The Spinal Column, Summer/Fall 2016
Dear Patients and Friends,
Your spine is like a fuse box for your body. Countless nerve messages flow through the spine from the brain to every muscle, organ, blood vessel and system and back again every second. Even small disturbances in movement and alignment of the spinal vertebrae (called “subluxations” by chiropractors) subtly affect the flow and can cause stress in any part of your body. Conversely stress on any part of the body stemming from physical/postural, chemical or emotional sources can cause subluxations, which in turn cause more stress.
Unlike a blown fuse causes the whole circuit to shut down, a subluxation may cause only subtle disturbances in nerve flow. These disturbances may stay under the radar for weeks, months or even years, but contribute to the load of ongoing stress which your body and nervous system must deal with. They may become suddenly symptomatic with no apparent provocation, such as when you develop a symptom like back pain, sciatica or neck stiffness which seems to come out of the blue. They may surface during a period of extra stress and then subside when the stress passes, only to recur at the next stressful opportunity.
Because your spine responds to everything going on in your life, the best way to take care of it is to do the things you know are essential to attain and maintain good lasting health, including:
· Good posture while sleeping and sitting
· Appropriate exercise: A mix of walking and? or more vigorous aerobic activity, plus stretching and strengthening
· An anti-inflammation diet and basic anti-inflammatory supplements
· Emotional self-care such as include meditation, prayer, cultivating loving relationships with family and friends, and being kind to yourself
However, even with our best efforts, the stresses of life, along with past mistakes or traumas and present habits and indulgences, inevitably cause some short-circuits that lead to spinal imbalances. Once they are there, subluxations remain to cause ongoing stress.
That is where chiropractic comes in. Periodic spinal adjustments help release disturbances caused by the stress and trauma of life and restore harmony and balance. If you have not been able to take care of yourself as well as you know you need to, adjustments help reduce some of the stress and fallout. Chiropractic can help you reverse the layers of stress you have accumulated, both with spinal adjustments and guidance around exercise and nutrition. If you are in a healthy lifestyle groove, chiropractic adjustments help you stay on course and overcome the inevitable challenges of life’s stresses.
Yours for better health, naturally,
Mha Atma S. Khalsa, D.C.
Chiropractic Research News
Latest research on chiropractic treatment of chronic low back pain: A new study published in the prestigious medical journal Spine, evaluated two types of chiropractic treatment of chronic lower back pain. Researchers at the Palmer Center for Chiropractic research recruited 192 patients between 21 and 55 years old who had lower back pain lasting 4 weeks or longer. 90 percent of them had back pain lasting more than three months, and 62% more than a year. Subjects were divided into three groups. The first group received standard chiropractic adjustments to the lower back, twice weekly for two weeks only. The second group was treated twice weekly for two weeks with “flexion-distraction,” a chiropractic technique involving hands-on intermittent traction of the lower back. The third group was evaluated but received no treatment. After two weeks of treatment both chiropractic groups experienced significant improvement in pain and disability compared to the no-treatment group. The researchers commented that this was even more significant since previous studies support a standard for such patients of 12 treatments over four to six weeks. There were no negative side-effects reported by any of the patients. (NOTE from Dr. Mha Atma: In standard chiropractic practice patients often receive treatment as needed to their entire spine, not just the lower back, as well as counseling in back exercises and nutrition, all of which make treatment even more effective.) Spine 41(12) E702-E70.
Chiropractic growing fast in VA: The Department of Veterans Affairs, funded by the Federal Government, is the largest health care system in the USA. It includes 144 hospitals, more than 1,400 other facilities, and services more than 9 million of America’s 22 million war veterans. Chiropractic services began to be offered through the VA in 1999. An article in the JMPT outlines the growth of chiropractic in the VA. From 2004 to 2015 the annual number of patients seen by doctors of chiropractic in VA clinics increased from 4,052 to 37,349 and the number of chiropractic visits from 20,072 to 159,366. In addition, outside chiropractors contracted by the VA to render service to veterans gave over 159,000 adjustments to over 19,000 patients in 2015. (Note: Dr. Mha Atma is one of the VA’s contracted chiropractic doctors.) JMPT 32:330-343
Chiropractic reduces opioid use and harm: A new study published in JMPT, analyzing Medicare data, presents the case that greater use of chiropractic services has promising potential for reducing America’s “expensive and expanding opioid use epidemic.” The study by prominent researchers William Weeks, MD, PhD of Dartmouth and Christine Goertz, DC, PhD of Palmer Chiropractic College shows reduced opioid prescriptions in US regions with more doctors of chiropractic, and links that with research evidence showing that chiropractic treatment of spinal pain is more effective than usual medical care, which very commonly includes prescription of opioids. The study found that the supply of chiropractors per 1,000 Medicare beneficiaries, and per capita spending on chiropractic treatment strongly correlated with reduced opioid prescriptions. The researchers recommended that Medicare actively encourage doctors to send patients with neck and back pain for a trial of chiropractic treatment before resorting to prescription of opioids. They pointed to a study published in 2012 in the Annals of Internal Medicine which compared chiropractic treatment, exercise and medical management of patients with neck pain. Patients in the chiropractic and in the exercise group did much better than the medication group. None of the 182 patients in the first two groups took opioids, while 80 of the 90 in the medical management group took opiods. JMPT 39:263-266 Ann Itern Med 156:1-10
http://www.toyourhealth.com/mpacms/tyh/article.php?id=2284
Not Fit? You Might as Well Be a Smoker
A recent study expands on a concept put forth a few years ago regarding physical activity: lack of it can be just as dangerous as smoking when it comes to your health. “Sitting is the new smoking” was an oft-repeated phrase in health care and the workplace, but it may be supplanted by an even more encompassing phrase: “Being out of shape is the new smoking.”
In the study in question, researchers measured maximum oxygen intake (aerobic capacity – a measure of physical fitness) in nearly 800 men beginning way back in 1967 and measured about once every decade for more than 35 years, until 2012. Men averaged 50 years of age at study inception and were tracked for the entire study period (or as long as they lived).
Results were significant when comparing men based on low, medium or high aerobic capacity: Men with the lowest aerobic capacity were 21 percent more likely to die prematurely compared with men with medium aerobic capacity and 42 percent more at risk compared to men with the highest / best aerobic capacity.
Don’t smoke? Great. Don’t exercise? You might as well be a smoker when it comes to the health risk. If you’re struggling to lose weight, get in shape or otherwise maximize your fitness level (and hopefully, your aerobic capacity), talk to your doctor for tips on how to do it the right way.
Side-Effects of Aspartame (ie Diet Soda) on the Brain
By: Michael Greger M.D.
The National Institutes of Health AARP study of hundreds of thousands of Americans followed for years found that frequent consumption of sweetened beverages, especially diet drinks, may increase depression risk among older adults. Whether soda, fruit-flavored drinks, or iced tea, those artificially sweetened drinks appeared to carry higher risk. There was a benefit in coffee drinkers compared to non-drinkers, but if they added sugar, much of the benefits appeared to disappear, and if they added Equal or Sweet-and-Low, the risk appeared to go up.
Various effects of artificial sweeteners, including neurological effects, have been suspected. For example, aspartame—the chemical in Equal and NutraSweet—may modulate brain neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin, although data have been controversial and inconsistent. Scientific opinions range from “safe under all conditions” to “unsafe at any dose.” The controversy started in the 80’s soon after aspartame was approved. Researchers at the Mass College of Pharmacy and MIT noted:
“given the very large number of Americans routinely exposed, if only 1% of the 100,000,000 Americans thought to consume aspartame ever exceed the sweetener’s acceptable daily intake, and if only 1% of this group happen coincidentally to have an underlying disease that makes their brains vulnerable to the effects, then the number of people who might manifest adverse brain reactions attributable to aspartame could still be about 10,000, a number on the same order as the number of brain and nerve-related consumer complaints already registered with the FDA before they stopped accepting further reports on adverse reactions to the sweetener.”
Those with a history of depression might be especially vulnerable. Researchers at Case Western designed a study I highlighted in my video Aspartame and the Brain to ascertain whether individuals with mood disorders are particularly vulnerable to adverse effects of aspartame. Although they had planned on recruiting 40 patients with depression and 40 controls, the project was halted early by the Institutional Review Board for safety reasons because of the severity of reactions to aspartame within the group of patients with a history of depression.
It was decided that it was unethical to continue to expose people to the stuff.
Normally when we study a drug or a food, the company donates the product to the researchers because they’re proud of the benefits or safety of their product. But the Nutrasweet company refused to even sell it to these researchers. The researchers managed to get their hands on some, and within a week there were significantly more adverse effects reported in the aspartame group than in the placebo group. They concluded that individuals with mood disorders may be particularly sensitive to aspartame, and therefore its use in this population should be discouraged.
In a review of the direct and indirect cellular effects of aspartame on the brain, it was noted that there are reports of aspartame causing neurological and behavioral disturbances in sensitive individuals, such as headaches, insomnia and seizures. The researchers go even further and propose that excessive aspartame ingestion might be involved in the development of certain mental disorders and also in compromised learning and emotional functioning. They conclude that “due to all the adverse effects caused by aspartame, it is suggested that serious further testing and research be undertaken to eliminate any and all controversies,” to which someone responded in the journal that “there really is no controversy,” arguing that aspartame was conclusively toxic.
But what do they mean by excessive ingestion? The latest study on the neuro-behavioral effects of aspartame consumption put people on a high aspartame diet compared to a low aspartame diet. But even the high dose at 25 mg/kg was only half the adequate daily intake set by the FDA. The FDA says one can safely consume 50mg a day, but after just eight days on half of that, participants had more irritable mood, exhibited more depression, and performed worse on certain brain function tests. And these weren’t people with a pre-existing history of mental illness; these were just regular people. The researchers concluded that “given that the higher intake level tested here was well below the maximum acceptable daily intake level [40mg in Europe, 50mg here] careful consideration is warranted when consuming food products that may affect neurobehavioral health.”
Easier said than done, since it’s found in more than 6,000 foods, apparently making artificial sweeteners “impossible to completely eradicate from daily exposure.” While that may be true for the great majority of Americans, it’s only because they elect to eat processed foods. If we stick to whole foods, we don’t even have to read the ingredients lists, because the healthiest foods in the supermarket are label-free, they don’t even have ingredients lists—produce!