Chiropractic’s Role in the Chemistry of Our Bodies & Our Health
By weight, the average human adult male is approximately 60% water and the average adult female is 55%. There can be considerable variation in body water percentage based on a number of factors like age, health, water intake, weight, and sex. In a large study of adults of all ages and both sexes, the adult human body averaged 65% water.
Circulating around in all that water in our bodies are chemicals and the study of this is called biochemistry. Just as with everything else in the body the nervous system control and coordinates all those chemicals, where they should go and what they should be doing.
That is because the nervous system is the master control system in the body and it’s why chiropractic focuses all of its attention on the nervous system. Our body’s ability to “adapt” to internal and external health challenges is the key to overcoming the results of the physical, chemical and emotional stresses that fundamentally cause all human ailments – if we cannot adapt to those stresses. One of the most important ways chiropractors do this is to make sure the nervous system is not being obstructed and the connections are good.
Chiropractic is about removing obstructions to the proper functioning of the nervous system and improving connections and the flow of information. There are lots of chemicals involved in that information flow and you don’t want them to become obstructed.
Cytokines, Chiropractic & Health
Cytokines are substances (chemicals in the body), such as interferon, interleukin, and growth factors, which are secreted by certain cells of the immune system and have an effect on other cells. Cytokines are a category of signaling molecules that control immunity, inflammation and the formation of blood cells.
Immune signaling has now been shown to affect the brain and produce changes in behavior, cognition, and emotion secondary to cytokines that cause inflammation (inflammation is an immune response). In such a state, people experience symptoms of weakness, listlessness, altered sleep patterns, increased pain sensitivity, and loss of motivation and appetite.
What does this have to do with chiropractic? Studies have shown that chiropractic care is associated with reduction in circulating cytokines and studies involving the role of beta endorphins and other peptides that mediate these effects have also been conducted.
DNA Repair & Chiropractic
In a remarkable and groundbreaking study, researchers Kent et al. assessed the short and long-term effects of chiropractic care on serum thiol levels in people who had no symptoms of illness and compared them to those who had disease. Serum thiol is a surrogate marker for DNA repair enzyme activity and is related to cellular functioning, repair, and epigenetic activities.
One way to determine how healthy you are is to see how well your DNA repairs itself – DNA remember are the building blocks of life itself. One way to measure DNA repair is by measuring a chemical called serum thiol.
Serum thiol levels in this study were examined in patients with active disease compared with levels in asymptomatic subjects. Subjects had chiropractic care from 8 to 52 weeks. The study concluded that people with no symptoms or wellness patients under chiropractic care demonstrated higher serum thiol levels than patients with active diseases. Measuring these enzymes measures the person’s ability to develop resistance to hazardous environmental exposures and oxidative stress – oxidative stress is what makes us age faster than we want. When these enzymes are suppressed (lowered) it actually limits a person’s life span and the person’s ability to resist serious diseases.
The most fascinating part of this study is that the longer the people were under chiropractic care the better their body’s ability to repair their DNA.
Chiropractic & the Super Systems of the Body
There is clear evidence that chiropractic care has an effect on health and wellness by exerting this effect through the supersystems of the human body – the nervous, immune, and endocrine systems. Chiropractic has a beneficial effect on all three of these systems.
Immune competence is also known to substantially decrease with age. In a study comparing people of different ages undergoing chiropractic care, expert immunologists determined that in the 96 chiropractic patients ages 21-87 studied there was no decrease whatsoever in immune competency.
This suggests that chiropractic could potentially optimize whatever genetic abilities these people have, so that they now can fully express immune function, which the normal individuals or diseased individuals did not. This study used blood samples to demonstrate that the nervous system and the immune system may play an important role in the regulation of disease.
Coherence Through Chiropractic: Immunity Volume 2019, Issue 3
There are many benefits to chiropractic, a hands on approach, by improving nervous system function. For more tips on how to boost your immunity, ask your Great Life chiropractor.
