies, as exposure to the metal can impede their growth and development, damage their brains, disrupt their hearing and speech, and cause learning and behavior problems. In Colorado, 72 percent of children under six years old have detectable levels of lead in their blood—well above the national average of 51 percent. So in 2022, Colorado passed legislation that required every public school, childcare center, and family childcare home in the state that serves kids in preschool through fifth grade to test their drinking water for lead by the end of May 2023. For the program, the state also lowered the acceptable lead threshold in those facilities to five parts per billion; if elevated numbers are detected, parents and staff are…

The Kids Will Be Alright

Filtered

1 Cyclopure Purefast filter cartridge, $45 2 Aquasana clean water machine, $400 3 Hydroviv under sink water filter, $420 4 ZeroWater ExtremeLife faucet mount, $45 TIP Want more options? Look for filters that have been approved by NSF, a not-for-profit product testing and certification company.…

Filtered

Slow Burn

Wildfires don’t just wreak havoc on our landscapes and our livelihoods. Whether they ignite deep in the forest or closer to urban areas, these blazes can impair the water supply by damaging watersheds, destroying infrastructure, and depositing contaminants that not all utilities are prepared for or have the money to address. The most significant water impacts tend to be short-term issues—though they can extend for up to a decade. To better understand those ramifications, we dug into three key issues created by recent Colorado blazes (most prominently the Marshall fire, which burned through Louisville and Superior at the end of 2021) and how institutions continue to address them. THREAT LEVEL WILDFIRES…

Slow Burn

COLORADO HOSPITALS

ASPEN VALLEY – Aspen Valley Hospital AURORA – The Medical Center of Aurora—HealthOne AVISTA – AdventHealth Avista—AdventHealth BANNER FORT COLLINS - Banner Fort Collins Medical Center—Banner Health BANNER MCKEE - Banner McKee Medical Center—Banner Health BANNER NORTH - Banner North Colorado Medical Center—Banner Health BMC – Boulder Medical Center BROOMFIELD – Broomfield Hospital—UCHealth CASTLE ROCK – AdventHealth Castle Rock—AdventHealth CHILDREN’S – Children’s Hospital Colorado CHILDREN’S COLORADO SPRINGS – Children’s Hospital Colorado, Colorado Springs CRAIG – Craig Hospital DELTA COUNTY MEMORIAL – Delta County Memorial Hospital DENVER HEALTH – Denver Health Medical Center FOOTHILLS – Foothills Hospital—Boulder Community Health GRAND RIVER – Grand River Health—Grand River Hospital District GOOD SAMARITAN – Good Samaritan Medical Center—Intermountain Health HIGHLANDS RANCH – UCHealth Highlands Ranch Hospital—UCHealth LITTLETON – AdventHealth Littleton—AdventHealth LITTLETON PEDIATRIC – Littleton…

SPECIALTIES

DENTAL ANESTHESIOLOGY PAGE 65 Manages pain and anxiety during oral surgery or other dental procedures using general and/or local anesthesia ENDODONTICS PAGE 65 Treats issues related to nerves and the inner portions of the tooth; root canals are a common procedure GENERAL DENTISTRY PAGE 66 Performs preventive dental care and basic upkeep of teeth, including cleanings and X-rays ORAL AND MAXILLOFACIAL SURGERY PAGE 75 Removes impacted teeth (such as wisdom teeth) and performs reconstructive surgeries, such as rebuilding broken jaws ORAL PATHOLOGY PAGE 76 Studies, identifies, and treats oral diseases ranging from potentially cancerous leukoplakia to canker sores ORTHODONTICS PAGE 76 Modifies bites or coaxes unruly teeth into alignment using braces and other devices PEDIATRIC DENTISTRY PAGE 78 Provides therapeutic and preventive care for kids PERIODONTICS PAGE 79 Specializes in…