How chiropractors can assist diabetics during this exploding diabetes epidemic

Why doctors of chiropractic are primed to lead the fight and assist diabetics in the midst of an ever-rising epidemic

Editor’s Note: As this issue went to print, a new study to assist diabetics warned that diabetes is likely to rise significantly in U.S. children and teens by 2060 due to the increasing prevalence of childhood obesity in the U.S., maternal diabetes increasing the risk of diabetes in children, and various other health inequities among the U.S. population. Highlights of the study, published on Dec. 29, 2022 in the American Diabetes Association journal Diabetes Care, is based on data from the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study, which is funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, and included:

• As many as 220,000 individuals under age 20 will suffer from type 2 diabetes by 2060 — a nearly 700% increase
• A total of 526,000 young people may have diabetes — both type 1 and type 2 — by 2060, more than double the number in 2017
• “It’s vital that we focus our efforts to ensure all Americans, especially our young people, are the healthiest they can be,” CDC Acting Principal Deputy Director Debra Houry, MPH, said in a statement. “The COVID-19 pandemic underscored how critically important it is to address chronic diseases, like diabetes.”
• People with diabetes have a higher risk for heart disease or stroke, diabetes complications and earlier death

MOST PEOPLE DON’T BECOME CHIROPRACTORS TO treat back pain, but because they want to help sick people get well. They are not fans of drugs or surgery and believe strongly in the body’s ability to heal itself.

When I became a chiropractor, I found that the vast majority of patients who sought chiropractic care were looking for treatment for back pain, neck pain, sports injuries, etc. That type of care is also what the insurance companies tend to pay for without much argument. So, musculoskeletal care was the initial direction my practice took. But I still really had the purpose of helping sick people get well without drugs or surgery.

Finally, I found my niche working with patients with Parkinson’s disease, and then working with type 2 diabetics.

Treating Parkinson’s

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, while taking neurology seminars with Frederick Carrick, DC, PhD, MS-HPEd, I worked with a medical doctor and tried to carve out a niche treating Parkinson’s disease.

I went to a lecture at a facility that is considered the best Parkinson’s research and treatment center in the country and heard the presenter — who was lecturing to the research scientists and medical clinicians at the center — say there was very little or no hope of ever curing Parkinson’s disease. The lecturer also admitted that the current treatment for Parkinson’s was not very effective.

In this presentation and the one I attended the following month, it was said that Parkinson’s disease resulted from toxic (poisonous) exposures at some time earlier in the patient’s life. As I began working with more and more Parkinson’s patients, I noticed that all of them were on multiple (and sometimes many multiples of) medications. It struck me that all the researchers and medical doctors at the Parkinson’s center agreed that Parkinson’s disease was a toxic condition, and yet they always treated their toxic patients with multiple toxic chemicals (drugs). The patient was suffering from a serious disease which resulted from exposure to poisons (toxins) and their treatment was to have them ingest multiple toxic chemicals. And with this treatment, they hoped to help their patients live longer, better lives.

Let’s see: poisoned patient + poisonous treatment is expected to improve and restore health? Instead, the patients got the outcome their doctors should have expected: They got sicker and sicker and then they died.

Using chiropractic, nutritional and physiotherapeutic protocols, my patients ­— many whose health was on a downward trajectory for quite some time — made remarkable improvement and led much healthier, happier lives. So, I knew that when a disease is caused by poisoning of the patient, further poisoning was not the solution.

Assist diabetics by treating type 2 diabetes

A few years later, a patient I had met at a corporate health fair came to my clinic because he was having back and neck pain. In his initial consultation the man confided that he did not have back and neck pain, but that his real health concern was type 2 diabetes.

He had controlled his diabetes with medication very well for about 15 years, but for the last 1½ years or so, his disease (and therefore his glucose numbers) was out of control. He knew this could lead to dire consequences and he was very worried. I reviewed his treatment protocols and asked the gentleman if he would let him try to help him. The man reminded me that I was a chiropractor. Diabetes was a medical condition. Well, he finally agreed to try my supportive-care program and within one month, his glucose numbers were back to normal with no medication.

I became quite interested to assist diabetics after that and spent some time researching the cause and treatment recommendations for these patients in a number of medical journals. What I found got me very excited about the prospect of being able to solve this disease. I began treating many more type 2 diabetics and they all got better in a relatively short period of time. And, it was pretty easy for them.

The perfect illness for chiropractic care

It became obvious that type 2 diabetes was a perfect illness for chiropractors to help. The research showed that diabetes (both type 1 and type 2) is caused by toxicity. If this really is a toxic condition, treating patients with drugs — which are toxic chemicals — is a big mistake.

The cornerstone for medical protocols for type 2 diabetes treatment is oral hypoglycemics (like Metformin, Glipizide, Actos, etc.) and/or insulin. As you know, all drugs are to some degree toxic. What you may not know is that the insulin patients inject is also toxic. (All insulins have additives, preservatives, etc., that are toxic.)

And, all type 2 diabetics are insulin resistant. The worst thing you can do to an insulin-resistant patient is give them insulin. Insulin also makes patients gain weight, and one of the most widely used insulins has been shown in multiple studies to cause cancer. (In fact, type 2 diabetic patients are at 2-4 times the risk of non-diabetic patients of developing cancer.) Insulin is a growth factor, and when certain cells begin to grow uncontrollably, we call that cancer.

Instead of patients getting well on these medical protocols, you would just expect them to get sicker and sicker the longer that they remained on their treatment programs. And guess what? That’s exactly what happens with these type 2 diabetic patients. They lose limbs, they go blind, they have kidney failure, all while following their doctor’s orders and spending many times more money on health care than their non-diabetic counterparts.

A better treatment

These patients deserve a better treatment to assist diabetics if there is one. And there is.

Chiropractors are the best doctors there are for patient education. Chiropractors usually spend a significant amount of time educating their patients on lifestyle, nutrition, etc. The definition of diabetes says it is a low-oxygen condition. I use supplemental oxygen in my clinic as part of treatment programs with many patients.

What you may not know is that thoracic adjustments are also well-known to increase rib excursion during respiration and increase the amount of oxygen these patients take in without any extra effort on their part. Aerobic exercise is also a big help. These treatments are well within a chiropractor’s scope of practice.

Type 2 diabetes is also defined as a metabolic problem. Metabolism is the process by which your body turns food into energy. This happens as a result of digestion, transport, assimilation, utilization and elimination. There are no better doctors to address nutrition and digestion than chiropractors.

When I was in chiropractic college I was always interested in the philosophy of chiropractic. I read some of B.J. Palmer’s green books and loved what he had to say. The first book I read cover-to-cover was The Bigness of the Fellow Within. In it, B.J. told the story of how a man told him the reason he was having trouble in life was that B.J. had forgotten the “bigness of the fellow within.”

Chiropractors fall into this trap from time to time. Knowing what we now know about type 2 diabetes, I hope this will be a reminder to you of “the bigness of the fellow within” you to assist diabetics. Chiropractors are the best doctors there are for almost 30 million type 2 diabetics.

RICHARD F. GRINGERI, DC, known as “The Human Engine Doctor,” is a digestive specialist and board-eligible chiropractic neurologist. He heads The Human Engine Clinic in San Jose, Calif., working with people from all walks of life to help them achieve their health goals. His new book, “The Ultimate Type 2 Diabetes Solution,” is available on Amazon or by calling his office at 408-984-7444. For more info, go to humanengineclinic.com.