CHIROPRACTIC CARE IMPROVES IMMUNITY
The chiropractic immunology connection was strengthened in 1991 when Patricia Brennan, Ph.D. and other researchers conducted a study that found improved immune response following chiropractic treatment. Specifically, the study demonstrated the "phagocytic respiratory burst of polymorphnuclear neutrophils (PMN) and monocytes were enhanced in adults that had been adjusted by chiropractors." In other words, the cells that act like "Pac-Man" eating and destroying bad cells are enhanced through chiropractic care.
Brennan P, Graham M, Triano J, Hondras M. "Enhanced phagocytic cell respiratory bursts induced by spinal manipulation: Potential Role of Substance P." J Manip Physiolog Ther 1991; (14)7:399-400.
Brennan P, Graham M, Triano J, Hondras M. "Enhanced phagocytic cell respiratory bursts induced by spinal manipulation: Potential Role of Substance P." J Manip Physiolog Ther 1991; (14)7:399-400.
BOOSTING YOUR IMMUNITY THROUGH CHIROPRACTIC
In 1975, Ronald Pero, Ph.D., chief of cancer prevention research at New York's Preventive Medical Institute and Professor of Medicine in Environmental Health at New York University, began developing scientifically valid ways to estimate individual susceptibility to various chronic diseases. Pero and his colleagues found strong evidence that susceptibility to cancer could be gauged by the activities of various enzymes involved in metabolic and genetic changes from exposure to carcinogenic or "mutagenic" chemicals. An individual's immune system responsiveness, or "immune competence," also was directly linked to certain DNA repairing enzymes that provided an objective way to assess disease susceptibility. Lack of those enzymes, Pero said, "definitely limits not only your lifespan, but also your ability to resist serious disease consequences."
Pero was fascinated by various hormones' synergistic relationship with other cancer-inducing agents to promote the disease. For example, thyroid hormones affect the early phases of radiation- and chemically-induced cancers. If the thyroid produces too much of either thyroxine or thyroidstimulating hormone, cancer risk greatly increases. And because the nervous system regulates hormonal balances, it too can influence susceptibility to cancer. Along these lines, various kinds of spinal cord injuries are accompanied by a high risk of developing cancer, particularly lymphoma and lymphatic leukemia. This connection led Pero to consider chiropractic a potential alternative for reducing the risk of immune breakdown and disease.
In 1986, Pero collaborated with Joseph Flesia, D.C., Chairman of the Board of Directors for Chiropractic Basic Science Research Foundation (CBSRF). With a grant from CBSRF, they began a research project at the University of Lund in Lund, Sweden. Using Pero's tests to gauge resistance to hazardous environmental chemicals, they hypothesized that people with cancer would have a suppressed immune response to such a toxic burden, while healthy people and those receiving chiropractic care would have a relatively enhanced response.
Measuring 107 individuals who had received long term chiropractic care, Pero's team had surprising findings. All chiropractic patients were `genetically normal, " that is, they had no obvious genetic reasons for increased resistance or susceptibility to disease. Any difference, therefore, had to be accounted for by environmental or therapeutic factors. The chiropractic patients also had 200% greater immune competence than those who had not received chiropractic care, and 400% greater immune competence than those with cancer or other serious diseases. Despite a wide range of ages in this study, immune competence did not show any decline with age; it was uniform for the entire group.
Pero concluded that "chiropractic may optimize whatever genetic abilities you have" so that you can fully resist serious disease. "I'm very excited to see that without chemical intervention ...this particular group of patients under chiropractic care did show a very improved response," he told CBSRF. "These changes occur from chiropractic treatment."
Source: East West Health Magazine, November, 1989.
Pero was fascinated by various hormones' synergistic relationship with other cancer-inducing agents to promote the disease. For example, thyroid hormones affect the early phases of radiation- and chemically-induced cancers. If the thyroid produces too much of either thyroxine or thyroidstimulating hormone, cancer risk greatly increases. And because the nervous system regulates hormonal balances, it too can influence susceptibility to cancer. Along these lines, various kinds of spinal cord injuries are accompanied by a high risk of developing cancer, particularly lymphoma and lymphatic leukemia. This connection led Pero to consider chiropractic a potential alternative for reducing the risk of immune breakdown and disease.
In 1986, Pero collaborated with Joseph Flesia, D.C., Chairman of the Board of Directors for Chiropractic Basic Science Research Foundation (CBSRF). With a grant from CBSRF, they began a research project at the University of Lund in Lund, Sweden. Using Pero's tests to gauge resistance to hazardous environmental chemicals, they hypothesized that people with cancer would have a suppressed immune response to such a toxic burden, while healthy people and those receiving chiropractic care would have a relatively enhanced response.
Measuring 107 individuals who had received long term chiropractic care, Pero's team had surprising findings. All chiropractic patients were `genetically normal, " that is, they had no obvious genetic reasons for increased resistance or susceptibility to disease. Any difference, therefore, had to be accounted for by environmental or therapeutic factors. The chiropractic patients also had 200% greater immune competence than those who had not received chiropractic care, and 400% greater immune competence than those with cancer or other serious diseases. Despite a wide range of ages in this study, immune competence did not show any decline with age; it was uniform for the entire group.
Pero concluded that "chiropractic may optimize whatever genetic abilities you have" so that you can fully resist serious disease. "I'm very excited to see that without chemical intervention ...this particular group of patients under chiropractic care did show a very improved response," he told CBSRF. "These changes occur from chiropractic treatment."
Source: East West Health Magazine, November, 1989.
Innovative imaging study shows that the spinal cord learns on it's own
The spinal cord engages in its own learning of motor tasks independent of the brain, according to an innovative imaging study publishing in Open Access journal PLOS Biology. The results of the study, conducted by Shahabeddin Vahdat, Ovidui Lungu, and principal investigator Julien Doyon, of the University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, may offer new opportunities for rehabilitation after spinal cord injury.
Learning a complex motor task, such as touch typing or playing the piano, induces changes in the brain, which can be monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). During learning, sensory information and motor commands pass through the spinal cord, but to date it has been challenging to perform fMRI on the brain and spinal cord simultaneously, and thus it has been difficult to determine whether observed changes in the spinal cord during motor skill acquisition depend entirely on signals from the brain, or occur independently. That barrier was overcome for the first time in this study by taking advantage of the fact that the 3.0T MRI scanner had a field of view long enough to image the brain and the cervical spinal cord, which relays signals to and from the hand muscles. Using this technique on subjects performing a complex finger tapping task, the authors showed that learning-related changes in blood flow in the spinal cord were independent of changes in blood flow in the brain regions involved in the task.
The results of the study indicate that the spinal cord plays an active role in the very earliest stages of motor learning. Future work will be needed to confirm that the changes seen in the spinal cord persist over time and generalize to other stages of learning and other forms of motor skills. The discovery of an independent role in learning for the spinal cord may provide new avenues for relearning motor tasks after spinal cord injury, when the connections between brain and cord are impaired.
Published: Wednesday 1 July 2015 by Medical News Today
Simultaneous Brain–Cervical Cord fMRI Reveals Intrinsic Spinal Cord Plasticity during Motor Sequence Learning, Shahabeddin Vahdat , Ovidiu Lungu , Julien Cohen-Adad, Veronique Marchand-Pauvert, Habib Benali, Julien Doyon, PLOS Biology, doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002186, published 30 June 2015.
Learning a complex motor task, such as touch typing or playing the piano, induces changes in the brain, which can be monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). During learning, sensory information and motor commands pass through the spinal cord, but to date it has been challenging to perform fMRI on the brain and spinal cord simultaneously, and thus it has been difficult to determine whether observed changes in the spinal cord during motor skill acquisition depend entirely on signals from the brain, or occur independently. That barrier was overcome for the first time in this study by taking advantage of the fact that the 3.0T MRI scanner had a field of view long enough to image the brain and the cervical spinal cord, which relays signals to and from the hand muscles. Using this technique on subjects performing a complex finger tapping task, the authors showed that learning-related changes in blood flow in the spinal cord were independent of changes in blood flow in the brain regions involved in the task.
The results of the study indicate that the spinal cord plays an active role in the very earliest stages of motor learning. Future work will be needed to confirm that the changes seen in the spinal cord persist over time and generalize to other stages of learning and other forms of motor skills. The discovery of an independent role in learning for the spinal cord may provide new avenues for relearning motor tasks after spinal cord injury, when the connections between brain and cord are impaired.
Published: Wednesday 1 July 2015 by Medical News Today
Simultaneous Brain–Cervical Cord fMRI Reveals Intrinsic Spinal Cord Plasticity during Motor Sequence Learning, Shahabeddin Vahdat , Ovidiu Lungu , Julien Cohen-Adad, Veronique Marchand-Pauvert, Habib Benali, Julien Doyon, PLOS Biology, doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002186, published 30 June 2015.
