April 21, 2016
Fermented foods seem to have taken the health-world by storm in recent years. Kombucha is no longer an obscure concept, but a health fixture in many households. While many prefer the bottled and purchased variety, others are dedicated in the home-fermentation process and laud the gut-healing effects that the fermented drink yields. But Kombucha is not the only fermented food, and gut health is no longer the only benefit. In truth, fermented foods have been around for centuries. Some of the earliest records show Chinese workers eating acid-fermented vegetables while building the Great Wall of China. Ancient Greek writings include […]
April 19, 2016
As health practitioners, we know stress can be bad for health. It can act as a barrier to adaptation and put undue pressure on the endocrine system. It can fire up the sympathetic nervous system designed only for fight or flight, and keep it fired up for an extended amount of time. But try telling a stressed, busy, or under-pressure person that they need to relax and you just might find yourself faced with a swag of objections. Winding down just isn’t that easy for all people. Here’s the thing: regardless of whether winding down is easy for a person, […]
April 19, 2016
With an encouraging bank of evidence slowly building around the chiropractic profession, and a world of work yet to be done, it’s important to mark each positive move in terms of research. One such study that may have flown under the radar focused on the link between chiropractic care and inflammatory markers, giving preliminary indications that chiropractic can make a statistically significant difference in terms of inflammation. The study took chronic pain sufferers, administered chiropractic adjustments focused on the lower back (which was also the locus of pain) and compared their inflammatory markers with a pain-free control group. Though preliminary, […]
April 14, 2016
How many of us in our clinics have seen individuals become pregnant under chiropractic care, where they were never able to become pregnant before? How many of us have seen individuals with depressed immune systems suddenly become well by being adjusted? How many children have we seen whose immune or behaviour issues dramatically improved while under chiropractic care? How could this be possible? As Chiropractors, we have proclaimed to have a direct influence on a patient’s nervous system through the chiropractic adjustment, and further claim that patients who remain subluxated will have some form of neurological dysfunction. However, if we asked most […]
April 14, 2016
In 1998, James Gilmore and Joe Pine of the Harvard Business Review wrote an article that tracked the development of consumerism over decades. It was called “Welcome to the Experience Economy” and it introduced a powerful phenomenon that has changed the face of how we shop, not just for goods but for services as well. Commodities alone aren’t good enough for consumers anymore. They are looking for more than a product now. They’re looking for an authentic experience. Joe Pine has since become a keynote speaker, covering the experience economy on stages across the world. He talks about how the […]
April 12, 2016
We are very excited to announce that another Spinal Research Foundation facilitated research has been published in a highly reputable journal [1]. The study, undertaken by Heidi Haavik, Kelly Holt, Bernadette Murphy and others is published in the journal Neural Plasticity. And the results are very exciting for chiropractic! The journal Neural Plasticity boasts an impact factor of 3.5 (as a comparison, The Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics has an impact factor of 1.5.) This from Heidi Haavik [2]: “We do know that spinal function does affect brain function. There’s now solid evidence that adjusting the spine changes brain function. This […]
April 12, 2016
Since its inception roughly 14 years ago, Crossfit has morphed from a health-fad into a bona fide health movement that has swept the world. It claims to reap faster results in terms of health, fitness and weight loss due to its combination of Olympic lifting progressions, gymnastic skills and high intensity cardio workouts [1]. But Crossfit has a PR problem – rumoured high levels of injury. Fans of Crossfit sing its praises. Critics of the sport are just as loud in their disapproval. In truth, good data on the injury rate of Crossfit has been a little slow to emerge. […]
April 7, 2016
A collaboration between chiropractic research leaders Dr. Heidi Haavik and Dr. Bernadette Murphy has reaped international recognition, as the World Federation of Chiropractic bestowed the Scott Haldeman Award on their work. The award winning study was facilitated by the Australian Spinal Research Foundation. The study titled ‘Neck pain participants show impaired ability to perform a mental rotation task in a four week longitudinal study as compared to healthy controls,’ was awarded the $12,000 prize at the recent WFC congress in Athens. To Dr. Heidi Haavik, this represents only a drop in an ocean of chiropractic research yet to be done. […]
April 7, 2016
The chiropractor’s role has changed greatly over the last forty years. As it evolves further into the future there comes a necessity to marry two powerful aspects of our cause: the philosophy of vitalism and the evidence base for what we do. Dr Gerry Clum sat down with Spinal Research following the Dynamic Growth Congress in February to have a chat about chiropractic in the future. He talked about the need to end the dichotomy between evidence-based and philosophy-based chiropractic. “If the world can begin to hear our message because we are expressing it in a language they can hear, […]
April 5, 2016
Neurogenesis, or the birth of new brain cells, has long been associated with the increasingly popular topic of neuroplasticity. As research on this relatively new topic advances, we are also starting to see that cognitive decline with aging need not be something we simply accept. Up until the 1990’s, the major school of thought surrounding brain cells was “you’ve already got all you’ll ever have.” Now we know that the brain can rewire itself. Dr. Sandrine Thuret, a neural stem cell researcher at Kings College in London, tells us that we can grow new brain cells, and there are some […]
April 5, 2016
Findings from a new study suggest that a misalignment of sleep timing is associated with metabolic risk factors that predispose to diabetes and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease [1]. The study asked participants to sleep 12 hours out of time with their normal sleep-wake routine. It mimicked a phenomenon known as “Social Jet Lag” where work schedules or other environmental factors interrupt the person’s biological circadian rhythm. The results are a cautionary tale, not only for shift workers or those who class themselves as night owls rather than early risers, but for those who like to splurge on weekend sleep-ins only to […]
March 31, 2016
Norman Doidge’s first book, The Brain that Changes Itself, was a game-changer. It shone light on the revolutionary discovery of neuroplasticity: that the brain was not hardwired as previously thought. This new idea stood in stark contrast to centuries worth of thinking that told us we were born with all the brain cells we would ever have, hence those with a mental limitation, traumatic brain injury or neurological problem were essentially stuck with it. The book was fruit of years invested into researching the issue, and comparing notes with other movers-and-shakers in the world of neurology. It offered hope to […]
March 31, 2016
When it comes to diet, there are a lot of voices out there telling us what to eat, but since books like “The 5:2 Diet” burst onto the scene a few short years ago, there are now voices telling us how to eat. Mark Mattson, a Professor of Neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins University and current Chief of the Laboratory of Neuroscience at the National Institute of Aging, hopes that this latest diet trend is more than a fad. It’s called Intermittent Fasting and he claims it can make us healthier and more productive. With extended life spans, comes a […]
March 29, 2016
We’ve known for a long time that some petrochemicals pose not-so-good news for health. We have seen research revealing that some BPA’s (that hide in certain plastics) bind to oestrogen receptor sites and fool the body into thinking it contains more oestrogen than it does. And we have long held notions that cosmetics and perfumes could be hiding some subtle nasties of their own. A new research paper has revealed that a concerning endocrine disruptor hides in something that lives in many a bathroom cabinet. A newly emerging study has revealed that many nail polishes contain a potential endocrine disruptor. […]
March 29, 2016
Few of us haven’t had some sort of encounter with motion sickness. Some suffer aboard boats or carnival rides, while others have had to pull the car over on a drive through sweeping hills so a partner or sibling can ‘have a talk to Mother Nature.’ Motion sickness is a fact of life for many people –one may be tackled with medication. So what exactly is it? Common symptoms include nausea, vomiting, colds sweats and malaise while travelling, but some claim the definition should be a little broader than that. In fact, an article recently published in the Journal of […]
March 24, 2016
Something happened at about the same time as the 1980’s opened for business. Low fat, no fat and skinny food and drink alternatives started lining the shelves in supermarkets. Diet soft drinks reigned supreme, all so the general population could enjoy all the perks of food but without the calories. Promising a reduction in heart disease, real food was quickly being replaced with highly processed chemical storms in convenient packaging. But for all the talk of lowered fat and calories, some things didn’t improve. Obesity statistics got worse. Cholesterol didn’t improve. Heart disease rates didn’t drop. In fact, these problems […]
March 24, 2016
“When you turn on the stress response, and you can’t turn it off, now you are headed for disease,” said chiropractor and author Joe Dispenza in his recent Ted Talk [1]. But Joe wasn’t talking about tangible, real-time stressors. He was talking about the human capacity to turn on the stress response by thought alone. As chiropractors, we are very much acquainted with the sympathetic nervous system that activates during fight or flight. We know that stress has the potential to knock the body out of homeostasis, and that mindset can have an important role in this. But often, changing […]
