Some Lower Blood Pressure With Chiropractic Visit

[Celebration]

http://kdka.com/health/high.blood.pressure.2.1679658.html

Bill Bird is sold on the treatment.

Stress from his job selling cars resulted in a prescription for blood pressure medication. After a few visits to the chiropractor, his doctor cut his medication in half.

......................................

Dr. George Bakris is a medical doctor whose expertise is high blood pressure. He conducted a controlled study on 50 patients at the University of Chicago Medical School.

The small study involving chiropractic adjustments yielded big results for patients.

"We saw miraculous changes in blood pressure," said Dr. Bakris. "We saw 12 to 13 millimeter reductions in blood pressure."

[tridim]

1. Yep, the placebo effect is real.

IBTL

[Celebration]

2. Dr. George Bakris

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=search&db=pubmed&term=bakris%20g

[TheDebbieDee]

3. Open your mind. This is no placebo..............

there is a blood vessel that runs down the neck and into the back that can become constricted, elevating the blood pressure. A minor but dangerous adjustment can alleviate the pressure and lower the blood pressure.

It's a dangerous procedure because the procedure can break the patient's neck if performed improperly.

[postulater]

12. This is not a dangerous procedure and will not break a neck.

"This procedure has the effect of not one, but two blood-pressure medications given in combination," study leader George Bakris, MD, tells WebMD. "And it seems to be adverse-event free. We saw no side effects and no problems," adds Bakris, director of the University of Chicago hypertension center.

Eight weeks after undergoing the procedure, 25 patients with early-stage high blood pressure had significantly lower blood pressure than 25 similar patients who underwent a sham chiropractic adjustment. Because patients can't feel the technique, they were unable to tell which group they were in.

X-rays showed that the procedure realigned the Atlas vertebra -- the doughnut-like bone at the very top of the spine -- with the spine in the treated patients, but not in the sham-treated patients."

http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/news/20070316/chiropractic-cuts-blood-pressure

[Celebration]

13. exactly, this is VERY specialized

I live in a metropolitan area with over a million people, and there is exactly ONE chiropractor here that specializes in these atlas adjustments. And guess what? He is so busy that he does not take new patients. Well, he puts people on a waiting list but it is rare that he gets to take anyone new.

Anyway, doing these adjustments requires special equipment and training. These specialized chiropractors are in huge demand, generally.

It helps tons of stuff besides blood pressure--think headaches and all kinds of pain syndromes.

[trotsky]

14. One of the frequent (but false) knocks we hear about evidence-based medicine...

is that they don't "cure" anything, because they just want you to keep coming back with ailments to generate more profit for them.

Funny how that's exactly what chiropractors do, yet they are fondly adored in woo-ville. I wonder why there is such a double standard.

[Celebration]

15. well, since xrays show a difference

AND it helps with blood pressure, as shown by the study, I would say there is plenty of evidence for this very specialized and particular type of chiropractic to be well within the realm of "evidence based medicine."

As for the other stuff, I don't know.

[trotsky]

16. Well then if it's evidence-based,

I look for it to be soundly rejected by the alt-med crowd very shortly.

Still funny to see the double standard.

[Celebration]

17. Do you see EVERYTHING

In black and white terms? Just wondering........................

[trotsky]

18. Actually you're directing that accusation at the wrong person. n/t

[EvolveOrConvolve]

4. LOL

A "doctor" using the term miraculous to describe the results of a small, poorly done study is a man with an answer looking for a question. A cursory look around the internet, and I found several screeds by the good doctor against "allopathic" medicine. That's a term used by the quacks to describe anything that doesn't fit their Alt Med ideology.

Plus, he got quite a few mentions on David Icke's site - that ought to tell you something right there.

[Celebration]

5. guilt by association???

Then darn that U of Chicago #$)^&@@^_ and all those peer reviewed published papers!

[EvolveOrConvolve]

6. If those associations were the only thing I had against him

I wouldn't have a problem. But, there are myriad other issues with the doctor. Claiming a miracle from a single study is one. The study itself is another:

1. Long term effects weren't tracked.
2. The sample group was small.
3. The study claimed to be controlled, but I couldn't find anything describing the control group. Maybe they meant something different when using the term "controlled".
4. The positive effects on study participants' blood pressure seems to have only been measured once directly after the "manipulation". I didn't see anything about BP readings being taken 30 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, or 24 hours later.

I see this as another in a long line of "chiropractic cures xyz" claims. None of which have been shown to have any long term benefits.

[Celebration]

7. um,, perhaps you didn't read the article

"The numbers caught the attention of the federal government.

Now, through the National Institutes of Health, millions of dollars are being spent to see if they can duplicate the findings from the University of Chicago."

Those that think there should be evidence based medicine should be happy that this will be studied further, to see if confirmed in larger studies.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

8. That still doesn't answer my questions about the study

And, I couldn't find any proof that NIH is going to spend "millions of dollars" to test the findings further other than this article and several other websites that point back to this article.

If the NIH is going to spend millions, they're wasting a lot of money. They should instead recreate the original study using better methods. I'm all for evidence based medicine, but I prefer that the evidence be gathered correctly before calling it "miraculous".

[Celebration]

10. what are your questions?

Sham chiropractic was used as a control.

More info here

"The study included 50 patients with an atlas misalignment who stopped taking their blood pressure medications two weeks before participating in the study. Half were adjusted using the NUCCA technique, the other half were given sham adjustments. Because of the gentle nature of the adjustment, patients wouldn't have known they weren't getting one, Hoeller said. None of the patients received blood pressure medication during the eight-week study."

http://www.seattlepi.com/health/318768_hcenter07.html

[Celebration]

11. here is more info

The first project, "Upper cervical manipulation for patients with stage I hypertension," will be directed by project co-leaders Dr. Christine Goertz Choate from Palmer and Gervasio Lamas, M.D., a cardiovascular scientist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami who is known for his expertise in the conduct of large, complex, multi-site clinical trials. This project will replicate and expand upon a recent study published in the Journal of Human Hypertension, which found that a specific chiropractic technique known as National Upper Cervical Chiropractic Association (NUCCA) is effective in lowering high blood pressure within a small group of hypertension patients. The study will involve eight weeks of chiropractic care in 155 patients. The clinical site for patient care will be at Palmer’s Davenport Campus.

http://www.planetc1.com/cgi-bin/n/v.cgi?c=1&id=1210883499

[Sinistrous]

9. I'm sure there was a positive effect.

A nice back rub frequently provides a feeling of relaxation.

[amborin]

19. remember reading articles suggesting chiropractic manipulation of neck can lead to carotid artery di

dissection?

scary article.....