Preventing Every Disease and Injury with 2 things!

Every problem within the body can be simplified down into two primary causes, either something is being overloaded or something has a decreased capacity or ability to complete its job, and most of the time it is a combination of both. There is much more complexity involved within these two occurrences, however in understanding that principle we can determine the best way to fix or avoid health concerns.

Our body is very well designed and can handle just about anything that challenges it throughout the day. If however there is more load than it can handle or the load it can handle is decreased due to lifestyle choices, then injuries or disease occur.
Let me explain with this example: Cardiovascular disease and the heart attack. The capacity of the heart is diminished when the heart muscle’s own blood supply is decreased (coronary arteries are clogged) in this case the heart has a decreased ability to do work. We then have a stressful moment or demand more from the heart by increased activity like shoveling the walk or walking upstairs. At that moment the heart is overloaded compared to its decreased capacity to do the work and a heart attack happens.

In this case understanding the load and capacity is key to preventing or treating such a problem. If the decreased capacity was brought on by clogged arteries and weakened heart muscle, then the answer to prevention is simply to strengthen the heart with aerobic activity and reduce the amount of “clogging” activities such as diets high in trans fat and sugar which the liver inevitably turns into cholesterol. There are obviously more factors involved here, but all those can be directly related to how we can either increase the capacity or decrease the load, it really does come down to that.
Here are some other simplified examples for you:

Torn ACL:
• Capacity: weak muscles that control the forces put on the knee, such as Gluteus Medius and Hamstrings, not enough omega 3’s in diet (affects tissue strength at a cellular level) weak ligament from inactivity (weekend warrior syndrome)
• Load: pivoting to catch that football at the annual Turkey Bowl, planting all the body weight on the outside leg and rotating to run for the goal while your uncoordinated cousin trips 2 feet to your side while attempting to block for you and instead comes down with an outside force on your knee…recipe for disaster. In this case a well conditioned NFL athlete may have been able to handle that force, but the office dweller with a pound of cheese ball already in the stomach has a little less capacity, thus he enjoys his turkey dinner from the emergency room bed waiting for the MRI results!

Low Back Pain:
• Capacity: weak back and core muscles from poor posture and excessive work hours at the computer and “not having any time to exercise”. Degenerating discs from joint misalignment, previously mentioned inactivity, and a bad 15 year old mattress that leaves a you shaped indent better than your last snow angel! (we won’t even talk about the pillow)
• Load: Bending over to pick up that pencil is sometimes all the force needed to overload a severely diminished capacity. Other sample loads being a not so well formed back swing to slice your last range ball into the rough (you didn’t use your purchased ball because you had a bad feeling about this tee off … the back 9 at Cascade is always humbling), or playing He-Man and showing your wife you could lift that box and you didn’t care how heavy or how ugly the form was just as long as you save face and lifted it up… need I continue with the overloads?
Most of the time the load is increased on a certain thing because it is making up for other structures not moving or doing their job.

Cold/Flu:
• Capacity: increase immune system by managing stress, good sleep habits, and nutrition.
• Load: reduce amount of bacteria and virus exposure by good hygiene and proper hand washing.

Cancer:
• Capacity: increase body’s method of fighting off cancerous changes through proper diet, exercise and maximize antioxidant intake.
• Load: avoid harmful behaviors like smoking (lung cancer), extended sun exposure (skin cancers), diets high in fat and low in fiber (colon cancer), and minimize food preservatives (linked to almost all cancers). Note that most all cancers are highly avoidable diseases through good lifestyle choices.

Cardiovascular Disease/Heart attack:
• Capacity: Weak heart muscle from inactivity and low blood flow to the heart from clogged coronary arteries.
• Load: shoveling the walk that your son promised he would do when he got back from using your car last week, and thus increasing oxygen demand that the heart just can’t deliver this time. Jumping up and cheering during OT after sitting for a 4 hour BYU vs Utah game and increasing that demand on the heart beyond its capacity to work… fortunately you were in the ambulance and did not hear the lack of self control by one of the best performing quarterbacks BYU has ever seen, but can’t seem to keep his mouth in check after a win… that may certainly have finished what your heart attack started.

Bruised Thumb:
• Capacity: increase your hand to eye coordination
• Load: heavy Metal object striking thumb instead of intended nail. Best way to control the force…don’t hit your thumb with the hammer! Sometimes the force is greater than the tissue can handle even at its healthiest capacity …Can you see what I am getting at though?

Everything in prevention comes down to controlling these two factors. The better you are at understanding this, the easier the choices become and the healthier you will be!

As a bit of a side note here, what do you do if the injury has already happened? Treating patient’s then comes down to the Physician’s ability to know “what was overloaded?” and “how do we increase its capacity now?” If we can answer that, we then can do specific things to allow it to heal and increase its ability to deal with loads in the future. Following this will produce great results fixing the problems and limit wasted time treating things that aren’t the problem.

Load vs. Capacity

Adjustments increase Immune system response!

Below, I have attached an abstract on the effects of Chiropractic adjustments on the levels of Interleukin-2 within the body. (I attached it for those nuts out there who like to see what the study is saying, just in case you want to interpret for yourself).

Basically what it is saying is that they can record some of the influence Adjustments have on the body and they see an increase in the body's immune response after a chiropractic adjustment. So the adjustment actually increases the immune system very simply put.

What does that mean to you... in a time when the media is pushing for everyone to get the flu shots and H1N1 vaccine series, what are we doing to improve our body's established mode of protecting itself against infections and sickness. So, unlike this picture of the kids catching the bear... do the things that make sense! We need to wash our hands, eat properly, and get adjusted!

Enhancement of in vitro interleukin-2 production in normal subjects following a single spinal manipulative treatment

Chiropractic & Osteopathy 2008, 16:5doi:10.1186/1746-1340-16-5

Published:	28 May 2008

Abstract

Background

Increasing evidence supports somato-visceral effects of manual therapies. We have previously demonstrated that a single spinal manipulative treatment (SMT) accompanied by audible release has an inhibitory effect on the production of proinflammatory cytokines in asymptomatic subjects. The purpose of this study is to report on SMT-related changes in the production of the immunoregulatory cytokine interleukin 2 (IL-2) and to investigate whether such changes might differ with respect to the treatment approach related to the presence or absence of an audible release (joint cavitation).

Methods

Of 76 asymptomatic subjects, 29 received SMT with cavitation (SMT-C), 23 were treated with SMT without cavitation (SMT-NC) and 24 comprised the venipuncture control (VC) group. The SMT-C and SMT-NC subjects received a single, similar force high velocity low amplitude manipulation, in the upper thoracic spine. However, in SMT-NC subjects, positioning and line of drive were not conducive to cavitation. Blood and serum samples were obtained before and then at 20 and 120 min post-intervention. The production of IL-2 in peripheral blood mononuclear cell cultures was induced by activation for 48 hr with Staphylococcal protein A (SPA) and, in parallel preparations, with the combination of phorbol ester (TPA) and calcium ionophore. The levels of IL-2 in culture supernatants and serum were assessed by specific immunoassays.

Results

Compared with VC and their respective baselines, SPA-induced secretion of IL-2 increased significantly in cultures established from both SMT-C and SMT-NC subjects at 20 min post-intervention. At 2 hr post-treatment, significant elevation of IL-2 synthesis was still apparent in preparations from SMT-treated groups though it became somewhat attenuated in SMT-NC subjects. Conversely, IL-2 synthesis induced by TPA and calcium ionophore was unaltered by either type of SMT and was comparable to that in VC group at all time points. No significant alterations in serum-associated IL-2 levels were observed in any of the study groups.

Conclusion

The present study demonstrates that, the in vitro T lymphocyte response to a conventional mitogen (SPA), as measured by IL-2 synthesis, can become enhanced following SMT. Furthermore, within a period of time following the manipulative intervention, this effect may be independent of joint cavitation. Thus the results of this study suggest that, under certain physiological conditions, SMT might influence IL-2-regulated biological responses.

Taken from Chiropractic and Osteopathy

Heat or Ice?

Well, I figured I could get things rolling here with an answer to a common question. I think I heard the question a few times today..."what is better, ice or heat?" Well, as many things the answer is both... at least that is it depends.

Let' s discuss for a second why either one is used and what they are actually doing. When ice is applied it constricts blood vessels and slows blood flow to the area, which in turn decreases the body's inflammatory response. The inflammation is used in the body to heal...but then why would we want to decrease inflammation if it is the body's way of healing. That is a good question (you will have to understand that I am having this conversation in my head, and I like to give positive reinforcement to myself...it keeps the one sided conversation more fun for me!) Back to the inflammation question, while the body uses inflammation to heal, as part of the process the area around the damaged tissue becomes very sensitive to pain to ensure that no further damage is done, you know like listening to our Dad's by "walking it off" Not really the best approach in cases where there is damage. So, decreasing inflammation equals less pain. Also, the body does not know the difference between an open wound and a closed wound so it reacts the same way for both, and in the case of a closed wound, it is a bit of an overkill to treat it like it is fighting off possible infection like in open wounds, so decreasing the healing response a bit is not going to hurt the overall healing. So why then not just pop a few anti-inflammatory pills like ibuprofen? Well, using a body wide solution to a local problem is a bit of an overkill as well. I wouldn't recommend it as the first response, I think we are too quick to turn to those solutions and way too pill happy here in America.

Soooo, Ice is a great solution when reducing pain... and swelling is the goal (but we can talk about swelling later). This is especially so when the injury or irritation is relatively new or acute.


Now, what about heat? Heat is very useful for increasing blood flow to the area which is better in promoting healing of the area in chronic or long standing pain, and in therapies that are used in breaking up scar tissue and micro adhesions like in Active release techniques (ART) and Graston tools. Heat is great for making the therapies more productive and reducing pain while the heat is applied, it may increase throbbing pain after a while though, so be aware of that.

So, Ice for new injuries and pain and also for new flare ups of chronic or long term problems, and Heat for long term pains and dull aches and to be used when coupled with treatment while trying to create a controlled inflammatory response trying to break up scar tissue and healing.

I hope that answers that a little better for you all. If this is just too wordy or not very clear, please let me know through your comments. Also if you have something good to say...then by all means say it (compliments are always better coming from outside my own head!)

Mack Chiropractic....Putting Life in Motion

We are excited to have this blog to help our friends understand the many different things that are available to treat different conditions in a way that is noninvasive and that gets the best results possible.

Over the life of this blog, Dr. Mack will discuss various health topics and the types of conditions that he sees in practice and how you can avoid the same kind of pitfalls....and if we are too late, how to get them treated and manage them.

With all the knowledge that we have available to us, there really is no reason to be dealing with the same problems day in and day out when there are so many options to take care of your whole body and get your life moving again, after all, we specialize in putting life in motion!