Two Studies

As a chiropractor, I’ve always considered it my job to help people age gracefully and deal with any health concerns without taking a bunch of drugs.  Obviously, this objective is a more holistic view focused on overall health.  Unfortunately, due to the branding of the profession through the 70’s and 80’s the chiropractor became known merely as a lower cost treatment for neck pain, back pain, and headaches.  While there’s certainly value in this to the person in pain, it doesn’t have much to do with overall health.  With this in mind, I wanted to look for studies that showed a correlation between chiropractic care and improved health and wellness.  I quickly found two similar studies that were published in recent years.

In the first study, the researchers looked at individuals over 75 years of age and they compared those who were chiropractic patients to those who had not seen a chiropractor for any health concern.  The individuals in the chiropractic group reported, “Better overall health, fewer prescription drugs, and more activity.”  Even more impressively, the chiropractic group on average had 21% less time in hospitals over the three year period prior to the study.

In the second study, they looked at senior citizens over the age of 65.  But in this study, they wanted to look only at those individuals who had been under regular chiropractic or “maintenance care” at a frequency of at least once per month for five years or longer.  In this study, they found that the chiropractic group had 50% fewer medical provider visits and 95.8% of those surveyed found their chiropractic care to be “considerably” or “extremely” valuable.

How can this be?  It starts by recognizing that health is an inside job.  Our bodies are designed to be self-healing and self-regulating.  The brain and nervous system control all the functions of the body through the nerve signals that travel down through the bones of the spine.  When, from various lifestyle stresses, those bones of the spine should become misaligned, they will place tension and pressure on the delicate nerves causing interference or a lack of communication between the brain and the body.  A chiropractor’s job is to detect and correct these misalignments so that the nervous system can function as it was designed and the body can better express its full potential.  While both of these studies cited were looking at individuals over 65, please recognize that what’s true for an older population who likely has more accumulated life stresses and health problems, will be every bit as true for younger populations as well.