Chiropractic Adjustments are Immune Boosters
Based on a recent compilation of research done by Christopher Oswald, DC, CNS he has shown that not only does a properly aligned spine reduce pain and prevent injury, but it also boosts and modulates many of the major players in the immune system. This means that when a friend or family member starts to feel ill, a good adjustment can actually knock out the illness or speed the recovery time for an individual.
Let’s talk more in depth about how the immune process actually works and who are the major players. The adjustment has a more modulation effect on the immune system which means that when you need the immune system stimulated it helps rev up a portion but at the same time calm the other portion that can lead to chronic inflammation and allergies.
A study done in 2006 shows that a Chiropractic adjustment will actually influence the release of cytokines and thus affect the immune system. The immune markers that the study looked at were the following inflammatory cytokines; tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin (IL) . The study’s basic summary stated that a Chiropractic adjustment would reduce inflammatory cytokines, which helped whether someone was sick or fighting a cold or allergies. They also saw in the study from 2010 that when an adjustment was done that it would activate B cells and some interleukin cells thus priming the immune effector cells and regulating a proper immune response. (A proper response is important because you don’t want the immune system to become hyperactive like an autoimmune condition, but neither do you want immune suppression like a patient on chemotherapy.)
This research is still building but it does lend credence to the fact that an adjustment should be part of a healthy bodies routine and when you feel the first signs of a cold or flu, it is an important time to get in and see the doctor. In our clinic, the ideal time to see us is before you are very sick, but if you miss that window and get sick, we still want to help you recover faster by doing an adjustment on you.