Marcus Bach, PhD. was a famous author and researcher in the 60s who wrote the book, The Chiropractic Story. He was not a chiropractor, but became enthralled with the profession when his mother was dying, the medical care was failing, and a chiropractor stepped in and saved her life. His mother’s medical doctor was also their family physician and a friend. When inquiring with his medical doctor about the benefits of chiropractic, he answered, “The crux of the matter is this: if there is anything to chiropractic, don’t you think medicine would have discovered it in our five thousand years of scientific medical research?”
Years later, Dr. Bach told this story to B.J. Palmer, the son of D.D. Palmer who founded chiropractic. B.J. said, “Good God, chiropractic it’s here now and they still haven’t discovered it!”
There are now numerous studies on what is called, “Bioelectric medicine.” This medical breakthrough is the discovery of the importance of the nervous system in managing health and the prevention of disease. What you’ll find, however, is that chiropractic, even in its original form, is more advanced than this advancement in medicine.
BIOELECTRIC MEDICINE:
Science has now recognized that inflammation is at the root of nearly all disease. When you have an acute injury or microbe invasion, inflammation is the natural and normal protective response. Without it, you can die from a contusion or a cold. However, when inflammation is chronic, it becomes disease-causing rather than life-saving over time.
While much attention has been paid to the aspect of diet when it comes to inflammation, it really is modulated by the nervous system. It is your body’s own intelligence, through the brain-body and body-brain communication that fine tunes inflammation, regulating when it should begin, slow down, and finish.
Developers in medicine are now acknowledging that the nervous system reflexively regulates the inflammatory response in real-time, just as it controls heart rate and other vital functions. They are now looking for medical treatments and devices to manipulate the process. Yet, they’re really just discovering what chiropractic has known for over a century that the nervous system can be the answer for anything from pain to cancer. 1-6
They have looked at, for example, inflammation in the spleen and found that inflammation could be slowed down with increased stimulation of cranial nerves coming from the brain. The result is what they are calling “Bio-electric medicine.”
Medicine is now looking at implanting electrical devices in humans to stimulate or de-stimulate the brain stem and influence nerves like the Vagus Nerve. However, unsurprisingly, they’re getting conflicting and contradictory results. Advocates of bio-electric medicine are, of course, discovering that another human from outside the body cannot mentally determine what is best for the cranial nerves inside someone else’s body. They have created a one-way communication that can never fully work.
Chiropractors, on the other hand, discovered this science over a century ago and it has been working in the lives of millions of happy patients. They work with the natural bio-electric system. Rather than artificially stimulating nerves from the outside in in an attempt to generate one-way communication; adjustments open up the lines for healthy cross-talk communication. Healthy cross-talk occurs back and forth between the central nervous system and the sites that manage inflammation and immunity throughout the body.
Dr. Palmer searched the world and said this was the greatest discovery he had ever known. By simply removing the interference to bio-electric health happening between brain and body and body and brain, there is no conflict or contradiction. The result is homeostasis and real, sustainable health. This discovery clearly holds up.
Have fun saving the world
Dr. Ben
References:
- Borovikova LV, Ivanova S, Zhang M, et al. Vagus nerve stimulation attenuates the systemic inflammatory response to endotoxin. Nature. 2000;405:458-462.
- Tracey KJ. The inflammatory reflex. Nature. 2002;420:853-859.
- Wang H, Yu M, Ochani M, et al. Nicotinic acetylcholine receptor alpha7 subunit is an essential regulator of inflammation. Nature. 2003;421:384-388.
- Rosas-Ballina M, Olofsson PS, Ochani M, et al. Acetylcholine-synthesizing T cells relay neural signals in a vagus nerve circuit. Science. 2011;334:98-101
- Magnon C, Hall SJ, Lin J, et al. Autonomic nerve development contributes to prostate cancer progression. Science. 2013;341:1236361.
- Koopman FA, Miljko S, Grazio S, et al. Pilot study of stimulation of the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway with an implantable vagus nerve stimulation device in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatology. 2012;64:S195.
