Excerpt from Dynamic Chiropractic, Jul 16, 2007 by Rosner, Anthony L
With a clarion-like pronouncement that would do Gabriel proud and which brings tears to the eyes of basic science researchers seeking their day in the sun with a medical breakthrough, researchers from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto proclaimed a link between the nervous system and diabetes. In a paper published in the basic sciences journal Cell, Razavi and her colleagues stated: "Our observations open new avenues for therapeutic strategies, raising the possibility that sensory nerve dysfunction may contribute to prediabetes initiation and progression in diabetes-prone humans."...
...What does all this mean? A neuropeptide is intimately connected to a hormonal defect leading to diabetes. In addition to suggesting further research leading to a possible new means of treating this debilitating and fatal disease, it tells us in no uncertain terms that the nervous and hormonal systems are intertwined. This obviously leads to the question of neural integrity and chiropractic. It offers more than a modicum of support to the very sparse observations in anything but the established frontline refereed medical journals that manipulation seems to have a palliative effect in diabetic patients:
1. One very preliminary observation tells us that in two patients undergoing a neurovascular technique, such complications as vision deterioration or development of foot ulcers seen in diabetic patients did not occur.
2. In another observation that was only barely more robust, using markers that are far more objective and reliable, Kfoury demonstrated that in a single patient, both glucose and glycosylated hemoglobin levels returned to normal after chiropractic adjustments.
Granted that these two factoids may be equated by some to reading tea leaves, they still provide food for thought when coupled with the thorough and groundbreaking findings of Razavi and her colleagues. This entire story emphasizes on no uncertain terms how basic research can uncover such key information to understanding the processes of disease and degeneration. It is the only way in which future productive clinical trials can be designed. And even though the chiropractic community can bask in the glory of having its central premise of chiropractic (the connection between neural integrity and health) supported in this research, it must learn from this key investigation to never lose sight of the basic sciences in being able to justify its means of health care delivery.
And of course Upper Cervical Care is targeted at removing, as precisely and completely as possible, the irritation to the most important part, the brain stem!
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