Chiropractic and Skepticism Pt. 2

This is the second post in a series of post about Chiropractic and the outcome of the recent libel suit against Simon Singh by the British Chiropractic Association. The first post discussing the formation and some background information about chiropractic can be found here.

When we last left this discussion, it was on the point of saying how often chiropractic clashes with mainstream science and medicine, and how that is bad. Why do they clash so frequently though? Lets investigate the basics of chiropractic and see for ourselves.

Subluxations (misalignment of vertebrae) disrupt the flow of the body’s Innate Intelligence causing illness. Chiropractors realign the vertebrae to fix this disruption.

First, the subluxation.

In medical definitive terms, a subluxation is a partial dislocation of a joint. A luxation therefore, being a full joint dislocation.

Chiropractic subluxation definition:

A lesion or dysfunction in a joint or motion segment in which alignment, movement integrity and/or physiological function are altered, although contact between joint surfaces remains intact. It is essentially a functional entity, which may influence biomechanical and neural integrity.

Chiropractic definition is much wider because, conveniently for them, everyone suffers from subluxations. It’s part of their sales pitch. This sentence appears on thousands and thousands of chiropractic websites.

“Subluxations are so common that they can be considered an epidemic-nearly everyone has them.”

Everyone having subluxations is quite frightening, particularly if we look at medical definition of it.

Now take into account that chiropractors deal with vertebrae and we’ve got a very scary scenario. Are my vertebrae really that damaged or out of alignment? Well, no.

That is why the chiropractic definition is so wide and vague.  Chiropractic subluxations aren’t even detectable on x-ray, even though it is common practice to x-ray a patient. Only a trained chiropractor can diagnose your subluxations.

It is very convenient for them that way. So if they can’t visually see them in an x-ray, how do they diagnose them?

Well it’s hard to say. It seems to be an industry secret. There are pages online describing how the diagnoses happen, but they are very vague and not very informative and mostly deal with chiropractors having a trained touch. Conveniently, everyone has subluxations, and those subluxations are only diagnosable by a select number of people.

What about the Innate Intelligence?

This is where I think things kind of go off the rails completely. Innate Intelligence is the key part of chiropractic theory, as it is what the subluxations supposedly disrupt. When creating chiropractic, Palmer dipped into his knowledge of pseudoscience and metaphysical spiritual beliefs to put together his idea of Innate Intelligence. Chiropractors claim that Innate Intelligence is a kind of life force that is responsible for the organization, maintenance and healing of the body. It is present in all living things and is entirely pseudoscience.

The intelligence we’re talking about is the “knowledge” that every living entity is born with, and which allows it to adapt to the environment in order to survive. If you put a plant on a window sill, in a day or so it will have turned its leaves to face the light. Turn the plant around and in another day or so, it again will have turned its leaves to receive the light it needs to maintain its normal functions. [link]

Ignoring the fact that there is a recognized and understood mechanic for the above described, photoprediodism, chiropractic’s use of this philosophy allows everything that is wrong to be theirs to treat. Such an umbrella term like Innate Intelligence allows every mechanism of the body, discovered otherwise to fit the description. This is why chiropractors claim to be able to treat everything from back pain to attention deficit disorder. This cornerstone of chiropractic beliefs also keeps it far away from the world of science where evolution, and ideas such as homeostasis and germ theory have much more elegant, testable explanations.

A traditional doctor will make a diagnosis and can, and will, treat very specific things related to your injury, disease, infection or what have you. A chiropractor just has to manipulate your spine to fix the subluxation and let the Innate Intelligence flow again.

What about their treatment, their vertebrae adjustments?

Chiropractors adjust the vertebrae to correct the subluxation allowing the Innate Intelligence to flow freely once again. They fix these subluxations using minimal force.

Chiropractors select the technique which will most effectively correct subluxations with a minimum of force. The “art” of adjusting requires skill and training rather than brute strength.

That is rather good, I can’t imagine anyone thinking that putting tons of pressure on one’s spine is ever a good thing. Dr. Stephen Novella of Science Based Medicine agrees.

A study carried out by Edmund Crelin, Ph.D. investigated the amount of force necessary to displace vertebral bones of the spine in order to cause impingement of a spinal nerve. The study was carried out on six corpses within 8 hours after death. His conclusion was that the amount of force necessary to actually displace the vertebra was great enough to break the spine, arguing strongly that chiropractic manipulation cannot significantly affect spinal alignment, and that misaligned spines do not caused pinched nerves (Crelin, 1973).

Well that does not sound good. In essence chiropractors methods and theories are basically wrong scientifically. The amount of force required to cause a spinal subluxation is enormous and dangerous, as is the force to manually adjust said subluxations. That hasn’t stopped them though, and as long as people continue to visit chiropractic offices, or until laws and regulations are passed, nothing will stop them.

Hopefully it is a little more clear now why chiropractic is complete nonsense. I haven’t done a very comprehensive or bullet proof examination, but there is a lot of information out there to read if you’re curious. Websites such as Chirobase and Science Based Medicine have tons of information about chiropractic and the science against it. Next time I will dive into the issue of the British Chiropractic Association vs. Simon Singh which will hopefully be much easier to digest now that we have the neccesary background information.

Until next time,