Intervention vs Non-intervention

When it comes to a health care professional addressing the health care needs of a person, there are essentially two approaches. The first and most common is intervention care. In this approach, the doctor or health care professional intervenes in the function of the body. That intervention may be as minimal as giving over-the-counter medication or as drastic as major surgery. The assumption on the part of the one who is intervening is that their professional expertise has given them the ability and the right to determine what is best for the body. There are, no doubt, occasions when intervention is necessary. First-aid measures save lives that would otherwise be lost. However, there are other situations when the need for intervention is not so clearly demonstrated. In these situations, the health care practitioner may or may not be doing more harm than good. In still other situations, intervention is clearly NOT called for. Whenever there is intervention, harm is done to the body, even if it is only taking an aspirin for a headache that will be gone after a good night’s sleep. You can see that intervention may be dangerous, that it takes great knowledge (perhaps more than any human being has), often is an educated guess and is always accompanied by an uncertain outcome to some degree.

A second approach is non-intervention. It involves doing something FOR the body rather than TO the body. Its objective is to remove an obstacle or interference to the proper function of the organism. With this approach, the practitioner does not determine what the body needs, how much or in what quantity. He/she only determines what the body does NOT need and seeks to remove that interference. The desire is not to add anything to the body nor to take away anything that it was designed to have. Practitioners of non-intervening approaches believe that the less that is done to the body, the better off it is. They acknowledge that on occasions it may be necessary to intervene, to do something to the body, but that is not their objective.

Chiropractic is a non-intervening profession. The chiropractor recognizes that vertebral subluxation interferes with the function of the nerve system and as such, causes a lack within the body-that of proper nerve flow. He does not intervene in the function of the body. He does not try to increase or decrease its function. He does not try to add anything or take anything away. His sole objective is to introduce a slight force which the body can use to correct its own subluxation. In this day when there is so much intervention, so many people trying to run the body, trying to supersede nature, trying to alter physical function to conform to their idea as to what it should be, it is nice to know that there is another profession that wants to do nothing more than remove interference impeding the function of the body.

Present vs. Future

Have you ever asked yourself where you want to be with your life in the future? In these instant-gratification, quick-fix, drive-thru days in which we live, people tend to focus on what is happening and how they feel right now. Not feeling good? Pop a pill to ease the pain. Hungry? Grab some fast food. Bored? Turn on the television. Tired? Get a cup of coffee. So many people make decisions and take actions based on a current event, without looking at the possible consequences. Let me ask you, have you ever known a very happy, healthy and successful pill-popping, fast food-eating, 10-hour-a-day television watching person on a constant caffeine high? Me neither. Quick fixes maybe comforting in the moment, but they rarely provide long-term solutions.

I am asking you to think about what you want to be, not in the present moment, but in the future. Let’s take your health as an example. Your health is based on many factors: exercise, diet, nerve supply, rest, genetics, etc., but the key thing to understand is your health today is the result of actions you took (or failed to take) in the past. You may think that how you are today is just a current event, but in reality it is the result of a process. This may sound elementary, but if you take this concept to heart and put it into action, it can literally be life changing. Everything you do today is going to determine how you will be in the future.

This concept of looking at life as a process and not just a single event has been discussed in chiropractic for decades. In chiropractic there is a concept of “survival values.” Things that we do each day are either positive or negative towards our health and function in the future. Positive activities, such as having a proper nerve supply, eating nutritious foods, resting, etc., are known in chiropractic as “constructive survival values.” On the other hand, negative events like vertebral subluxation, injuries, drugs, toxins, emotional stress, watching 10 hours of television a day, eating fast food, etc., are known as “destructive survival values.” In this model, your life and health are determined by the accumulation of both constructive and destructive survival values over time. When you look at things such as health as a process and not merely an event, you begin to realize the importance of constantly and continually striving to add constructive survival values to your life.

Since health is just one aspect of human performance and human performance is in large part regulated by the nerve system, chiropractic plays a key role in your health over time. By having vertebral subluxations adjusted (spinal misalignments that interfere with nerve function), you allow your body to better express information through the nerve system. This leads to better performance and better health. Each time a vertebral subluxation is corrected, you accumulate a constructive survival value towards your life and will be better for it in the future.

If you want to be better in the future than you are today, one step in the process is regular chiropractic spinal checks. Having your spine checked only when you have a symptom simply shows that you are not interested in improving your life in the future and that you are only looking for a quick solution to a current event. While it is true that the adjustment may provide you with a quick-fix, that is not the intent behind chiropractic. Chiropractic is about adding constructive survival values to your life so that you will be better in the future.

Emotional Stress

Chiropractors have been talking for years about the fact that physical, chemical, and emotional stresses can cause the spine to subluxate and interfere with proper function in the body. People have no problem understanding how a physical stress, such as falling, lifting, or repeated motions, can cause subluxations. While chemical stresses may be a little more difficult to understand, after a little explanation people see how chemicals and poisons in the body affect the spinal musculature and can also cause the spine to subluxate. Today, more than ever, we are hearing about the effect that emotional stress can have on the body. People understand the link between emotional stress and ulcers, heart disease and headaches. Similarly, emotional stress can result in subluxation. There are probably a number of mechanisms but research done at Ohio State University has recently demonstrated some interesting results.

A group of college students repeatedly lifted 25-pound boxes while a special measuring device calculated the pressure on the students’ spines. During the first half of the experiment researchers offered words of encouragement to the participants while they were performing their tasks. In the second half of the experiment, the students were criticized, sort of like having your boss yelling at you while you are doing your job. While some of the students were not bothered at all, others, particularly introverted students who did not handle criticism well and who dislike repetitive work to start with, demonstrated an almost 27% increase in pressure on the spine. Clearly, a 27% increase of pressure on the spine could subluxate a person. William Marras, professor of industrial engineering at OSU said, “What this shows is that there is a body-mind interaction that manifests itself as pressure on the spine.” Of course, if a person is already subluxated, then the spine is weakened and this stress can have even greater repercussions. The researchers were limiting their research to job-related pressure but they concluded that the same findings could occur “anywhere exertion and stress combine.” That could be the pressure of athletic competition or even non-physical stressful situations like talking on the phone with the head titled at an angle, sitting at a computer, or any kind of repetitive work while experiencing the pressures of your job. Except for major physical traumas, it is likely that almost all subluxations occur as a result of a combination of physical, chemical, and emotional stresses upon the body. Clearly, if you are subluxation free you will be better able to withstand those forces. Yet, in this stressful world even the strongest spines will subluxate given certain circumstances. That is why it is important to keep your spine adjusted, so that you can withstand stress and so that when it does cause a subluxation, it can be corrected as quickly as possible. See your chiropractor regularly.

What Are Symptoms?

No one enjoys feeling poorly, or suffering and experiencing pain. Symptoms are unpleasant. We have been taught to view them as bad and we seek ways to alleviate them as quickly as possible, but it is often without regard for our health or without understanding their role in our health and well-being.

It is important that we understand that pain and symptoms are not always bad. Our body was designed with an intricate warning system in order to make us aware of injury, harm and danger. Pain tells us to avoid hot stoves, remove the pebble in our shoe and in a hundred other ways, how to prevent injury and harm. To cover up pain in these types of situations is not only unwise, it is dangerous and often invites further serious injury. It is like having an expensive fire alarm system in your home and disconnecting it before going to sleep so that it does not awaken you in the middle of the night. That is its job! Further, symptoms can possibly be an indication that the body is doing its job perfectly. Eating tainted food could precipitate a bout of vomiting and diarrhea. While they are admittedly two of the most unpleasant symptoms, they could save your life as they rid your body of unwanted toxins. Trying to prevent these symptoms could be harmful to your body.

We must understand that the service the chiropractor provides is not related to symptoms. This is what makes chiropractic different from therapeutic services like medicine. The vertebral subluxation, a misalignment which interferes with the proper functioning of the nervous system generally has no symptoms. That is what makes it so dangerous. It can occur in anyone and give no indication of its presence. But when the spine is subluxated, the entire body is being deprived of its ability to function at its fullest potential. That is a serious matter. To wait until symptoms appear, as a result of perhaps months or years of improper function, it not the best approach to maintaining one’s health.

While chiropractic is not a treatment for symptoms or their cause, the person receiving chiropractic must have an understanding of the role of pain and symptoms so that he or she can make intelligent decisions regarding matters of health. Dr. Brittian, as always, is happy to explain to you further our role in your health and well-being so that you can be a better informed person and a better expression of life and health.

The Status of Healthcare

There is a real problem blooming in what we call our health care system. No, I am not referring to the widely debated legislation passed a few weeks ago, but rather a problem that is frightening to those of us who are involved in the delivery of health care. The problem is that as much as individuals like to attack medicine along with its shortcomings and dangers, the fact is that medical practice is becoming more effective every year. Now, the question may arise; how is that a problem? If drugs are becoming that much more effective and that less harmful, isn’t that a good thing? It is safer today than it was 10 or 15 years ago to have heart bypass surgery, something that today is considered routine, isn’t that a good thing? If traditional medicine is able to develop new drugs that can relieve people’s ills for longer and longer periods of time, then aren’t we making progress? When all we are doing is relieving certain symptoms and allowing individuals to feel fine and not making them healthier, are we really making a difference? To feel more comfortable until you die may be a benefit to some but not for the many who are still years from their deaths. Let’s not mistake comfortable deaths with the full expression of health. If we have virtually wiped out smallpox and developed a new vaccine for chicken pox but AIDS is growing every year, have we really made any progress? A recent study has shown that if cancer was completely eliminated today (which is highly unlikely in as much as the incidence of the disease is increasing), the average life span would only be increased by less than 1.5 years.

Here is the danger--medical advances may lull us into believing either that we are healthier or that being healthy is not important as long as we are disease-free. Yet, ridding the world of a disease like cancer will only increase the lifespan at best by 1.5 years and perhaps not that much if other diseases take its place as the killers. Medicine’s progress is like the individual who cannot seem to live within a budget and is constantly using his credit card until it is “maxed out.” Then the credit card company tells him not to worry because his limit has been increased by $2,000. That is the worst thing that could happen to him. It will treat the symptom for a while longer, delaying the ultimate which will be worse; he will have $2,000 more debt! But saddest of all, it will prevent him from addressing the real problem. His lifestyle and budget need to be altered so he can live without running to an ATM every day.

Correspondingly, the greatest danger of medicine is that it works. It relieves symptoms, treats disease and makes you feel better to the point that you think you are better. Unfortunately, it has little to do with health. Mastering bypass surgery will not encourage us to live healthier lives which may lead to healthier hearts and thus prevent the very need for the surgery. Health is the real need. People need to know that true health comes from within. It consists of doing those things necessary to be healthy including eating right, getting proper rest, exercising, keeping the body from pollutants and maintaining a positive mental attitude. Most importantly, it includes visiting the chiropractor on a regular basis so that nerve interference at the spinal level is removed and the body’s nervous system is free to coordinate the function of every single organ tissue and cell in your body and allow your body to express optimum health.

Chiropractic and research

Chiropractic as a way of healthcare is based on the connection and advancement of three things. Just like any structure of importance, its strength is based on having a strong foundation. A common support system that stands strong is pillars. Chiropractic as a practice is made strong itself by three pillars. One pillar is through the philosophy that the body was built intelligently enough to adapt to environmental stresses and express health when there is nothing impeding its function. The next pillar being the Art of the adjustment, is a skill learned to deliver a specific thrust, with calculated force, in a predetermined vector to reduce and remove the subluxation. The final and just as important pillar of the trio being the science, the science that is driven by research aimed to advance our knowledge as we gain more information in delivering chiropractic care.

As the past year has come to an end, a review of the chiropractic literature revealed promising advances in our understanding of the benefits of regular chiropractic care. A study published by Zhongguo Gu Shang in June of last year reported that spinal manipulation may cure Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Researchers in China did an analysis of 82 patients with irritable bowel syndrome who received spinal manipulation to the mid and lower spine regions. The outcome revealed that 91 percent of the patients were cured and the others remaining showed significant improvement. The study concluded that unstable vertebrae caused pressure compromising nerve and blood supply to the affected area resulting in irritable bowel syndrome.

Another study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complement Medicine suggests that chiropractic care and resistance training is extremely effective in the functional quality of woman with fibromyalgia. The experiment done at Florida State University, separated 48 women suffering from fibromyalgia into two groups, both groups completing 16 weeks of resistance training with one group receiving chiropractic care as well. The study showed improvements with the fibromyalgia in both groups, but the women in the chiropractic group showed greater results. In concluding, “the addition of chiropractic treatment improved adherence and dropout rates to the resistance training and facilitated greater improvements in the domain of functionality.”

The studies discussed above are only a few of many done in 2009. However, these studies are crucial in the advancement of chiropractic as we gain modern information. As mentioned in previous discussions, chiropractic does not search for a specific symptom or disease process, but removes the pressure on nerves and allows the body to manifest health regardless of the ailment. Keep your spine checked regularly by your chiropractor.

Have you had your artichokes?

It is important that when we speak of embracing a healthy lifestyle we incorporate optimal nutrition into our lives. A balanced diet is an essential part of the chiropractic lifestyle. This lifestyle is centered on disease prevention that includes regular chiropractic care, active living via exercise, and many other preventive measures.

One of the biggest health concerns in society today is the booming rate of cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease may in part be related to our genetic make-up, but an overwhelming contributor is lifestyle choices such as nutrition. Providentially, recent studies indicates that artichoke enriched diets may keep cholesterol levels within the normal range. One study published in 2008 in the journal Phytomedicine contrasted a group of adults with elevated blood cholesterol. One group of the study participants was given artichoke leaf extract, while the other group a placebo. The study concluded that the artichoke leaf extract consumption group displayed a positive statistically significant difference in total cholesterol after 3 months.

Along with its ability to decrease cardiovascular disease, artichokes may also promote liver health, primarily amongst individuals exposed to toxins, have compromised liver function, or are heavy drinkers. In addition, artichokes have been shown to weaken irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and other digestive problems. Recent research published in the Journal of Alternative and Complemintary Medicine discussed the effects of artichoke leaf extract on over 200 adults who were suffering from IBS. The results showed a greater than 26% decrease in incidence of IBS amongst the group.

Artichokes contain many nutrients that are effective in promoting a preventive environment from such diseases as cardiovascular, irritable bowel syndrome, and those affecting the liver. They contain elevated levels of fiber, vitamin C, and folic acid. They also provide an avenue of potassium, phosphorus, chromium, iron, magnesium, and calcium. Artichokes have all of these benefits contained in a small amount of calories and no low density lipoprotiens (LDLs) that causes high cholesterol.

Living a healthy lifestyle requires more than just the occasional run in the park, or a bi-weekly visit to your chiropractor. An optimal healthy lifestyle consistently needs to include an appropriate activity level, regular visits to your chiropractor to remove or reduce subluxations, and a diet that is rich in nutrients that embeds preventive measures.