Your Chiropractor Could Be Your Newest Antioxidant!

Most people associate chiropractors with pain management, but the practice of chiropractic truly operates on the premise that the work removes blockages to the body’s natural health and healing abilities. This includes removing pressure from nerves that relay signals from the brain to the organs and systems of the body.

Benefits of Chiropractic Care:

In 2005, a landmark study published in the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation (JVSR) found evidence that chiropractic care can reduce oxidative stress in the body.

Oxidative stress is the damage that occurs when free radicals outnumber the body’s antioxidants.

Oxidative stress damages all body cell components: proteins, lipids and DNA.

Oxidative stress plays a role in a whole host of diseases and disorders: Alzheimer’s disease, atherosclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis and many others.

Thiols are compounds in the body that act as antioxidants, reacting with free radicals to neutralize them. Serum levels of thiols reflect DNA’s capacity to repair itself, report scientists of Biomedical Diagnostic Research, Inc, and can be used to measure aging and disease status.

In a 2003 study published in the Journal of Anti Aging Medicine, the scientists found low serum thiol level in people with nine different categories of human disease and disorder.

The study published in JVSR consisted of 76 participants: one group received short-term chiropractic care; a second group received long-term chiropractic care; and the third group received no chiropractic care.

After qualifying for age, sex and the use of nutritional supplements, the participants that received chiropractic care for 2 or more years that were healthy had higher serum thiol levels than those with disease. Some of the chiropractic patients had serum thiol levels higher than what is associated with normal wellness.

Chiropractor Dr. Christopher Kent explained: “Oxidative stress, metabolically generating free radicals, is now a broadly accepted theory of how we age and develop disease.”

“Going through life,” he adds, “we experience physical, chemical and emotional stress. These stresses affect the function of the nervous system. We hypothesized that these disturbances in nerve function could affect oxidative stress and DNA repair on a cellular level.”

“Chiropractic care appears to improve the ability of the body to adapt to stress,” concluded Kent.

Sources

Medical News Today (2005)

Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine (2003)

Medical News Today (2010)