Monthly Archives: March 2009

You may be thinking that the title of this blog post is intended to be a humorous exaggeration, but it is far from it.  The information I’m about to present is extremely serious and you may find it more than a little disturbing.

There is increasing evidence from research in neurobiology that many things we just accept as normal life in the 21st century are quite literally damaging our brains and predisposing us to a wide variety of health problems as a consequence. 

The actual processes that are occurring are somewhat complicated, and for the purposes of clarity, I will be discussing things in extremely simplified terms. 

The first thing you need to know is that the front part of the brain (called the prefrontal cortex - or PFC for short) is responsible for reasoning and determining our responses to our environment.  As information is processed by the brain, the PFC interprets what’s going on around us and then directs how we respond to it. 

Stress, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, poor nutrition, chronic pain, and poor posture/musculoskeletal function all can cause damage to the PFC over time.  The amount of damage is small, but accumulates over time and leads to many health problems, both mental and physical. 

What types of problems are we talking about?  Well, in chidren and younger adults, some of the most common effects are depression, ADD/ADHD, high blood pressure, hormone imbalances, digestive problems, and fibromyalgia, just to name the “biggies”. 

If you think that’s bad, that was the problems in younger people, in older people, this cummulative damage to the PFC is thought to be involved in the development of Parkinsons, Alzheimer’s and dementia. 

Now, most of the things that damage the PFC are preventable, and to a large extent, the damage they cause is reversible.  The key is to start now to reduce the number of PFC-damaging lifestyle issues in your life. 

If you’ve been putting up with a lot of stress, consider ways to reduce your stress through exercise, meditation, simplifying your life, etc.. 

If you know your diet could use improvement, improve it.

If you aren’t getting enough sleep, think about ways to re-arrange your schedule so you get more sleep.

 If you have chronic pain, investigate the alternatives for controlling pain.  Often, chiropractic, acupunture, and/or massage will do far more for pain than any medication or shot.  By the way, a year of chronic back pain has been shown to reduce the size of the prefrontal cortex by an amount equivalent to 10 to 20 years of normal aging!  If you have chronic pain, this is a very important thing to get handled as well as possible ASAP. 

In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing more specifics on things you can do to improve the health of your brain.

A patient remarked to me recently, that judging from all the television commercials and spam email these days concerning cures for erectile dysfunction, if doctors of chiropractic (DCs) could cure ED, we’d have guys lined up outside our offices waiting to get in.  My patient was a little surprised when I said, “Actually…”.

Over the years, I’ve been able to help several men with ED get erections.  Um, perhaps I should rephrase that! 

What I mean is that on more than one occasion, men have presented to my office and as part of their health history they’ve mentioned erectile dysfunction.  In nearly every case, these gentlemen have low back pain as well.  These patients are usually happily surprised when their sexual function returns after beginning chiropractic treatment.  In fact, in my experience, most men with ED and back pain get a return of sexual function within just a few chiropractic treatments – and for most men, the improvements in ED  from chiropractic adjustments are lasting.  You don’t have to get adjusted “for the rest of your life” as the myth goes, to continue to enjoy good sexual health.

This really should not be surprising because the nerve supply to the genitals comes from the lower back.  Mechanical dysfunction in the spine can lead to interference with normal nerve signals.  If the nerve signals get too disrupted, so can sexual function (by the way, low back problems can interfere with fertility in both men and women too!). 

This may be the first you’ve heard of this.  So, how can such a simple fix for ED have gone unnoticed for so long?  And if chiropractors can actually reliably help ED sufferers, why aren’t you seeing big ads by chiropractors to compete with the ads for Viagra and Cialis?

It comes down to a couple of things.  First, formal research in this area is lacking.  Despite the fact that most chiropractors who have been in practice for at least a few years probably have some very happy former ED sufferers, that doesn’t “count” when it comes to being able to declare something a legitimate treatment. 

Secondly, even if there was sufficient research to establish chiropractic spinal manipulation as an effective ED treatment, in most states, chiropractors STILL couldn’t legally advertise that they can help ED.  This is because most states limit chiropractic scope of practice to musculoskeletal conditions.  Doctors of Osteopathy who still do spinal manipulation (they are few in number these days – manipulation is a lot of work compared to writing prescriptions!) would be able to do it, because they have a broader scope of practice, but any chiropractor who advertised about treating ED would be shut down pretty quickly. 

So, since you won’t be seeing any ads with “Smilin’ Bob” visiting the chiropractor, I thought I’d pass the word along with an advertising slogan I made up: “Chiropractic – it relaxes your spine while it excites your…” Oh, never mind! 

Anyway, now you know. 

Oh, and one more thing, I need to put in the disclaimer that the ED drugs use:  “Chiropractic treatment will not cure nor prevent sexually transmitted disease.”  Well actually…

Just kidding!