Your Health

 

Courtesy of:

John H. Keefe III, D.C.

(918) 663-1111

 

IN THE NEWS: Children exposed to second-hand smoke are more likely to develop arthritis as adults, groundbreaking study claims Children who are exposed to second-hand smoke are more likely to develop arthritis later in life, a groundbreaking study claims. Research has previously found a link between active smokers and rheumatoid arthritis, claiming female smokers nearly double their risk for the condition. Now experts claim there is also an increased risk of developing the disease if a smoker was around second-hand smoke as a child. French medical experts reported there is a 79 percent increase in the hazard ratio for children exposed to passive smoking. This is the first study to suggest there is a connection between the painful condition and early exposure to second-hand smoke. Smokers who are exposed to cigarette smoke during their childhood increase their risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, a groundbreaking French study claims. Results of the study was presented to the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology in Spain. Around 1.5 million Americans have rheumatoid arthritis and women are three times more likely than men to develop this form of the condition. The common auto-immune disease results in inflammation of joints, causing pain, discomfort and the gradual destruction of cartilage and bone. Research dating back to 2013 has found the connection between women smokers and rheumatoid arthritis. Professor Raphaèle Seror, the study's lead author from University Hospitals of South Paris, said: 'Our study highlights the importance of avoiding any tobacco environment in children, especially in those with a family history of RA.' The study followed 70,598 women who are all smokers, born between 1925 and 1950, from 1990 to 2014.

WELLNESS: Cherries — A Potent Super Food Sweet cherries are a great source of potassium, which is important for maintaining normal blood pressure, and contain a number of potent anticancer agents. Tart cherries have been shown to improve athletic performance, endurance and recovery, reducing post-exercise pain and inflammation. Tart cherries also help relieve and prevent arthritis and gout. If you live in a sub-tropical area, growing acerola cherry trees in your backyard can provide you with this potent super food for several months of the year. Relying on commercially-available cherries will limit them to just a few weeks a year. Interestingly, cherries contain natural melatonin, a powerful antioxidant and free radical scavenger that helps "cool down" excess inflammation and associated oxidative stress. It also plays a vital role in sleep, cancer prevention and general regeneration. Based on daily environmental signals of light and darkness, your pineal gland has evolved to produce and secrete melatonin to help you sleep. Research suggests that consuming tart cherry juice increases your melatonin levels, thereby improving time in bed, total sleep time and sleep efficiency. Reduce your risk of stroke. Tart cherries activate peroxisome proliferator activated receptors (PPAR) in tissues, which help regulate genes involved in the metabolism of fat and glucose. PPAR activation has a beneficial effect on blood pressure, cholesterol levels, diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Lower your risk of dementia. Inflammation and oxidative stress are associated with an increased risk for dementia. The polyphenols in tart cherries effectively combat both, thereby lowering your risk of cognitive decline. As explained in one recent study,²⁷ “[P]olyphenols from dark-colored fruits can reduce stress-mediated signaling in BV-2 mouse microglial cells, leading to decreases in nitric oxide (NO) production and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression. [T]art cherries — which improved cognitive behavior in aged rats … may be effective in reducing inflammatory and OS-mediated signals” Lower your risk of colon cancer by substantially reducing formation of heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) when added to hamburger patties. It also slows meat spoilage.²⁸ HAAs are potent carcinogenic compounds created when food is charred, and have been linked to an increased risk of colon cancer. Hamburger patties with just over 11 percent tart cherries in them contained anywhere from 69 to 78.5 percent less HAAs after cooking, compared to regular patties.

CHIROPRACTIC: Balance and Brain Health Let’s investigate the relationship of balance and how it relates to the health of the brain! A 2014 study published in the journal Stroke found that difficulty balancing on one leg (eyes open) for at least 20 seconds is a possible sign of brain damage in an otherwise healthy person. In other words, there appears to be an association between poor balance and an increased risk for small blood vessel damage and reduced cognitive function (memory, association, the ability to communicate well, stay on task, etc.) in people who appear to be healthy. The authors state, “Our study found that the ability to balance on one leg is an important test for brain health.” In this study, 841 women and 546 men (average age was 67 years old) were asked to stand on one leg for up to 60 seconds with their eyes open. Each participant repeated the exam twice and researchers recorded the best time. Next, each participant had a brain MRI to assess for small vessel disease and completed a computer based-questionnaire to measure cognitive function. Researchers found an association between the presence of small vessel disease and the inability to stand on one leg with their eyes open for more than 20 seconds. When the small arteries in the brain are damaged and lose their flexibility, blood flow is interrupted to the brain depriving oxygen to the tissue, something that is more likely to happen with advancing age. This is a very common problem, and it usually improves with balance-challenging exercises. These exercises include simply standing on one leg while in the kitchen, watching TV, standing in line… you name it! Take advantage of your standing time and do some balance challenging exercises! Of course, if you’re wobbly and find yourself “windmilling” to maintain your balance, do this in a safe environment—in the corner of a room, for example. To make the exercise even more challenging, try standing on a pillow or a folded up towel and/or shut your eyes to REALLY make your brain work! Your doctor of chiropractic can also train you on the use of a rocker board, wobble board, and gym ball for adding more fun and are very effective ways to improve your proprioceptive skills.

FUNNY BONE: Two clowns are eating a cannibal. One turns to the other and says "I think we got this joke wrong"@@ My wife told me I had to stop acting like a flamingo. So I had to put my foot down.@@ My friend says to me: "What rhymes with orange" I said: "no it doesn't"@@ This is my step ladder. I never knew my real ladder.@@ I've found a job helping a one armed typist do capital letters. It's shift work.@@ I have the heart of a lion and a lifetime ban from the Toronto zoo.

 

Visit our web site: keefeclinic.com or faceebook/keefeclinic.com

Controlling cravings for sweets and alcohol

Refined carbohydrates can be an issue for many people to resist. The dangers of over consuming refined carbohydrates include diabetes. As we over consume carbohydrates the demand on the pancreas to secrete extra insulin can lead to inflammation in the body. This overabundance of insulin plus inflammation can lead to a condition called insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance is what drives most type II diabetes. As the blood sugar fluctuates this can cause a craving for sweets and alcohol. Two nutrients that can help the body regulate sugar levels and thus cravings are B complex and chromium. Maintaining high levels of protein in the diet can also help.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glycoplex and Chromium Picolinate are the two nutrients we are highlighting today, I recommend taking two a day of each product.

 

An alternate product for stubborn cravings would be L-GLUTAMINE (probably two or three grams daily) This amino acid has been shown to improve brain function in alcoholics, resulting in improved sleep, decreased anxiety and a reduced craving for alcohol.

 

To your better health,

Dr. Keefe

If you have not set up your account at natural partners then go to npscript.com/Keefeclinic and set up an account (if a code is asked for use 6631111). There is no charge to set up this account and they do not sell email addresses. Once the account is set up you can order any of their over 9000 products in the comfort of your own home and have them shipped to your door. Note: for period of time you can get free shipping, order today! For help ordering call 888-950-2767

Headaches

Chiropractic adjustments are one of the best treatments for headaches. Studies show chiropractic adjustments rank at the top of effectiveness for all types of headaches. Since most headaches are related to misalignments in the neck, the adjustment takes pressure off the nerves that trigger the headache. Not all headaches are related to neck misalignments. The Liver can be a source of headaches when it’s not doing its job detoxifying thebody. Not only is the liver responsible for removing toxins the liver also removes excess hormones from the body. When the liver is not doing his job this can lead to chemical reactions that can trigger headaches.

CLICK TO ORDER LIVER DETOX

To your better health,

Dr. Keefe

If you have not set up your account at natural partners then go to npscript.com/Keefeclinic and set up an account (if a code is asked for use 6631111). There is no charge to set up this account and they do not sell email addresses. Once the account is set up you can order any of their over 9000 products in the comfort of your own home and have them shipped to your door. Note: for period of time you can get free shipping, order today! For help ordering call 888-950-2767

Can Vitamin C help with concussions?

How should hockey star Sidney Crosby, or my own child, be treated if he suffered a brain concussion?

To answer this question I interviewed Dr. Andrew Saul, editor-in-chief of the Orthomolecular Medical News Service, and a world authority on nutrition. Dr. Saul confirmed what I suspected, that bruised brains are not receiving the treatment they desperately need.

Newton's Law states, "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Unfortunately, our Maker didn't use screws to anchor the human brain inside its skull. So, without this protection, sudden blows to the head toss the brain against a formidable hard skull, causing various degrees of injury.

But there's a problem. It's easy to diagnose a fractured arm, but impossible to know the amount of brain injury after a concussion.

Concussion causes a variety of symptoms such as headache, double vision and the feeling of "having my bell rung." So some hockey players do not remember the score. Or they suffer seizures, weakness on one side, and loss of consciousness. Dr. Karen Johnston, neurosurgeon at McGill University, Montreal, states a cardinal rule: "Players suspected of having a concussion must sit out the game. They must never be told to 'shake it off' or left alone, and must be seen by a physician."

The time honoured therapy for concussion is rest and a gradual return to the game. But recent research shows that some activity can improve the outcome.
Researchers also stress the need for sound nutrition. For instance, the body needs renewed magnesium and zinc as it loses these minerals after concussion. Omega -3 fatty acids, abundant in fish oil, help to decrease inflammation. Vitamin D is also believed to be neuroprotective along with a high protein diet.

But I suggested to Dr. Saul, "If my child suffered a concussion I'd ask doctors to immediately start an intravenous infusion containing 30,000 to 100,000 milligrams of Vitamin C. I'd continue this dose for one week to decrease inflammatory risk and reduce brain damage." Saul agreed. He replied, "Yes, it makes complete sense as the blood level of C is depressed following trauma such as a concussion. We also know that vitamin C is a great antioxidant and helps to repair injured tissue."But his follow up surprised me. "I would take vitamin C", he added, "in advance of any contact sport, especially an open battle like hockey." Saul was saying what should always be preached, that "prevention is better than cure." It's true whether dealing with cardiovascular disease or concussion.
I've repeatedly stressed that high doses of Vitamin C decrease the risk of heart attack. The vast majority of doctors, however, disagree with me. They are convinced that only cholesterol-lowering drugs prevent coronary attack.

There should be no disagreement on this issue as stress has been proven to decrease blood levels of C. For instance, cancer patients have one-third the amount of C needed by the body, those with diabetes one-half, and after traumatic accidents like concussion, the level can decrease to just 10%! The sad news is that C's magic and safety has been known for decades but ignored by the medical profession. I believe that Vitamin C, given intravenously, can cure viral diseases like polio, meningitis, encephalitis, measles, heal burns, and even neutralize the toxin of a poisonous snake. And I've personally been cold-free for years due to a high intake of C.

Dr. Frederick R. Klenner, who first cured polio with Vitamin C, created another rule. High doses of C must be administered for success. Will Sidney Crosby or other players get high doses of intravenous Vitamin C for a concussion? It's most unlikely.

History shows that it's hard to change ingrained habits of the medical establishment.
But individuals can get smart. Or as Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, preached, "always choose the least sensational treatment." Again Vitamin C fits the bill.

 

When healthcare becomes dangerous

It’s been said that if the only tool you have is a hammer then everything looks like a nail. I think everybody can see that fixing the electronics of your TV with a hammer is probably not a good choice of tools.

As a healthcare provider if your only tool is drugs then everything else looks like a drug deficiency condition. How many believe that headaches are  a drug deficiency disease or acid reflux is because you not taking enough drugs or how about low back pain is it because you don’t take enough opiate drugs.

We all have tendencies to follow patterns like always going to the same place to get your car fixed or the same place to get a steak. We usually start some of those patterns by what we perceive people in general are doing. Those types of perceptions can be programmed by advertisements both on television and print media. In today’s environment it’s important to think for yourself and when it comes to your health you want to make choices that fix problems and not just cover them up.

Chiropractic and natural healthcare gets results not because we use powerful chemicals to cover symptoms but because we treat underlying causes for those symptoms. It’s true in some cases you can take a pain pill when you have a headache but it’s not true a lack of pain pills have caused your headache. So if you undergo treatment that leaves the underlying cause alone you’re asking for health problems to become more advanced and deeper entrenched within your body.

Simply put; health problems come from breaking certain natural laws. We focus on the 5 most important law which include: diet, exercise, positive mental and spiritual attitude, rest and stress handling and the last law: maintain a healthy nervous system (a pressure free balanced nervous system). Our bodies were designed to self-repair but if you lack the building blocks or the regulation and control of the nervous system then your body starts to break down.

Chiropractic/natural healthcare 1^st, drugs 2^nd, surgery last. In today’s healthcare market the wrong choice could cost you a life of addiction or death. Make wise decisions.

Product highlight: Enflamen is a combination product for pain and inflammation. 3 times a day is the recommended dose. We have multiple products for pain and inflammation so Vega testing is an effective way for us to find an effective product for your condition.

Click to order: Enflamen

To your better health,

Dr. Keefe

 

 

Courtesy of:

John H. Keefe III, D.C.

(918) 663-1111

 

IN THE NEWS: Vitamin B3 may prevent glaucoma June 4, 2017Writing in NEJM, Columbia ophthalmologists say a form of Vitamin B3 may be able to stop the progression of glaucoma by protecting the eye’s neurons. A recent study shows that vitamin B3 can prevent glaucoma in mice. This should inspire researchers to test the idea in clinical trials, write two Columbia University ophthalmologists in a commentary published in New England Journal of Medicine. “This is a new potential treatment pathway for glaucoma,” says Jeffrey Liebmann, MD, who wrote the commentary with George Cioffi, MD, chair of ophthalmology. “Right now, we can slow the progression of the disease by reducing pressure inside the eye with drugs or surgery, but we can’t halt the disease in many patients. Our ultimate goal is to find a treatment that can prevent the degeneration of neurons that cause vision loss.” Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness and affects more than 70 million people worldwide. The need for neuron-sparing therapies has become even more acute as people live longer. “People used to have glaucoma for 15 years,” says Dr. Liebmann. “Now, with increasing longevity and duration of disease exposure, the lifetime risk of visual disability is increasing. Although several drugs have been tested previously in clinical trials, none have received FDA approval to protect neurons in glaucoma patients. In the new study, researchers identified how neurons begin degenerating in glaucoma, and demonstrated that nicatinamide (a form of Vitamin B3) could prevent the neurodegeneration. Nicatinamide supplements were able to prevent glaucoma in 70 percent of mice predisposed to the disease. Adding a gene therapy to increase nicatinamide protected even more mice. Drs. Liebmann and Cioffi are now beginning preliminary studies in preparation for a human clinical trial of nicatinamide.

WELLNESS: A new health benefit of chocolate: reduced risk of AFib? While so-called “chocoholics” may have gotten a bad rap over the years, a new study has found that eating a small amount of chocolate every week or so may decrease your risk of developing a serious type of irregular heart rhythm.  While so-called “chocoholics” may have gotten a bad rap over the years, a new study has found that eating a small amount of chocolate every week or so may decrease your risk of developing a serious type of irregular heart rhythm. The study, published in the journal Heart, used data collected for a long-term study of about  55,500 people in Denmark. The participants were between 50 and 64 years old when the study began, and provided information about their diets when they entered the study between 1993 and 1997. Researchers then linked the diet data to Denmark’s national health registries to see who was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AFib). AFib is a quivering or irregular heartbeat that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications. In the United States, at least 2.7 million people have been diagnosed with it, according to the American Heart Association. Based on their data, about 3,346 cases of AFib occurred in study participants over an average of 13.5 years. Those who ate one serving, which is about 1 ounce of chocolate per week, were 17 percent less likely to be diagnosed with atrial fibrillation by the end of the study than those who reported eating chocolate less than once a month. Those who ate 2 to 6 ounces per week were less likely to be diagnosed with AFib, while those who ate more than an ounce of chocolate per day were 16 percent less likely to have the condition. For women, the biggest risk reduction was linked to eating one serving of chocolate per week. For men, the biggest risk reduction was associated with eating two to six servings per week. “I think our message here is that moderate chocolate intake as part of a healthy diet is an option,” lead author Elizabeth Mostofsky, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, told Reuters. Mostofsky’s team said that while they cannot definitively conclude that chocolate prevents AFib, eating cocoa and cocoa-containing foods may help heart health because of they contain a high volume of flavanols, which are compounds believed to have anti-inflammatory, blood vessel-relaxing and anti-oxidant properties.

CHIROPRACTIC: Low Back Pain: An Ice Pack or the Hot Tub? Many patients perform some self-care when they first hurt their lower back, hoping this will keep them out of a doctor’s office. While home remedies can sometimes make the pain go away, sometimes they don’t. It just depends on what you try. When the back is first hurt, it’s often a sprain/strain type of injury with accompanying muscle spasm. When a nerve in the low back becomes pinched or irritated, the body will protect the delicate nerves by keeping you from moving and risking further nerve injury. The easiest way for the body to do this is to cause the back muscles to spasm in the injured area. Muscle pain can be quite severe and heat can sometimes soothe the pain. For this reason, many patients take to the heating pad or to the hot tub to try and get some relief. This should be avoided in an acute injury because inflammation is present. With inflammation, there is increased heat and the additional heat you provide is like adding gasoline to a fire. The results are usually not good. A better choice with an acute injury is to ice the area, but this also needs to be done with some caution. The simplest ice pack is ice cubes placed in a plastic bag. While effective, you can cause a frostbite injury if you leave the pack on for too long. When you first ice the area, you will go through several phases before some pain relief is achieved. At first, the pack will feel cold. The next phase is a burning sensation and the ice will almost feel hot. This is followed by an aching or throbbing sensation. Just before the area is numbed, a very sharp pain will be experienced followed by the relief you desire. It can take between five to ten minutes to go through all of the phases. Once numbness is achieved, the pack should be removed. You should most definitely not fall asleep while the pack is on. In 1993 the US government released a report on low back pain listing spinal adjustments as the number one effective treatment.

FUNNY BONE:  The Quotes of Steven Wright: Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.@@ - Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.@@  I intend to live forever ... So far, so good.@@ If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?@@ My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."@@ To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.@@ Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don't have film.@@ If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

 

Courtesy of:

John H. Keefe III, D.C.

(918) 663-1111

IN THE NEWS: Codeine - Not for Kids, Says FDA  By Editorial Staff When it comes to testing the effectiveness or safety of medications, kids are essentially left out in the cold. After all, how many parents want their child to be the test subject? The unfortunate result: We tend to find out whether children's medications work or are safe with real-world experience and by applying adult experiences to child guidelines for use. With the spotlight on pain medications, particularly the opioid class, the Food and Drug Administration recently strengthened its warning against children using prescription medications that contain codeine or tramadol – two opioid pain relievers. According to the FDA warning, which will be added to all relevant medication labels, children younger than age 12 should never be given any prescription med containing codeine for pain or cough, or tramadol for pain, and recommends against their use in children ages 12-18. The FDA release announcing the label changes made the health risk clear: "These medications carry serious risks, including slowed or difficult breathing and death, which appear to be a greater risk in children younger than 12 years, and should not be used in these children." Note that while codeine is also an ingredient in some over-the-counter cold / flu medications, the FDA did not restrict their use in children, but did recommend parents talk to a doctor before administering them to their children. Don’t make your kids drug addicts chiropractic offers both a safe and effective treatment for colds and flues as well as pain.

WELLNESS: Dirt has a microbiome, and it may double as an antidepressant or Gardening is great therapy. Your garden has its own microbiome, and research suggests it’s good for you. Our health depends on the flourishing microbiome in our guts—and on how much of the natural world’s microbiome we let infiltrate. Lately, thanks to modern life, we don’t let in a lot. But in a string of pioneering studies, scientists are beginning to look at what would happen if we literally inject microbes from the soil into our bodies, reintroducing us to the ancient relationship between bacteria and human. So far, the results have been uplifting—to both the scientists and the subjects they study. Christopher Lowry, a neuroscientist at the University of Bristol, injected M. vaccae into mice and subjected them to a series of stress tests. The ones inoculated with the bacteria showed far less stressed behavior than their untreated counterparts—in fact, they acted as if they were on antidepressants. In a 2007 paper published in the journal Neuroscience, Lowry and his team wrote that the bacteria activated groups of neurons in the mouse brains responsible for producing serotonin—a neurotransmitter that, when impaired, can cause depression. Even more intriguingly, the neurons that lit up were also known to be related to immune response, suggesting an intimate connection between the immune system and emotional health. The world of biomedical research has already fallen in love with the promising realm of the human gut microbiome. A body of emerging evidence tells us the millions of microbes in our digestive tract influence our immune systems, our smells, our mood, and possibly even our attractiveness to mosquitoes—and to other people. There’s now pretty good evidence to draw at least an outline of a conclusion: Breathing in, playing in, and digging in dirt may be good for your health. Our modern, sterilized life in sealed-off office buildings and homes are likely not. Researchers have already found clear evidence that childhood exposure to outdoor microbes is linked to a more robust immune system; for example, Bavarian farm children who spent time in family animal stables and drank farm milk had drastically lower rates of asthma and allergies throughout their lives than their neighbors who did not.

CONDITION OF THE WEEK: What Are Cervicogenic Headaches?  Headaches are a very common problem that can have multiple causes ranging from stress to trauma.  To make matters worse, there are MANY different types of headaches. One such type is the “cervicogenic headache” (others include migraines, cluster headaches, etc.). The main distinction between the symptoms associated with cervicogenic headaches and those associated with migraine headaches are a lack of nausea, vomiting, aura (a pre-headache warning that a headache is about to strike), light and noise sensitivity, increased tearing with red eyes, one-sided head, neck, shoulder, and/or arm pain, and dizziness. The items listed above are primarily found in migraine headache sufferers.   The following is a list of clinical characteristics common in those struggling with cervicogenic headaches: Unilateral (one-sided) head or face pain (rarely is it on both sides).Pain is localized or stays in one spot, usually the back of the head, frontal, temporal (side) or orbital (eye) regions. Moderate to severe pain intensity. Intermittent attacks of pain that last hours to days. Pain is usually deep, non-throbbing, unless migraines occur at the same time. Head pain is triggered by neck movement, sustained awkward head postures, applying deep pressure to the base of the skull or upper neck region, and/or taking a deep breath, cough or sneeze can trigger head pain. Limited neck motion with stiffness. Infrequently, the cervicogenic headache sufferer can present with migraines at the same time and have both presentations making it more challenging to diagnose. The cause of cervicogenic headaches can be obvious such as trauma (sports injury, whiplash, slip and fall), or not so obvious, like poor posture. A forward head posture can increase the relative weight applied to the back of the neck and upper back as much as 2x-4x normal. Last month, we discussed the intimate relationship between the upper two cervical vertebra (C1 & C2) and an anatomical connection to the covering of the spinal cord (the dura) as giving rise to cervicogenic headaches. In summary, the upper three nerves innervate the head and any pressure on those upper nerves can result in a cervicogenic headache. Doctors of chiropractic are trained to examine, identify, and treat these types of potentially debilitating headaches.

FUNNY BONE: When my three-year-old was told to pee in a cup at the doctor’s office, he unexpectedly got nervous. With a shaking voice, he asked, “Do I have to drink it?”@@ A scientist tells a pharmacist, “Give me some prepared tablets of acetylsalicylic acid.” “Do you mean aspirin?” asks the pharmacist. The scientist slaps his forehead. “That’s it!” he says. “I can never remember the name.”@@ Two campers are hiking in the woods when one is bitten on the rear end by a rattlesnake. “I’ll go into town for a doctor,” the other says. He runs ten miles to a small town and finds the only doctor delivering a baby. “I can’t leave,” the doctor says. “But here’s what to do. Take a knife, cut a little X where the bite is, suck out the poison and spit it on the ground.” The guy runs back to his friend, who is in agony. “What did the doctor say?” the victim cries. “He says you’re gonna die.”

 Visit our web sites:  keefeclinic.com & facebook.com/keefeclinic

Low back pain is the number 1 health problem in the United States and most Western countries. Both drugs and surgery have been shown to be inferior approaches in the treatment of low back pain.

91 people die every day because of opiate addiction started by a prescription given to them by their medical doctor for pain, low back pain being the most common. Medical doctors have minimal training in structural problems that’s why they throw drugs and surgery at the problem. In the 1990s the US government released a report to every doctor’s office and healthcare facility in the US concerning low back pain and recommending spinal adjusting as the number 1 active and effective treatment. Yet you will read below that supposedly most doctors are unaware of this. Drug therapy kills 2000 people a week based on Senate reports and that has been happening for as long as we have records and will only increase if change isn’t forced upon the medical profession. Here’s a summary of the report released by the government around 20 years ago.

The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, a branch of Health and Human Services, reviewed all treatments for acute low back pain and developed the following conclusions:

Physical therapy is not cost effective.

Acupuncture is not effective.

Over the counter anti-inflammatory medication worked as well as prescription ones (Cox-2 inhibitors were not included in the study).

Sclerotherapy and Prolotherapy are not effective.

The use of cortisone injections should be used only in cases of sciatic pain which radiates down the leg and doesn’t respond to conservative therapy.

Surgery is over used and should be offered in less then 1% of cases.

Rest should be given initially for 24-48 hours.

Early movement that is tolerable should be initiated after 48 hours.

Cushioning in shoes can be helpful.

Spinal adjustments are the only active form of therapy given by a professional which is helpful.

Since most doctors and patients are not aware of this report, patients all around the country are needlessly suffering and being mistreated. There are many treatments available for severe back problems that have better short and long term benefits over spinal surgery, epidural injections and long term pain medications. Our office is aware of the latest advances and are free to discuss these alternatives with you. 918-663-1111